9-1-1 – Defend in Place Review/Recap
9-1-1 – Defend in Place – this is episode 8 of season 5. Defend in Place aired Monday, November 15th. This episode is a whirlwind of emotions. This is Rockmond Dunbar, who plays Michael Grant, last episode.
Warning: This article contains spoilers from Monday night’s episode Defend in Place. Read at your own risk!
The episode picks up to Michael Grant (Rockmond Dunbar) and Dr. David Hale (La Monde Byrd) talking about events that are happening to the people of Haiti, where David informs Michael that he is leaving soon to help the people of Haiti for a month or two. The scene moves to the Grant family, all having a family bonding moment; it’s now that Michael informs the family that David is leaving in a week and that he going to propose to David. Michael gets the entire family into helping him plan his proposal. As Michael pulls up to the hospital to do his proposal, there is an explosion from the hospital.
One Hour Before
It seems as if it’s your typical night at a hospital; a kid walking into a cleaning cart and knocked a chemical causing it to spill. A nurse was putting away oxygen bottles when she slipped on the puddle from the spill, not realizing the oxygen tank was a little damaged. As she was closing the closet door, the keys got caught on the metal plate of the door jam, creating a spark; all of this created the explosion.
The Explosion
All units are called into the scene; it’s a multi-storey fire that’s on seven floors and spreading. The hospital is being evacuated; as units are at the scene the dispatch center is busing finding a hospital to take in all the patients from the explosion. While all this is happening; David is in the middle of brain surgery and not currently worried about the fire as it’s on the other side of the hospital.
The 118 is on the scene and their first task is to get the babies out of the nursery as the fire is the closest to the nursery. Buck (Oliver Stark) is in the room keeping an eye on the progression of the fire to make sure it’s safe to get the babies out and down the first truck ladder as the 118 are passing babies down the fire truck ladder. An ER patient tells Bobby (Peter Krause) that a baby isn’t in the nursery because his newborn daughter was with his son Parker (Lucian Perez) when the explosion took place. Parker being the smart boy that he is and called 911 and told them everything, including the room number he was in.
Threat of the Fire
The fire has breached the fire door and now threatening David’s surgery, but he is refusing to leave his patient. Parker is in danger as smoke threatens his baby sister; 911 dispatch is helping Parker when the phone goes out. As Buck and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) arrive on the floor are in serious flames. When they get to the room where the boy said, the room is gone, a fire has consumed it. It is obvious that Claudette (Vanessa Williams) is upset and is asked to take a short break.
As LAFD calls for an emergency evacuation, David is almost done with his surgery when the lights flicker and his patient’s vital signs drop. Paramedics Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Ravi (Anirudh Pisharody) are called to help clear a floor after Rupert (Dorian Harewood) informs them that there is a nurse in need of assistance. As they are about to leave the ceiling above them collapses from the fire. Rupert who helped to find the nurse, pushed Ravi out of the way just as the ceiling collapsed onto him.
Finding Parker
Dispatch Linda Bates (Chiquita Fuller) gets a phone call from Parker, asking if the firefighters are still coming for him and his sister. The boy is still saying that he is in 318, but Eddie thinks that he is in another room and figures that Parker was reading the room number as a reflection, so he was in room 81E, which is on the fifth floor. Eddie and Buck immediately go after Parker and his sister. Which they find them and immediately give them oxygen and evacuate them from the hospital. After the call, Linda informs Claudette that they found Parker and that he was reading the room number backward.
The Last Stand
Michal and Athena (Angela Bassett) inform Bobby that David is still in the hospital doing his surgery, in return Bobby makes it his personal mission to get David out since the surgical floor is now in mandatory evac. When Bobby finds David, he tells David that Michael wants to propose to him. David tells Bobby that he needs 12 minutes to finish; Bobby calls in the units to help keep the fire back on the floor.
As the firefighters are in the building, keeping the fire back; on the outside, everyone has started holding hands in prayer. All the fire doors are blocked and wet towels are on the ground to keep the smoke back. The 118 are doing everything they can to keep the fire back, and in the end, it worked! When Michael and David are reunited, David looks at Michael and says yes to marrying him.
Hen and Ravi check on the nurse they pulled out of the fire and read her a letter that Rupert has written to her. This letter thanked the nurse for having faith in him and for all she has done for him when he had cancer. Ravi later then confides in Hen, that he has spent the majority of his childhood in and out of hospitals; that doctors and nurses become family. So, he understands why the patients did what he did.
Grant Family
As the episode ends, it is revealed that Michael will join David in Haiti to assist with the rebuild. The family congratulated him and David. The episode concludes with some flashbacks of Athena and Michael from over the seasons; morphing into flashbacks of the Grant family with Bobby joining the family. A great way to end an emotional episode.
