Peter Krause on Telling Wendell’s Story & Bobby ‘In the Thick’ of Action Near End of Season 6

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1 Season 6 Episode 12 “Recovery.”]

Bobby (Peter Krause) continues to work to bring down the rehab facility he knows — but can’t yet prove — is responsible for his sponsor Wendell’s (Maurice J. Irvin) death in the latest 9-1-1.

And his, Athena (Angela Bassett), and May’s (Corinne Massiah) investigation, with help from Tamara, one of the patients at the facility, is a success by episode’s end. Wendell overdosed and died because he was caught hiding cameras in the owners’ office; he took the needle so Tamara wouldn’t have to. The owners then tried to frame Bobby for arson, but failed.

Krause breaks down the episode and teases what’s ahead.

We’d heard about Bobby and Wendell’s relationship more than we’d seen it until this episode. How much had you known before getting the script?

Peter Krause: I knew a few things. I didn’t see it completely fleshed out, but I knew that in this episode — because before Wendell was introduced to the audience without much backstory — we fill in the holes, which is nice. So you understand how important Wendell was or is in Bobby’s lives.

I love that the episode is bookended with that flashback to Season 1, then seeing Bobby in the meeting meeting Wendell and Bobby then hopefully becoming what Wendell was to him to others. What makes Bobby feel ready to step into those shoes as a sponsor at this point?

I think that Bobby has sponsored people. I just don’t think that that’s something that we’ve seen. But I think that the bookend of him reaching out to somebody in the same space that Wendell reached out to Bobby is showing that he wants to carry on the tradition of supporting others so that they may continue to move their lives forward the way that Wendell and other people have helped Bobby move his life forward.

This episode didn’t have any calls for the 126 or any scenes at the station, but there was a fire, albeit a different kind of one, for Bobby. Was filming that any different for you other than the lack of gear?

The lack of gear did play into it. We had to wear burn gel on our skin and things like that because obviously I was not protected with fire gear and it is at times a dangerous show and we did do some fire stunts in that episode. So that was different in terms of playing Bobby.

Jack Zeman/ FOX

He’s not Captain Nash in this episode. He’s just Bobby and it’s a very personal episode for him in terms of what goes on at that rehab institute. And we did have some wonderful actors playing those villainous characters, Chris Johnson and Alicia Coppola. I thought [they] did a really nice job. And Maurice as Wendell is fantastic, and that’s something that I want to shine a light on. 9-1-1 does have a terrific guest cast. It has since the first season, and the guest actors who come on 9-1-1, there have been some terrific performances which had been delivered over these seasons.

There weren’t that many scenes with Bobby and Wendell, but we definitely got a full picture of their relationship just in what we got because of your performances.

Yeah, it was really nice. And Maurice was terrific to work with. I thought they did a nice job showing how he positively influenced Bobby’s life, certainly in terms of his relationship with Athena, and also just in terms of getting better at letting go on a daily basis of the guilt and the pain that he feels from his past.

And Athena has that line about how Wendell meant something to the entire family — not just to Bobby — because of what he meant to Bobby.

Absolutely. It shows how we all impact each other’s lives. Sometimes we don’t even know how we impact each other’s lives.

We got that nice moment of Bobby telling Wendell about Athena in flashback, how he found someone to keep him from spinning out of control and a piece of himself again, which we see with this investigation and also when Bobby was in hospital for Buck. I liked hearing about the earlier days of their relationship because I liked how they got together.

Yeah, it’s fun. There are some light touches in the episode, but I do enjoy the action-packed nature of this episode.

Bobby, Athena, and May really worked this investigation as a family. How much did Bobby need that? How do you think things could have gone if he’d tried to do this alone?

I don’t know, but I certainly enjoy all the episodes where it’s a sleuthing family, a crime-solving, crime-fighting family. This isn’t the Marvel universe, but these are everyday superheroes, and I love it when they involve the whole family doing different things. I love May going undercover at the rehab institute earlier to get information.

How was it getting back into the mindset of 2018 Bobby? Those flashbacks, both the Season 1 scene and the meetings with Wendell, really helped show how far Bobby has come.

Yeah. I really enjoyed touching upon that to show how positive an impact both the fire team family and then Athena and her family have had on Bobby and that people need people and that Bobby would really be lost if he was alone. I think that that’s part of it. It really highlighted the importance of all those relationships to his health.

Jack Zeman/ FOX

What was your favorite scene to film? Because you had quite a few emotional ones.

I enjoyed the AA scenes, but like I said, I really enjoyed the action scenes and so the scenes at the rehab center I thought were really dynamic and really exciting. And certainly the scene where Bobby is saving Tamara [Diana Lu]. I thought that those scenes were really effective inside the rehab center and when Bobby goes to the rehab center to confront them and search for Tamara.

Speaking of Tamara, I really liked when Bobby went to the flower shop at the end.

Yeah, and I like that he asked her how it’s going, sobriety issues and otherwise. It’s nice to see Bobby wanting to be there for others the way that others have been there for him.

And they’re realistic about the addiction. It’s not just that like, oh, great, now she’s fine because she’s away from that rehab facility that’s been shut down.

No, we live with it every day. And Bobby does too. I think, again, the support that he gets from his firehouse family and also his family with Athena, that’s what keeps Bobby moving forward and keeps him from sinking back into guilt and pain.

Talk about playing the Bobby in Buck’s (Oliver Stark) coma dream because that’s really just a version of Buck.

It was really fun to get to shake off Bobby’s more reserved, controlled sense of self and be in this other dimension inside Buck’s dreamscape, inside the near death experience that he had. I thought that was a really nice episode, and I thought that Oliver did a really nice job.

And I like the scene between Buck and Bobby at the end in the hospital.

Yeah. It was a nice departure from what we usually do. Every now and then, we’ll do one of those episodes, which is with a slightly different one than what we usually serve up.

[“Recovery”] was a different episode as well. And it’s nice that we have that freedom on 9-1-1 to shake things up a little bit. In the beginning, we did some of the origin stories and we met some characters from the 118 prior to Bobby becoming captain. And so there’s a larger landscape that we get to cover on this show, which I think is really nice.

We saw Buck questioning things as he recovered in this episode and now he’s cleared to return to work. Will Bobby be keeping a close eye on him? Does he think he even needs to? After all Bobby was busy with everything at the rehab facility in this episode.

As we move forward, we will, yeah, for sure.

Anything you can tease?

Not specifically about that, but I can say that there are some fun emergencies coming up in future episodes. There’s another body building competition mishap that we have to deal with, not a massive full body charley horse this time. There’s another emergency in a hair salon, which is fun. And there’s an emergency at a spinning class where everybody’s taking an energy drink that’s done something to all their bodies.

After seeing Bobby in the action in this episode, is Bobby going to be in the middle of the action in any calls coming up?

There will be towards the end. We’re filming the last episodes now, and there are some epic action towards the very end of the season and Bobby’s in the thick of it.

What can you tease about how the season ends?

I don’t know if they’ll succeed, but I can tell you that Athena and Bobby are still going to try and get on that cruise.

They need a vacation!

Yeah. Will they ever get a vacation?

Even if they get on the cruise, there’ll probably be a murder on the cruise for them to solve.

Will they ever have a honeymoon? Yeah, maybe there’ll be a crime to solve on the ship. It’ll be like Agatha Christie or something.

But because of who they are, they won’t be able to ignore it.

Absolutely.

9-1-1, Mondays, 8/7c, Fox