SPOILER ALERT: This story incorporates major plot details for Thursday’s midseason finale of ABC’s ”9-1-1: Nashville.”
ABC’s “9-1-1: Nashville” midseason finale, which aired Thursday, revealed the tragic backstory for Kimberly Williams-Paisley‘s 9-1-1 call operator Cammie — and arrange a multi-episode emergency coming when the ABC drama returns in January.
The episode showed Cammie coping with a choking victim over video chat, walking the lady through the best way to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself. After that incident, Cammie revealed how the emergency hit very near home for her: Her husband had died by choking in front of her as she looked on helplessly. On the time, when she tried to call 9-1-1 for help, the decision went to voicemail.
Her husband’s tragic death was what pushed Cammie to provide up her profession as a Nashville music producer to turn into a 9-1-1 dispatch operator, and provides a big donation to the middle. “9-1-1: Nashville” showrunner Rashad Raisani told Variety that Cammie’s backstory was born out of a real-life choking death he witnessed.
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Disney
“The very first thing that inspired that was, director Brad Buecker and I were having dinner in Nashville within the early spring,” Raisani said. “We were still doing location scouting, and while we were there, unfortunately, a lady passed away on the table behind us from a choking incident. It happened in the dead of night, and her poor husband was there, just helpless. We didn’t even realize what was happening until it was already over. It was really mind blowing. While we were talking about Cammie’s character and what would make her unique — I still get goosebumps fascinated by it, that poor family — I just thought, ‘well, that might be such an origin story for a personality who had one life, after which that thing happens, then the second half of her life goes to be something very different.’”
Williams-Paisley said Raisani told her about what he had witnessed the “first time we talked” concerning the role of Cammie. It “definitely adds weight to what I’m doing within the performance” on “9-1-1: Nashville,” she said.
“Because I do know that these items have happened, it’s something I assumed lots about,” Williams-Paisley said. “Working on my character, I actually dug into her backstory, emotionally, and what that will need to have felt like. I did also go visit a 9-1-1 call center. I believe lots about those operators, too, and the way they keep their home life at home once they’re at work. They need to, in an effort to do an excellent job. But inevitably, sometimes your real life comes into your work life, and that’s what happens on this episode tonight — and in the next episodes that will probably be coming in January.”
While Raisani noted this was the “the primary time that we’ve done a deep cut with Cammie,” the episode is “just the tip of the iceberg for her” and her backstory. When the show returns in January, Williams-Paisley said episodes will showcase Cammie’s time working as a big-time music producer in Nashville.
“Yes, in reality, that’s something I’m shooting straight away. Today I’m on set, and yes, we’re definitely going to be exploring that more,” Williams-Paisley said. “That was a giant a part of Cammie’s life before the whole lot modified and she or he lost her husband. Nevertheless it’s still a giant a part of her, and it’s something that she spent years doing before she switched careers. There’s some very fun stuff coming up with that as well.”
The midseason return of “9-1-1: Nashville” can even feature a multi-episode arc that revisits the hackers that famously took over Los Angeles on “9-1-1” just a few seasons ago, and where never caught. Now, they’ve set their sites on Nashville and take over the emergency operating system by the top of the episode.
“‘9-1-1’ had a hack just a few years ago, and what I at all times thought was that we left somewhat little bit of money on the table about what that hack could have became,” Raisani said. “And since they never caught the hackers from ‘9-1-1,’ I assumed, ‘Well, why did they stop? They got lots of money, so possibly they’re able to attack a brand new city.’ They hit the opposite show, they usually never got caught.”
One immediate effect of that chaos was Jessica Capshaw’s Blythe being knocked from her horse and thrown right into a barbed wire fence, then left passed out and bleeding within the wild. The animal was startled because of the natural disaster alerts set off by the hackers, leaving Blythe unconscious and alone.
“Quite a lot of stuff goes to occur in the town in Episode 7, so a part of I believe our dramatic tension goes to be Blythe and that no person even knows she’s missing,” Raisani said. He added that Blythe “has lots of grit and toughness, and I desired to put her through a crucible.”