The Big Picture Viewers who tuned in to the Season 7 premiere of 9-1-1 on ABC were treated to a lot of callbacks to real life events, from snippets of movies, to emergencies pulled from headlines, and of course the subtle revisiting of the infamous Angela Bassett Oscar loss. 9-1-1's showrunner Tim Minear confirmed to TV Line that it was true the line Athena says to her therapist was meant to be a funny dig of the situation and when he ran it through Bassett, she was excited.
Angela Basset vs The Oscars Close In a conversation with Oprah Winfrey via Variety a week before this episode aired, Basett addressed the event and admitted she was disappointed but was proud of how she handled the situation. “I was gobsmacked! I was,” said Bassett. “I thought I handled it very well. That was my intention, to handle it very well. It was, of course, a supreme disappointment, and disappointment is human. So I thought, yes, I was disappointed, and I handled it like a human being.
The 3-episode emergency arc continues on 9-1-1, airing on Thursdays at 8 PM ET on ABC. Past seasons and new episodes are available to stream on Hulu.