SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for the series premiere of “9-1-1: Nashville.”
Ryan Murphy’s “9-1-1” franchise set out to fill the “Lone Star”-shaped hole in fans’ hearts with the Oct. 9 debut of new spinoff “9-1-1: Nashville.”
While similar to Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” with its cowboy aesthetic, ABC’s “Nashville” has an all new cast — Chris O’Donnell, Jessica Capshaw, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, LeAnn Rimes, Hailey Kilgore, Michael Provost, Juani Feliz and Hunter McVey — a new city and new drama in its first responder’s personal lives, in the form of long-lost sons, scheming exes and jealous brothers.
Related Stories
The show returns Oct. 16 with its second episode, which will pick up immediately where the series premiere left off, with a multi-episode tornado and stadium-collapse disaster arc. Yes, the “9-1-1” franchise has seen a twister before, but showrunner Rashad Raisani (who was also the head writer and producer on “Lone Star”) assures fans that “Nashville” will distinguish itself from its L.A.-based parent series “9-1-1” (led by series creator and showrunner Tim Minear) as well as “Lone Star.” But its first crossover episode with lead-in “9-1-1” is in the second episode of “Nashville.”
Popular on Variety
“There is going to be a small one coming up right away that is more on the ‘9-1-1’ hour,” Raisani teased to Variety ahead of Episode 2, adding: “We are planning and trying to figure out a way to get this crossover going. Whether it’ll be late in Season 1 or early Season 2, it’s in the works for sure.”
As for whether or not Raisani is planning to bring back any fan-favorite “Lone Star” characters on “Nashville,” he says he would “love it,” but “it’s going to depend on story, and it’s going to depend on actors’ availability.”
“We definitely would love to bring them in, and I think we’re going to balance that with wanting to let our characters from ‘Nashville’ find their footing with the audience, and shine. And then once that’s really up and running, then we can start integrating some of these other characters.”
Raisani noted that “Lone Star” lead Rob Lowe’s character Owen ended in up New York at the end of the Fox series, “so that’s not too far away” — plus, Lowe’s real-life brother, Chad Lowe, is a producer on the “Nashville” set, “so there’s always possibilities.”
See below for more from Variety’s “9-1-1: Nashville” debut chat with Raisani.
“9-1-1: Nashville” breaks a precedent set by “9-1-1: Lone Star,” which could have been “9-1-1: Austin.” Did you consider “9-1-1: Music City,” to be more in keeping with the previous choice?
We actually did explore a few different titles. And as we got to know the city of Nashville, and in talking with them, too — and to be honest, I think there may have been some marketing people — I think that “Nashville” just said it. And there was a little bit of vagueness about Music City, that people would think it was a musical or music-based. And also, we wanted to not just say that Nashville is only about music. There’s other things that are really cool and dynamic about it. And so I think at the end of the day, we just thought, OK, let’s just say “Nashville,” because then it’s a little bit more all encompassing than maybe naming one aspect of the city.
Where did the long-lost son storyline between Don (Chris O’Donnell), his son Ryan (Michael Provost), and his estranged son Blue (Hunter McVey), come from as the central conflict of the show?
Ryan Murphy had that original inspiration. He just really wanted to tell a story about a father and a son, and the son felt like he always had the perfect family, and then it gets disrupted in the biggest way. That was Ryan’s original inspiration for how to approach this whole series, and then we just kind of went with it. And for me, I’ve always been obsessed with the prodigal son story in the Bible, and I’m an older brother. I’ve always identify with a brother who feels like, “Hey, what the hell? I did all this work, and now I’m getting kicked to the curb.” So it’s always been a really powerful story for me, and when he pitched it, I was able to connect with it right away.
How did LeAnn Rimes get involved in the show to play Dixie, Blue’s mother — and the ex-girlfriend of Don, who is married to Blythe (Jessica Capshaw)?
She got involved the old-fashioned way. That part was just written as Dixie, and she auditioned. And I’ll never forget, we got a call from casting right after she auditioned to say, “We just saw lightning in a bottle.” And when I watched that audition, it was so electric, it was so incredible. Because obviously, I’ve known who LeAnn Rimes is for many years, but I thought she was unrecognizable as Dixie. It was just one of those things where even before she spoke, she had the cigarette in her hand, and the way she held it, I was like, “Oh, well, that’s it. That’s her.” And so she truly just gave the audition of all time. For me, it was just amazing.
I need to know if the character name for Dixie’s son, Blue, came before or after LeAnn Rimes — who has a famous song titled “Blue” — was cast.
That is just kismet. Ryan Murphy, another great line of his was, “And I think the son should be named Blue, because I think America is ready for a kid named Blue.” And so that was before we knew LeAnn was involved. And then I said to her, “Isn’t this bizarre?” It’s just kismet.
How did you decide what the big opening emergency for “Nashville” would be?
It was a confluence of things. One of them was there’s a real stadium collapse, a terrible story, that this was inspired by. We had been looking at it when we were doing “Lone Star,” specifically, but it didn’t ever make sense for the creative or the logistics that we could pull it off in “Lone Star.” And then as we were looking for, what’s the most sort of iconic way to get into “Nashville”? What’s the most iconic emergency? That collapse was always in my mind, that we could use that. And then our great partners at ABC, they were like, “Let’s get somebody great. Let’s not have it be some fake singer. Let’s get a real singer who can act and can be a character in the show.” And that was how it started to turn into Kane Brown. And then it just felt like, OK, now we really have something exciting, where it can be somebody who’s famous anyway, who has a great song they’ll play, and then they can have a big hand in the resolution of the story.
We only got to see a little bit of Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s character, the 9-1-1- dispatcher Cammie, in the premiere. What can you tease about her?
Her character, we call her the Southern heartbeat of the show. Kimberly is so wonderful as Cammie. She’s got such a sweet, but also wry, funny energy. And I just, I just love all the calls she does. She’s so terrific. And we’re gonna find out that Cammie did not start as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. She came to this very late in life, in the last five years. She was a music producer, and after a terrible tragedy, which we’ll unpack in the show, she switched careers to try and make the world a better place. She has a lot going on beneath the surface.
In the premiere, Don decides to give his long-lost son Blue a job at the fire station alongside himself and his other son, Ryan, citing a cadet program where you can get training in the field. Is that a real program? And how is this going to work in the show, because it feels crazy even for “9-1-1”?
The cadet program is a real program, and it has been. Now, the part where you go, “OK, it’s usually done in, like, extreme emergencies. It’s when it’s the fire of all fires.” So, yeah, Don is technically right, that does exist. But as Ryan’s like, that’s crazy — and then the chief of the fire department in a few episodes is going to be like, That’s crazy. That’s unacceptable — the you-know-what will hit the fan on that. But a big thing that we’re trying to do also is Don’s guilt is making him do things that maybe he shouldn’t necessarily do as a captain at the beginning. That was the impetus for that.
This interview has been edited and condensed.