“9-1-1: Nashville” midseason finale explained: Unpacking the cliffhanger that puts the whole city at risk
- - “9-1-1: Nashville” midseason finale explained: Unpacking the cliffhanger that puts the whole city at risk
Randall ColburnNovember 14, 2025 at 4:00 AM
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Disney/Jake Giles Netter
A firefighter smashes vat of sour mash in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finaleKey Points -
9-1-1: Nashville wrapped the first half of its debut season on Nov. 13.
The midseason finale ended with hackers disrupting emergency services throughout the city.
The 9-1-1 spinoff returns in 2026.
The whiskey flows (literally) in the midseason finale of 9-1-1: Nashville, the ABC action franchise's latest spinoff.
Chris O'Donnell leads the cast as Don Hart, a captain at Nashville's 113 firehouse with a blue-collar background and a wife born into the city's aristocratic class. Don's proximity to the city's upper crust makes the revelation that he has a secret son, Blue (Hunter McVey), that much more complicated, especially after he brings Blue into the firehouse.
The midseason finale is (as you'd expect from a 9-1-1 show) heavy on catastrophes, one of which impacts a distillery owned by Don's father-in-law, Edward Raleigh (Tim Matheson). But this episode, titled "Good Southern Manors," is also tuned in to the country's current era of imposed austerity, with budget cuts and "efficiency experts" driving the plot.
Below, we dig into the midseason finale of 9-1-1: Nashville's first season — and how it sets up the next batch of episodes.
What happened at Edward's distillery?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Bros sipping whiskey at the Raleigh Reserve distillery in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
The episode begins with a tour of Edward's Raleigh Reserve, a well-regarded distillery known for producing the "Louis Vuitton of craft whiskey." After a tour group member gets sloshed and trips a lever that closes a distiller's valves, a fire erupts. This is particularly dangerous, as the distillery's massive vats of sour mash — "Edward's secret sauce," says Don — are extremely flammable.
But the 113 is on track to put the fire out before it spreads to the fermentation room — until the hydrants lose pressure and water slows to a trickle. As they work to reroute water from other lines, Don begins to fret about the fire reaching the vats of sour mash and posits draining them. Edward, who quickly arrives on the scene, begs Don not to.
But Don ignores him, telling his team to crack open the vats and allow the valuable mash to drain. When the water soon returns, however, he cracks that maybe they had time, after all. His decision, it appears, was as motivated by animus as safety.
“If you weren’t my son-in-law, I’d knock your teeth out," Edward seethes.
Regardless, the 113 puts the fire out in short order.
Why do Don and Edward hate each other?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Tim Matheson as Edward, Jessica Capshaw as Blythe, and Chris O'Donnell as Don in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
Don and Edward's mutual disdain for each other is multifaceted. Part of it stems from class resentments, as Don comes from a working-class background and Edward was born into the aristocracy.
But Edward also feels spurned by Ryan, who chose to become a firefighter with his dad instead of joining the Raleigh family business. As Ryan later explains to Blue, Edward was so mad that he cut Ryan out of the family trust.
This bothers Don, too. “I will never make peace with him using his money to try and drive a wedge between you and me," he tells his son.
Speaking of Blue, Edward is also none too happy to learn that Don has a secret son who works in the firehouse despite never going to the academy. But more on that in a moment.
Why does Don need Edward's help?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Tim Matheson as Edward in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
Budget cuts are coming to the 113, just as they are to all of the city's emergency departments. Without intervention, every house will lose five firefighters — and that's on top of salary and equipment freezes.
"We’ve hit a wall; we need someone who can knock down that wall," says Fire Chief Harold Foster (Gregory Alan Williams). That someone, of course, is the very wealthy and very powerful Edward. To save jobs, he has to swallow his pride and make nice.
Blythe (Jessica Capshaw), Don's wife and Edward's daughter, moderates a meeting between them, with Don admitting that "in the heat of battle I let ill will cloud my judgement." Edward accepts this, saying he'll reach out to the mayor and fill the budget gap on one more condition: that Don fire Blue. This devastates Don, who knows that Blue, a.k.a. #HotTarzan, has found joy and purpose at the firehouse.
Does Blue get fired?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Hunter McVey as Blue in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
No. In fact, the enthusiastic (if a bit dim) Blue helps give Don the leverage he needs to get one over on Edward.
Blue's training on the hydrants reminds Don of the hydrant issues he encountered at the distillery. After doing a bit of research, he discovers that Edward has been neglecting flow tests on his properties and illegally stealing water in order to boost production. Don threatens to snitch unless Edward allows Blue to stay at the firehouse (and, of course, still bails them out financially).
Edward acquiesces, but he knows a threat when he hears one, and it doesn't help when Don admits, "it felt damn good to watch you suffer" after he ordered the mash vats drained.
Don may have won this round, but Edward says, "We'll just see who is gonna be suffering in the end."
Later, Blythe scolds Don for "blackmailing" Edward. "When my father goes to war, he goes full scorched earth," she warns.
Does Cammie get fired?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Cammie in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
The firefighters aren't the only emergency workers in danger of losing their jobs. Trouble comes to dispatch when a gang of corporate consultants arrives with plans to make the department more efficient. Cammie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and her coworkers know what this means: layoffs. The lead fixer, played by Anna Wood, is named Kinsey, a not-so-subtle nod to the infamous McKinsey consulting company.
Kinsey immediately targets Cammie, who she says spends upwards of three minutes longer on calls than the national average. She also criticizes her for saying "please" and "thank you" too much. This frustrates Cammie, who says she doesn't know how else to do her job "without kindness."
But efficiency is everything, and the consultants begin timing and listening in on calls, often telling the dispatchers to move faster and be more abrupt.
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Anna Wood and Anna Lore in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
Kinsey's tune begins to change, however, when she sees how her team's strictness begins to impact emergency situations. First, her ticking watch rattles Cammie during a call from a mother whose child is trapped in the washing machine. Later, she continually tells Cammie and the team to hang up a supposed "butt dial" — until she realizes that the caller is choking and can't speak. By defying her, Cammie is able to help the caller perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself, thus saving her life.
Later, Cammie, who said she'd quit if they ever tapped into one of her calls again, is ready to throw in the towel. But Kinsey sees the value in Cammie's approach, which, as Cammie points out, "will never look good on your stat sheet."
In the end, only two people are fired from the department — an overly argumentative dispatcher and the team's supervisor, who we learn was paying himself 20 hours of overtime each week.
How does the 9-1-1: Nashville midseason finale end?
Disney/Jake Giles Netter
Jessica Capshaw as Blythe in the '9-1-1: Nashville' midseason finale
The 9-1-1: Nashville finale ends as it began — with a riverboat being hacked and steered on a collision course with a bridge.
We see the riverboat catastrophe at the beginning of the episode, which then jumps back in time two days. In the final moments, citywide emergency services are getting hacked, all of their screens filling with a skull and crossbones and a demand to pay $10 million or "Nashville gets bloody." A countdown timer set for six hours begins ticking down.
The chaos spreads into the community as well. Blythe, for example, is riding a horse when her phone explodes with false emergency alerts. She's so distracted that the horse kicks her off into a barbed wire fence. The last we see, she's unconscious and bloodied.
The riverboat, meanwhile, continues its drift towards the bridge, which is populated with bystanders (and one really cute corgi).Will it hit the bridge? We'll have to wait until 2026 to find out.
Where can I watch 9-1-1: Nashville?
9-1-1: Nashville airs on ABC and streams on Hulu.
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