9-1-1 Season 8 Confirms One Character Is Dead For Good (Despite Those Fan Theories)

Contains spoilers for "9-1-1" Season 8, Episode 16 — "Last Alarm"

Though audiences are so devastated that they're inventing multiple fan theories about it, Bobby Nash's (Peter Krause) controversial death looks like it's going to stick. Much of "Last Alarm" concentrates on Athena (Angela Bassett) as she works through her grief and outrage over Bobby's choice to sacrifice himself and save Chimney (Kenneth Choi), after both of them were exposed to a genetically mutated Ebola-like virus in a lab fire. 

Athena keeps seeing visions of Bobby everywhere while she investigates a possible kidnapping case related to a fire that he fought eight years before. It's a tragic situation that deepens with every new piece of information — when the audience learns that the child involved is definitely dead and was not kidnapped at all, it's enough to bring a tear to one's eye. It also causes Athena to deliver a bromide that might as well have come straight from the writer to the viewers. "For a moment, you let yourself believe that miracles were possible," she says.

Ouch, as Bobby himself says in the episode. With all of this in mind, Bobby's passing is definitely in the running for the saddest death on "9-1-1" ever. But while fans witness his full funeral and a full memorial parade down the streets of Los Angeles in "Last Alarm" — and even the placement of his casket in the graveyard where his first family already rests — some of them are still keeping the faith regarding his survival. 

There are plenty of different ways fans think "9-1-1" might bring Bobby back.  The most popular theory is bolstered by a so-called script leak released on April 1 via the social media of both Oliver Stark and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It contains a page of a script that includes a 9-1-1 call between Maddie (Hewitt) and Bobby, where he says he's being buried alive. 

While Tim Miner is on the record that he has no idea where the leak could have possibly come from, it did presage the notion of Bobby being presumed dead weeks before he dies onscreen. Other theories include the notion that Bobby's death might be a coma-induced dream — either Chimney's or Bobby's. Or that the government has intervened due to the nature of the virus, and the fact that Bobby has a super-rare blood type. Since "9-1-1" is the kind of show where killer bee attacks reign and ghosts exist, it would be easy enough to resurrect Bobby Nash and bring him back to life in a way that's relatively realistic for this series.

No matter what the series does now, though, they have to cope with the wrath of their fans. "I don't know using the whole grief episode to tell us that we're f****** crazy for thinking that he could be alive instead of actually grieving in show ... is actually f****** insane," remarked u/oOWalkingOnAirOo on the "9-1-1" subreddit. For the moment, Bobby Nash has left the building — but if fans stay this angry, who knows what could happen?