The Entire Reno 911! Timeline Explained
This content was paid for by Quibi and created by Looper.
Just when you thought TV reboot fever might have spared the officers of the Reno Sheriff's Department, innovative streaming platform Quibi delivered a seventh season of Reno 911! over a decade after the show originally went off the air. It was a welcome return for fans of the most incompetent fictional police department in America, especially considering all the main cast members returned.
However, astute viewers will have some questions about how the new season jives with the timeline of the series. For instance, remember when nearly half of the original cast was killed off in an explosion? Does that mean the new season is a case of a Community-style multiple timelines scenario? If so, is Deputy Wiegel (Kerri Kenney-Silver) still the widow of a serial killer?
They're all good questions. Thankfully, when you look at the timeline laid out across the show's seven seasons, the movie, and tie-in content, everything actually makes sense... sort of. We did just that, looking at the history of Reno 911! chronologically based on everything we know from the franchise.
The Reno Sheriff's Department in the 1980s
Throughout the run of the series, there have been plenty of references to the backstories of the officers before we started following their careers in 2003. However, it wasn't until season 6 that we got a sustained look at the Reno Sheriff's Department of yesteryear.
In the episode "VHS Transfer Memory Lane," the officers are reviewing footage shot by the department in the late '80s. It reveals that Dangle (Thomas Lennon), Jones (Cedric Yarbrough), Williams (Niecy Nash), Junior (Robert Ben Garant), and Wiegel were all working there at the time. The tapes reveal a few interesting tidbits of information. Dangle is seen wearing a pair of floor-length jeans instead of his usual cutoffs, and it's revealed he had not yet come out of the closet, although he says he "had an inkling." We also get a first-hand look at his marriage to Deb (Rachael Harris), which was referenced earlier in the series, as well as his flirtations with a young Wiegel.
The footage of Wiegel in the '80s reveals that she hasn't always been the peculiar woman we know today. Instead of painfully out-of-sync with reality most of the time, '80s Wiegel was fun and vivacious. That all changed during a fateful call that turned out to have pretty serious ramifications for multiple people in the department.
During a raid on a drug house, multiple deputies are injured in the ensuing shootout and explosions. Dangle catches fire, which burns off the bottom of his jeans, giving him the idea to begin wearing cutoffs. Meanwhile, Wiegel is seriously injured and is even declared dead for 14 minutes. The deputies later attest that she was never the same.
The officers tackle the 2000s on Reno 911! and in Reno 911!: Miami
The next in-depth look we get at the department begins in the early 2000s, when a camera crew begins following the officers as part of a documentary. In the real world, we know this as the first season of Reno 911!
Along with the officers who were with the department in the '80s, we also meet Deputies Johnson (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui). The '00s were a rocky period for the Reno Sheriff's Department. Some highlights include all the officers getting fired and imprisoned following the wrongful death of a fast-food mascot that the deputies enjoyed hassling, Deputy Kimball (Mary Birdsong) joining the team, and Deputy Wiegel marrying the Truckee River Killer, a.k.a. Craig (Kyle Dunnigan), right before he's executed.
This time period also includes the events captured in the feature film Reno 911!: Miami. During a trip to the sunshine state for the American Police Convention, the Reno officers are forced to take over policing duties in Miami when the majority of the police force gets quarantined in the convention hotel after a terrorist attack. Despite some mishaps, the officers end up uncovering and stopping a conspiracy between the Assistant Deputy Mayor of Miami (Patton Oswalt) and a powerful drug lord. They return to Reno as heroes.
The end of season 5 brings tragedy to the department when Deputies Johnson, Garcia, and Kimball are presumed dead after their parade float crashes into the restaurant Tacos! Tacos! Tacos! Tacos! and explodes. Following the loss of those officers, the show added Seargent Declan (Ian Roberts) and Deputy Rizzo (Joe Lo Truglio) to fill out the ranks. They remained on the show through the series' sixth and final season on Comedy Central.
Quibi's season 7 of Reno 911! brings the team to the 2020s
In 2014, during an appearance by some of the cast (in character) on the game show @midnight, it was revealed that Garcia isn't dead after all, and has merely transferred to Carson City. That may seem like a non-canon throwaway bit, but when the show returned for season 7, Garcia and the other previously deceased officers returned without further explanation.
In 2020, we find that the officers are all still working for the Reno Sheriff's Department. While not much has changed for them personally, we do see them struggling to deal with the changing political climate around policing.
The department is also briefly in hot water when they are hired to guard a decoy of Senator Bernie Sanders (Eddie Pepitone) while the actual politician is in Reno for a rally. The decoy dies in their custody, causing the country to think the actual Senator has died. On the personal front, Wiegel has a spiritual reunion with the ghost of her deceased husband, the Truckee River Killer, while she's collecting evidence at one of his long-forgotten crime scenes.
That brings us up to the present. Here's hoping there will be many more misadventures to come.