Changes were afoot as Station 19 kicked off its final season, and not all of them were good. Andy’s (Jaina Lee Ortiz) first shift as captain of the firehouse she grew up in was a rough one as she found out that Jack (Grey Damon) is no longer fit to be a firefighter.
As if losing her best friend on the job wasn’t enough, Andy also had to deal with a fractured firehouse. Theo (Carlos Miranda) was still sulking that Andy got the promotion over him and things are icy between him and Vic (Barrett Doss) after Theo confessed to hooking up with someone else at the Firemen’s Ball.
Elsewhere, Travis (Jay Montgomery) got into hot water while trying to help Emmett (Lachlan Buchanan) and Kitty (Tricia O’Kelley) process Dixon’s (Pat Healy) death. Namely because that process turned into Travis and Emmett hooking up in Emmett’s childhood bedroom, which we can promise is not going to go over well with Travis’ boyfriend, Eli (Rob Heaps).
To make matters more stressful, Maya (Danielle Savre) and Carina (Stefania Spampimato) decided to adopt the newborn baby whose mother was killed during the floor collapse at the ball. They went from talking about trying again for a baby to having one in the span of a few hours.
Below, Parade talked to Station 19 co-showrunners Zoanne Clack and Peter Paige about the biggest spoilers from the premiere and what fans can expect from the final season of the Shondaland firehouse drama.
Biggest Spoilers From the Station 19 Season 7 Premiere
1. Jack can no longer fight fires
Jack suffered a major concussion early on in Season 6 when he hit his head on the kitchen oven in a freak accident. Brushing off that injury turned out to be a massive mistake. In the Season 6 finale, he smacked his head again when the floor caved in at the Firefighter’s Ball and that time he collapsed.
The Season 7 premiere showed that while Jack survived the injury, he can no longer fight fires. So what does that mean for his career as a first responder? “You’re going to learn more as the episodes progress, but no one has ever pulled out of the fire department,” Paige told Parade. “But there is a time and a place where you can no longer be a first responder.”
The fallout of his injury will also have consequences for Andy. “This is her first time actually being the leader of this team and she’s put up against these obstacles,” Clack told Parade. “This is the beginning of that arc of her being a leader and figuring out how she’s going to do that. Jack is there by her side making her realize that she is destined for this and to stop all the self-doubt.”
2. Vic finds out about Theo’s kiss with Kate—and she doesn’t really seem to care
After getting into a huge fight at the ball in the Season 6 finale, Vic and Theo (kind of) broke up, and Theo wound up kissing another woman. But if you were expecting Vic to flip out over her boyfriend’s infidelity in the Season 7 premiere, you’d have been wrong. On the contrary, she didn’t seem to care much at all, begging the question, What’s really going on here?
“That is a surprising turn of character,” Paige agreed. “I’m very glad that you grabbed that. I also think that warranted some bigger emotions.” Perhaps you’re wondering if the death of her fiancé and best friend simply allows her to put a situation like this into perspective, but Paige implies that that’s not the case.
“She is a very emotional creature,” he said. “So I do think it’s worth noting her rather undersized response to that news.”
3. Travis and Emmett hook up
Was their hookup just a grief response, or are there still feelings between those two? “I will say that Travis is going on a journey,” Paige told Parade. “Travis and Emmett have always had their challenges, but their bodies just work. They’re like magnets and there is a pull.”
It’s also possible that Travis is feeling some guilt over Dixon’s death, hence his inclination to comfort Emmett and his mother throughout the Season 7 premiere. “It’s a mixed feeling when you wish harm on someone and then they are harmed, not by your own hand but you have that guilty feeling of ‘Oh, all the times I wanted…’” Clack explained. “There’s a little something that [Travis] wants to make sure Emmett is okay and Travis wants to make it okay.”
4. Maya and Carina jump into parenthood
Maya and Carina have been talking about becoming parents for a while, but this adoption means there is no nine-month runway before they have a baby in their lives. How does it change their relationship?
“It changes a lot and it takes a lot of adjusting,” Paige said. “They both have very high-pressure jobs that they love and a relationship that is very important to them and they fought very hard to protect. They’ve been through a lot together. I think they’ve got a lot on their plates. They are going to have to learn that they have different ideas about what good parenting looks like.”
The fact that Maya only recently came to terms with growing up in an abusive household is likely to come into play. “She is looking back at her own childhood and the way she parents [this child] is related to that,” Clack said. “Do you follow the same thing hoping for a different outcome? Do you change completely?… For me [as a parent] I thought there was one way to parent, and then you figure out you have a different kid than that. I have to parent a different way. And I think that’s their journey.”
