SPOILER ALERT: This post contains details of 9-1-1: Nashville Season 1, Episode 1, which aired on Thursday, October 9, on ABC.
It’s not 9-1-1 if something catastrophic isn’t happening. 9-1-1: Nashville opens with a concert starring Kane Brown.
A tornado hits Nashville during Kane’s performance, and the strong winds hit the stage, causing it to collapse.
The teaser to the catastrophe takes a step back as viewers are transported two nights earlier to a rodeo featuring Captain Don Hart (Chris O’Donnell) and his son Ryan (Michael Provost).
Viewers are introduced to Taylor (Hailey Kilgore), a firefighter and singer, as she is coached by 911 dispatcher Cammie Raleigh (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) over a video call.
Watch on Deadline
Ryan clocks his father after seeming too tense, and Don says there is something he has been wanting to tell him for a long time. The pair is interrupted amid news breaking that two storms will be colliding in Nashville in the coming days.
Hunter McVey’s first appearance as Blue Bennings is of him dancing at a bar where he gives a woman in a wheelchair a lap dance after he noticed another woman was bullying her. Blue gets reprimanded for doing so, as he can’t do that within the Nashville city limits, as it’s against the law.
As Blue was in an alley, he witnessed an emergency involving a bachelorette party on a party bike that crashed into traffic on Broadway. Dressed as a firefighter, Blue comes to their rescue and helps the bachelorette stop a hemorrhage on her leg. The first responders arrive at the scene, and Captain Don notices Blue, revealing to Ryan that they’re siblings.
RELATED: ‘9-1-1: Nashville’ Cast: First-Look Photos Of ABC Spinoff Series
Blue answers a call from Captain Don and tells him he wants to be a firefighter and has already quit his job as a stripper.
“All those times I was on stage, I never felt as seen,” Blue said about why he wanted to become a firefighter.
Ryan gives Blue a hard time, telling him he needs training, and the next session to become a firefighter is in six months. Don reminds him that there’s an exception for extraordinary circumstances, such as finding his long-lost brother. Captain Don pulls rank and overrides Ryan about giving Blue an opportunity.
Ryan talks to his mom about Don’s betrayal, but tells him that she already knew about having to father a child.
Blue contacted his biological father to help him pay for a surgery that his mother, Dixie Bennings (LeAnn Rimes), needs. Dixie reminds Blue that when he initially contacted Don, he treated him like “nothing,” and it was only after the accident that he finally noticed him.
After Blue is introduced to the 113, we finally catch up to the Kane Brown concert, where the stage has blown over and injured concertgoers. The crew comes together to save as many people as possible before the tornado hits the city. Some of the concertgoers were trapped under fixtures that required everyone’s physical strength, and Kane Brown joined the effort to help save more people.
The episode ends with the tornado about to hit the site as the 113 tries to save someone stuck at the top of the stage.
9-1-1: Nashville Season 1 continues Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.