9-1-1 Season 10 Premiere Reveals Bucks Problems With Theo & Volcano Precursors

9-1-1 kicks off its 10th season just the way it usually does these multi-episode opening emergencies: by building to the volcano while catching us up on what’s been going on with our favorite first responders since we last saw them. And it’s wild. It’s beyond wild. It’s fun. It’s essentially9-1-1.Warning: Spoilers for the9-1-1 Season 10 premiere ahead!

First of all, fostering Theo (Lincoln and Theodore Sykes) is going about how you’d expect for Buck (Oliver Stark), who’s been in the hospital multiple times with non-work-related injuries in recent months. The latest is a broken nose, when Theo kicked him after being inspired by Nacho Libre (why would Buck show him that movie?). Eddie (Ryan Guzman) finds out when he calls Buck’s phone and Theo answers, having been playing on it.

But then Buck and Theo go to Eddie’s for dinner with him and Chris (Gavin McHugh), and that’s when things really take a turn. While the other three actually sit down to eat, Theo runs around playing — and then kicks a ball into Chris’ crutch, causing him to fall. Fortunately, Chris is OK, and Theo does apologize, but Eddie agrees with Buck that it’s time for them to go after that. Theo’s adorable, but something clearly needs to be done.

Disney/Christopher Willard

Meanwhile, May (Corinne Massiah) is thrown into the deep end with nursing, while Athena (Angela Bassett) is essentially working “paw patrol” — she found a missing dog — as she gets started as a detective. Her daughter reminds her who she is, even as Athena worries she only got the promotion because she was shot, and then someone drops off a badly burned man right outside the hospital in front of them. Athena talks her way onto that case, and even after she seems to wrap it all up — there was a construction accident — she can’t let it go, specifically looking into a diamond ring the victim had on him. At the jewelry store it came from, she finds the vault empty and climbs down into the hall in its floor, so she’s underground wheneverything goes wrong.

Speaking of, everything else is tied directly into the volcano, or rather the not-yet-volcano. It all begins with a sinkhole, where all the people we meet in the opening montage — a family on a tour bus (the father’s planning to move there), a student driver (Blue Bloods‘ Gregory Jbara), a man in a self-driving car (who just manages to escape), and a woman going over lines for an audition — converge. The rescue itself is a cool sequence, just like you expect from9-1-1, as the 118 must free the trapped father whose daughter refuses to leave his side, stop the pacemaker continuously defibrillating the driver, and free the woman whose car is submerged underwater.

But that’s just the beginning. The 118 responds to a call at the aquarium when the water (the main supply of which is underground) appears to be turning into acid. Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), off a postmortem meeting with the heads of various agencies and departments across the city, is tasked with doing an audit when she notes that there was a 20% uptick of calls in the area around the sinkhole. She notes a lot of “weird” ones — insomnia, headaches, someone convinced an apartment is haunted, dead foliage, 11 runaway dogs etc. — and calls Ty, from the office of emergency management, about it. It’s late, so he thinks she’s drunk. But the next day, he calls her and wants all the details because something is very, very wrong. The sinkhole is “screaming.”

The 118 arrives on scene to help with the mandatory evacuation, while Athena leaves the jewelry store owner with Detective Newell’s (Rick Otto) number to call if she doesn’t return in 10 minutes. She finds the source of the steam that caused the victim’s burns, along with a bag of tools. Above ground, the 118 notices that the ground is getting hotter, then it begins shaking. The ceiling collapses in Athena’s path, trapping her, and steam shoots out of the hole in the vault’s floor, right over the store owner…

Then the shaking stops, which should be a good sign, right? “Honestly, I don’t know,” says Dan, from the USGS (United States Geological Survey), who should know.

That’s when the volcano arrives, with lava erupting onto the street and, as the 118 takes cover under the rig, heading right for Ty…

So, what did you think of the premiere and the introduction of the volcano? Let us know in the comments section below.

9-1-1, Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC