9-1-1s Oliver Stark Talks Lava Rescue, Athena Trapped & More

9-1-1, the emergency is once again one of their own! The volcano emergency continues in9-1-1 Season 10 Episode 2, but the 118 has yet to become privy to the fact that Athena (Angela Bassett) is trapped underground. To be fair, they do have their hands full with streets of lava and people trapped in cars. TV Insider spoke with Oliver Stark about that and more.Warning: Spoilers for9-1-1 Season 10 Episode 2 ahead!

We’re not sure what’s worse for Athena by the end of this episode — the position she’s in as she makes her way through the tunnels, as the ground collapses beneath her feet, and there’s lava to be worried about, or the fact that Matthew Sparks (Zach Tinker), her former probe who was not long for the LAPD when he shot a civilian instead of using his taser.

Meanwhile, the 118 must improvise to free civilians from their cars by having them leap-frog from one to the next when lava spills into the streets. Buck (Stark) swings to safety with a pregnant woman just in time, while Eddie (Ryan Guzman) uses a service dog to locate his owner, who’s having a seizure in his car. At the same time, Hen (Aisha Hinds) and Harry (Elijah M. Cooper) must accept that they won’t be able to save their victim, an internist who knows just how bad her injuries are — especially with limited resources and an ambulance not coming ASAP — after being hit by a lava bomb in her apartment.

Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), by nature of her position (and no one else wanting the job), ends up in charge of pretty much everything, meaning it’s up to her to choose which part of the city to defend (and which to let burn) as the situation worsens.

Disney/Christopher Willard

Below, Oliver Stark takes us inside the second episode of the season and teases what’s ahead as L.A. continues to deal with a volcano.

I have to say that the 118 has done a fantastic job of adapting to a volcano appearing in the middle of LA, considering now they’re dealing with leapfrogging on cars and lava and everything. It shows they’re great firefighters. Talk about that rescue with the 118 having to jump between the cars and Buck rescuing a pregnant woman and then having to swing to safety. How much of that did you do?

Oliver Stark: Every second of it. It was so much fun for the most part. Yeah, look, I’ve always loved the physical aspect of this show, so as soon as we got onto that location and we saw the cars and we knew what the scene was, I was really excited to get into that rescue. And look, there aren’t many times in your life that you’re told that you can clamber across all of these cars and step wherever you want and land as hard as you want on whichever car hood that you do. It was like being in a rage room of cars. I had free rein to go crazy on top of them. It was a tough, intense shoot. All of that stuff is shot at night, but it was also really fun because we went — it was kind of far out of LA, so we all stayed in the hotel for four or five nights while we made all of that stuff and just a nice bonding time.

Only 9-1-1 would do Frogger with lava and you would be like, of course it’s like, of course.

And that’s what I love about the show, that it does lean into that unseriousness, but in a hopefully grounded way and it does push the envelope, but now it just feels suited to that universe.

Yeah, because we see also Buck comforting the pregnant woman amidst all of that, getting her to keep moving. So you also get to see moments like that, which 9-1-1does so well.

Yeah. It’s kind of like you could have that scene and that conversation with her in any number of different situations. It could be that they’re, as they were, avoiding lava, or it could be that the building was collapsing and then he needs her to keep moving. It could be any number of different emergencies where he treats her the way he would treat any other victim and knows the steps to get her through it.

What’s next for the 118 as they continue to deal with this volcano?

So next it starts to look a little bit more inwardly. We know that Athena’s trapped and obviously that’s going to be an issue for the 118. So there’s the kind of bigger scale taking care of Los Angeles, but also it becomes more personal when as ever they realize that one of their own family is at risk.

Yeah, I was going to be like, when is anyone going to notice that she’s missing?

Yeah. It takes a little bit of time, which I think is nice because you let the tension build and the anticipation build for the audience that they know that she’s trapped and nobody else in the story does.

Maddie’s having to make some tough calls because suddenly she’s the one who’s been put in charge of everything. Are we going to get any great Buck and Maddie scenes about that?

No, actually not about that so much. I’m not even sure if Buck is fully aware that she is running everything right now, but we do have plenty of really lovely Buck and Maddie scenes coming up throughout the season.

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