Angela Bassett seemingly used the 9-1-1 season 7 premiere to side-eye her 2023 Oscars loss.
Warning: Spoilers below for the 9-1-1 season 7 premiere.
During the Thursday, March 14, premiere of the ABC series, Bassett, 65, opens the episode attending therapy ahead of her character, Athena Grant, and husband Bobby Nash’s (Peter Krause) cruise ship honeymoon. After expressing her “dread” over spending multiple weeks on a boat, she explains that her trauma stems from a movie she watched with her parents as a little girl.
The film was titled The Poseidon Adventure, a 1972 flick that followed a group of passengers who must embark on a harrowing struggle for survival after a rogue wave capsizes their cruise ship at sea. It was a clip that saw the boat capsizing, along with a man falling through a glass ceiling, however, that stuck with Athena the most.
When the therapist rolls his eyes at the source of her fear, Athena notes that the movie was a major motion picture starring Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters, who was even nominated for best supporting actress at the 1972 Oscars.
“Did she win?” the therapist asks Athena, who takes a long, labored beat and frowns before replying, “No. She did not.”
The statue that year went to Eileen Heckart instead of Winters, but Bassett herself faced her own Oscars loss at the 95th Academy Awards last year. She was up for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but ultimately lost to Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Shortly after the ceremony, Bassett’s facial reaction to the loss went viral online, with many claiming she looked disappointed. Bassett, however, felt she handled the situation appropriately.
“I thought I handled it very well, also. And that was my intention, to handle it very well,” she said during an interview earlier this month. “It was, of course, a supreme disappointment, and disappointment is human. So I thought, yes, I was disappointed, and I handled it like a human being.”
She continued, “There are going to be these moments of disappointment that they’re going to experience, but how do you handle yourself in the midst of them? So, we’re going to smile, we’re going to be gracious, we’re going to be kind, we’re going to party, anyway.”
In January, she was later given an honorary Academy Award at the Governor Awards. While opening up about the award season rollercoaster during a March episode of Live! With Kelly and Mark, Bassett confessed that her children were as upset by her Oscars loss as she was. (Basset shares 18-year-old twins Slater and Bronwyn with husband Courtney B. Vance.)
“They were with me the night of the Oscars and it didn’t happen,” she explained. “So they were supremely disappointed, as young people can be. But it was a teachable moment just to, you know, to carry yourself, hold yourself, go to the parties with grace. And know that, just keep one foot in front of the other, keep going, keep following your dreams. Because 24 hours, what a difference a day makes.”
While the Oscar reference on Monday’s episode was likely a light-hearted meta quip to Bassett’s illustrious and ongoing film career — she’s now a two-time Oscars nominee. Her focus is currently on the small screen with 9-1-1’s season 7 return; it’s first on ABC after being canceled by Fox.
The three-part premiere is likely to bring tons of drama, but the first installment focused more on the show’s humor and relationships as viewers get reacquainted with the characters. The episode sees Athena and Bobby at their lightest, finding a new rhythm to their romance as they take a break from the “chaos” of being first responders and sail the open seas.
Elsewhere in the episode, Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) team up to help Eddie’s son, Christopher (Gavin McHugh), learn the ins and outs of dating, Buck reveals his new single status (goodbye, death doula!) and Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi) try to keep the romance alive in their relationship. Disaster, however, is inevitably on the horizon — and required a rotating set called a roll room to make it come to life.
Showrunner Tim Minear opened up to Entertainment Weekly earlier this month about what audiences can expect from the trouble on the high seas, which will lead into the show’s 100th episode.
“Obviously, [Bobby and Athena] are on a honeymoon, but it’s not like everything is smooth in their interior lives. There are conflicts that maybe they haven’t expressed to one another,” he told the outlet, referencing Athena’s worry that the couple won’t have anything to talk about when life slows down. “By the time you get to the middle of episode 2, it’s Titanic. It’s an epic love story between these two people who are meant to be together, who are facing possible death.”
New episodes of 9-1-1 season 7 air on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET.
