Ronda Rousey is coming in swinging. The WWE star will make her first appearance on the Monday, September 30, episode of 9-1-1, as Lena Bosko, a member of LAFD’s Station 136 who gets caught up in a massive tsunami — along with the rest of Los Angeles.
“She kind of introduces Eddie a new outlet and really connects with him on a level where no other cast member had been able to do,” star Ryan Guzman, who plays single father and firefighter Eddie Diaz, tells Us Weekly exclusively. “Lena is caught in the wrong circumstances at their first meeting throughout the tsunami. Through that point on, we kind of figure out, she’s sticking around. She’s created this little connection with Eddie and she’s helping him out more than she actually realizes and Eddie’s getting help more than he actually wants.”
This season will also include Eddie trying to move forward after “dealing with all the heartache” at the end of season 2.
“I think the biggest challenge for him is to keep his head above water. In the second season, Eddie was just this knight in shining armor, prince kind of guy where nothing seemed to fluster him. Everything was kinda taken in stride,” Guzman, 32, tells Us. “This season we’re seeing the cracks in the armor. We get to see a little bit more in-depth of what Eddie is really going through in his head and how he’s handling it all. This guy is just as human as everybody else.”
However, the next few episodes will focus on the tsunami, which included a giant production from Fox.
“We flew to Mexico and shot in the same tanks they used for Titanic, just to show you the scale,” the Boy Next Door star recalls. “We pretty much had to sink half of L.A. — or our version of L.A. — in these big tanks. Working in water conditions is always pretty frustrating too because you’re trying to save people and they’re slipping out of your hands and you’re not looking too graceful!”
He also sheds light on Rousey’s on-set injury, in which she documented on Instagram after the fact. “Ronda pretty much chopped half her finger off,” he says. “She’s a true badass in every way she can be. Literally, she was in the middle of a take and she didn’t want to ruin the take, so she kept on going and then after the end, she was like, ‘Guys, I think something’s wrong with my finger.’ Cut to, we actually see that her finger has pretty much fallen off.”
9-1-1 airs on Fox at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Kayley Stumpe
