[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from season eight, episode fifteen of 911, “Lab Rats.”]

911 co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear is afraid the rumors are true: Robert “Bobby” Nash (Peter Krause), the beloved fire captain of the LAFD’s Station 118, has just answered his last call.

“Bobby’s dead,” Minear confirms to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview about the biggest creative swing he has ever taken in his three-decade career. Some viewers will want to believe that Bobby’s death is a fakeout — after all, this is a show known for pulling its main characters back from death’s door time and again — but the steward of the 911 franchise insists that he just killed off his male lead: “The body bag didn’t convince you?”

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“I’ve heard that many fans are upset by this loss and they have a right to be. It is a loss,” Krause said in a statement about his departure from the series (read it in full here). “That said, it was more than a bold creative choice on a bold show. Bobby Nash was written in sacrifice and he was built for this. First responders risk their lives on the job so that others can see another day. His story arc honors them. We at 911 salute all the incredible men and women who do these dangerous jobs and strive to keep us safe. …

“I will miss my beloved and unruly children of the 118. Aisha Hinds, Kenneth Choi, Oliver Stark, Ryan Guzman and Anirudh Pisharody: this is a tough goodbye. Stay unruly, but be professional and get the job done. Misfit heroes need each other. That’s how we do it at our firehouse. Pass it along to the next new guy.”

It’s a seismic shift that will completely shake the foundations of the ABC first-responder drama, which earlier this month was renewed for a ninth season. In eight seasons, 911 had never killed off a member of the main cast — a rarity for a long-running procedural — but Minear admits that the thought had been lingering in the back of his mind for years.

Once he devised his plan for a midseason, two-part thriller, which finds some members of the 118 injured in a lab explosion and trapped with a lethal strain of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Minear knew he needed to pull the (metaphorical) trigger on one of his characters. “Otherwise, the next time I turn over a cruise ship, or land a plane on the freeway, or take a city out with a tsunami, you’re just going to be like, ‘Oh, everyone’s going to be fine,’” he explains. “So it was time for there to be some real tragic fallout from a story.”

Minear fittingly describes Thursday’s episode as a knife in the heart. While attempting to keep three of his team members alive — Chimney (Choi), who had contracted the fatal strain of CCHF; Hen (Hinds), who had to get a makeshift chest tube to prevent her lung from collapsing; and Ravi (Pisharody), who collapsed due to a lack of oxygen — Bobby discovers a hole in the air supply line in his breathing apparatus.

Accepting his own fate, Bobby makes sure the rest of his team is taken care of. When his wife, Sgt. Athena Grant-Nash (Angela Bassett), arrives with the single dose of antiviral that she seized from the mad scientist Moira Blake (Bridget Regan), Bobby chooses to give the medication to Chimney, who quickly recovers. After the rest of his team is extracted from the lab, Bobby, much to the horror of Buck (Stark), locks himself inside the lab and takes off his protective gear. It isn’t until Bobby comes face-to-face with Athena through a glass wall that he reveals he began to feel the effects of the virus hours ago.

“I’m not choosing to leave you. I chose to save my team because it was the right thing to do. It was never because I wanted to go. I don’t want to go. If I could choose, I would stay with you. Always,” Bobby tells Athena through tears. “We don’t have any more time. Mine was always borrowed. L.A. was supposed to be my penance, not my home. Then you said yes to a dinner invitation, and I started to live again.”

Athena stays with Bobby as he takes his last breath while kneeling in a prayer position over a table, and Bassett herself made the decision for Athena to shriek in agony. “It was incredulous to me that it was Bobby, so it was just very surprising,” Bassett tells THR of her reaction to losing her character’s other half. “Sometimes, you’re just struck dumb — and that’s one of those moments, because their bond has been so wonderful and so strong these past four or five years. I didn’t see that coming. None of us saw that coming.”

In his statement, Krause said of Bassett, “I will miss my partner, Angela Bassett. Her strength and her sweetness, and us holding hands. We parted ways too soon. Much love.”

Bassett and Minear, who both serve as executive producers of 911, spoke with THR on Wednesday in separate conversations. Their chats have been edited into the conversation below.

Peter Krause has always talked about how much he enjoyed working on this show, so this storyline came as a real shock to longtime viewers like myself. Tim, given that Peter is the male lead and an executive producer, was it ultimately his decision to leave, or did you decide to write him off? Are there any specific reasons that led to your decision to kill off Bobby at this point in the show’s run?

TIM MINEAR I would say it was our [collective] decision, but it was my decision because I felt like creatively, if the show became too inert, it would just die of inertia, right? So I felt like it just needed to happen. Otherwise, the next time I turn over a cruise ship, or land a plane on the freeway, or take a city out with a tsunami, you’re just going to be like, “Oh, everyone’s going to be fine.” So it was time for there to be some real tragic fallout from a story.

Once I started thinking that somebody had to die, then the choice was, who? And the only choice that I thought made sense was Bobby. It makes sense for his character to have a tragic sacrifice as a conclusion of his entire journey in the show. And also, if there’s a character whose death is going to affect the most characters, who would that be? So, go big or go home.

Bobby’s death gives new life to every single character’s story. It changes everything. It’s not a shock moment. It’s not a superficial thing. It is a potentially game-changing thing. Is it a skinny branch I’m crawling out on? Maybe. But I will never be convinced that it wasn’t the right creative move. So, no, it’s not because Peter wanted to leave. I don’t think he wanted to leave. We’re great friends. He’s fantastic on the show. He’s so good that it made [the decision] a terrifying choice on my part, which is why I felt like, “OK, well, maybe that’s the right choice. Do the scary thing.”

When exactly did you and Peter begin discussing his exit from the series?

MINEAR We had talked about Bobby dying for a while — and I had been thinking about it this year. I’d been thinking about a major character death, let’s put it that way. At one point, it was this character, maybe it was that character, or possibly this character. I had been thinking about it, but I really had been thinking about Bobby because I wanted it to open up an opportunity for stories for all the characters.

[Writer’s note: In the first half of season eight, Bobby served as a firefighting consultant for a fictional show-within-a-show called Hotshots. That fake show’s captain was played by an actor named Brad Torrance, who was, in turn, played by Callum Blue.] If you look at the episode where Brad Torrance is saying that his captain [character] is not going to wake up, and a fan of that show says, “You can’t kill off Brad! You can’t kill off that character. He’s what holds the fire family together.” That was a little hint that that’s maybe where I was going to go this year. But it wasn’t until I was breaking this lab leak story that I realized I’m never going to probably have another opportunity for the kind of epic death that I think this story could give me. And then it just felt like it’s time to jump out of the plane.

What was the rest of the cast’s reaction to Bobby’s death? Did you and Peter break the news together, or did you do it on your own?

MINEAR They were shocked. Peter and I had been talking about it for probably three weeks to a month before I let anyone else know. I had to clear it with the network and the studio. I had to pitch them out the whole story. Everyone was very nervous. And once I got everybody on board, I talked to [co-creator] Ryan Murphy about it, and once everybody was on board and Peter was on board, then I had to start calling the cast one by one. Each of those calls was a little bit different, and none of them were quick because practically nobody believed me. They all thought I was punking them. Aisha Hinds — it probably took me 15 minutes to convince her that I was not joking.

I know I killed off a lot of characters on Angel, Buffy or whatever, but in this instance, we had never done it in eight years. Look, I’ve been on a lot of [shows] – geez, on American Horror Story, how many people got murdered? But that sort of doesn’t count. This is a procedural, and characters die on network TV, except we had never done it before. So this was the most fraught version of killing off a character that I’ve ever been involved with. It literally felt like somebody that you loved was dying. We all felt that way. I know Kenny [Choi] just kept calling me, and he’s like, “Can’t his mother come back and bring him back to life with her faith healing skills?” Everybody was kind of trying to bargain with God. In this case, I would be God, and I am a just God and I am a benevolent God — but he died.

Angela, what was your reaction when you got that unexpected phone call? How did you react to the news that you would be losing your other half on the show?

ANGELA BASSETT Tim did pull Peter first and let him know. Then he pulled me and he gave me a call and was like, “OK, Angela, this is a big change in the season. We gotta do something really dramatic — and someone’s going to die.” And then there’s a pause, of course. And I said, “Is it … Athena? Is it me?!” He was like, “No.” And then I started going through the list: “Is it Hen? Is it Chimney?” And I think finally, after about three or four names, I was like, “What?!” — because it was inconceivable to me that it was Bobby. It was incredulous to me that it was Bobby, so it was just very surprising. Sometimes, you’re just struck dumb — and that’s one of those moments because their bond has been so wonderful and so strong these past four or five years. I didn’t see that coming. None of us saw that coming.

So I think [I got the call] maybe about a week before I actually saw Peter on set. He was doing a scene and I was doing a different scene, but we were on the same location, same set. And I just remember coming to set and asking everyone, “Where’s Bobby? Where’s Bobby?” “He’s upstairs.” “OK. I’ll get to this later, but let me find my man.” [Laughs.] And we just looked at each other. You know when your eyes just lock and you don’t know what to say? And you just bear hug each other and then you just shake your head. And bless his heart — he had to comfort all of us. [Laughs] He truly had to comfort all of us while he’s going through his own processing in the moment. But fortunately, everything’s [shot] so out of order that you can shoot what will be the finality [of that character], but you still have more time together. So that’s some measure of grace — a small measure.

In these last two episodes, Bobby has a one-on-one scene with almost all the important people in his chosen family, who he says are responsible for saving him from the throes of addiction and making his life worth living again. Tim, how did you want to find ways to honor that growth in the character in this storyline, particularly at the very end of his life?

MINEAR He came to L.A. thinking, “I’m going to save this number of people that would make up for the lives that were taken with my mistake back in Minnesota.” And then as he says to Athena in this episode, “And then you said yes to my dinner invitation. I started to live again.” I explored a lot of it last year too, in the Amir storyline. So I think he’s a guy who came to L.A. with a death wish, and at the end of the day, he ends up sacrificing himself to save the people that he loves, but he no longer wishes to die — so that the sacrifice actually means something.

Angela, given all the time that you and Peter have spent playing these characters and building this relationship, what do you remember from the painful experience of having to shoot Bobby’s death scene? Did you feel as helpless shooting that sequence in the moment as the audience will feel watching it?

BASSETT I think so. I just didn’t know how emotional I would be. You’re not trying to plan it and plot it. I think I remember saying, “OK, I’m not crying. I’m going to be stoic. I’m going to be strong. Athena’s strong.” But being separated from him by that partition of glass and the hazmat suits, we’re not only separated by glass, but we have these big bubble helmets on our head, so it makes it even more impossible to touch. So I really had to look and search for his eyes. You really have to just attempt to touch each other in whatever way you can, and that is gazing in the eyes and really looking into the eyes and the soul and the spirit of another human being and seeing their humanity.

So I’m looking as a character, but I’m looking as Angela; I’m looking as a human being. It was a very rich moment, and all the emotion that needed to be there was there on both our parts take after take after take. However many takes [it took], you’re like, it is still fresh and real. So as hard as it was, [there] was also something very cleansing about it, because we’re human and we connected as characters and we connected as colleagues. It was just a bigger-than-life moment and experience.

What else stands out to both of you in Athena and Bobby’s final moments together? Angela, how specifically did you want to play Athena’s last moments with the love of her life?

BASSETT As strong as Athena has been, I think she wanted to express her love to him. Maybe she could express that in that moment — all that he has been and meant to her life, her family’s life, her children’s life. You want to be the pillar, a bit of strength for them, in that moment, and express your love, but it’s so incredibly painful. But you’re going to be there until the final breath, the final moment.

MINEAR What stands out to me is the way Peter played it. It was his idea to turn away and make his way to that table and just get into this prayerful posture. I thought that was brilliant because both Peter and I agreed that — and you’ll see some of this when you see the final version, some effects that have yet to be in there — what we didn’t want was for Bobby to die in an orgy of body horror, where he just looked like a zombie dying or something, you know what I mean? So I think it’ll feel horrifying, but poetic and subtle in a way. And Peter’s decision to move away from her and turn his back to her and just get into that position I just thought was such a great choice. That’s what stands out to me — and also just his performance there, both of them, of course. But when he says, “I don’t want to go,” it’s a knife in your heart. It’s certainly a knife in mine. I’m a murderer! [Laughs uneasily.]

Angela, you recently said that you couldn’t imagine what 911 would look like without Athena and Bobby together, but now we’re about to find out. We see Athena, Buck, Hen, Chimney, Ravi and Hen’s wife Karen’s (Tracie Thoms) immediate reactions to Bobby’s death. How much are we going to see Athena and the rest of the 118’s grief play out in these final three episodes of the season? And now that we have finally reached this point, going forward, what will this show look like without Bobby and Peter?

BASSETT She’s going to try to be on her own. I don’t know how it’s going to play out at the beginning of next season, but initially, I think she has things [to lean on] — she has her kids, but they’re pretty grown. She still has the home that they were building and is attempting to complete, so that’s not complete. And there’s still cases [of the week], so I think her [coping] mechanism is trying to dive back into work to distract herself. But we’ll see how that plays out for her, and if that’s going to work or not. Maybe she needs to go to therapy or something. [Laughs]

This is the third love of her life that she’s lost in some form or fashion. [Writer’s note: Athena lost her fiancé, Emmett, in the line of duty decades ago, and her ex-husband, Michael, came out as gay in the pilot.] I am very curious to see how this plays out, and I know the audience will be as well. I know some of them are going to be so shocked, mortified, pissed off — all the things! But no doubt, it’s going to give us something interesting to play when we lose someone so beloved in our lives.

MINEAR It was important for me that this wasn’t a season finale. It was important for me that we had ideally three episodes. There were actually going to be four episodes, and then I shot episode 15 very quickly and aired it as episode 13, because I wanted it to line up right before the one week that we were off. That needed to happen, to give the audience a breath. But it felt very important to me that this couldn’t even be a penultimate episode. You needed two or three episodes after this moment for the audience to process it and for the characters to grieve. I just felt like it would be a giant ripoff for the audience if, for instance, this happened at the end of a season and then you came back into a new season and you missed the grieving period.

So every one of the episodes, for the last three, even though there’s thrilling adventures and high stakes and season finale-level stuff happening, everything is about the fact that Bobby’s not there and them all processing that. It’s not like they’re going to get to three episodes in, and they’re like, “OK, we’re good now. Bring in the new guy!” That’s not what’s happening.

Tim, we know you love a good ghost story. Will Bobby appear in these final three episodes of the season?

MINEAR What I would say is that episode 15 is not Peter Krause’s last appearance this season.

Angela, you and Peter share the distinction of being the longest scene partners of each other’s careers. What stands out to you about the evolution of Athena and Bobby’s relationship in these eight seasons, and what will you miss most about working with Peter?

BASSETT It was surprising to me when they got together at the end of that [first] season. I was like, “What?! OK.” [Laughs.] And even more surprising that now they’re parting, but hopefully there will still be fond memories and they’ll still get together. We’ll see how he revisits her, or if he does, or for how long. When we lose someone, we dream of them sometimes, or we can be doing the most mundane thing and something in our spirit hears them or feels them or senses them, so I can’t wait to see what Tim comes up with. Tim usually mirrors life in a very beautiful and poignant way. A lot of times when I read some of the scripts, I’ve said, “Is he eavesdropping on my life or a portion of my life? Whether it’s about the kids, or the ex-husband, or friendships, or relationships.”

[Peter’s] gentle. He’s easy. He’s warm. He’s welcoming. He knows everyone’s name. He is just a wonderful actor and a quintessential good guy, so I’ll miss that. He’s the best, and it’s been great getting to know him and working with him is always an upside and a positive with him. He’s honest — and he’s good for a laugh. He doesn’t mind being the point of a joke because the 118, they are all a bunch of characters and funny men and clowns. They love to laugh all day with each other, so I think we’re all going to miss that. But he’s a beautiful soul.

Eddie’s (Ryan Guzman) absence was particularly noticeable in these two episodes — some of the issues that the 118 faced in this episode could have been fixed if there was an additional medic quarantined in that lab — but Eddie is still in El Paso happily rebuilding his relationship with his son, Christopher (Gavin McHugh). What can we expect from Eddie’s reaction to Bobby’s death and his return to L.A. for his former captain’s funeral?

MINEAR Eddie experienced it in a different way. He wasn’t there. He got a phone call. So in a way, I think what Eddie’s feeling is, “Would it have been different if I had been there?” So that’s not going to be easy for him, but we’re going to see all that in these last three episodes.

Following Thursday’s episode, ABC released a teaser for the next episode, which airs May 1 and will see the show’s characters confronting the loss. Watch it below.