9-1-1: Nashville Boss Breaks Down Midseason Finale Cliffhangers, Previews 'Calamity' And More Crossovers In 2026

Just when Music City was starting to recover from being ripped apart by tornadoes, along came the "9-1-1: Nashville" midseason finale to plunge its citizens into a new crisis — or as showrunner Rashad Raisani calls it, a "calamity."

Before we dive into our Q&A with Raisani, here's a quick recap of Thursday's events: While fighting a fire at a distillery owned by Blythe's father Edward (Tim Matheson), Don was forced to have the 113 drain a highly flammable — and incredibly expensive — ingredient. Actually, "forced" is too strong a word. Don probably could have stopped the fire without costing his father-in-law so much money... but he hates the guy.

Don admitted as much during a sit-down with Edward and Blythe, during which Don also asked his father-in-law for a donation to stave off layoffs in his department. Edward obliged, but his final condition — that Don fire Blue, throwing in a colorful word about him being born out of wedlock for good measure — was a dealbreaker for Don. Instead, Don blackmailed Edward into forking over the money after discovering that his distillery was stealing water.

Meanwhile, Cammie had her own headaches to deal with at the call center. In an effort to make things run more "efficiently," an outside agency was brought in to monitor the dispatchers' workflow, including penalizing Cammie for saying "please" and "thank you" too much — a total waste of precious call time!

The agency eventually changed its tune after witnessing Cammie save a woman from choking, despite the caller not being able to speak. That kind of commitment and dedication can't be measured. Plus, they found out Cammie's boss has been embezzling money for years... so her job is safe.

Nashville, however, is not safe. The midseason finale ended with a nasty virus striking what appeared to be every computer system in the city. A hijacked tornado siren even spooked Blythe's horse, leaving her rider unconscious and snared in barbed wire. And with a six-hour countdown on the clock ("or Nashville gets bloody"), it's going to be a heck of a wait for the show's Jan. 8 return (9/8c).

Read on for our full Q&A with Raisani about those bloody cliffhangers, Don's dark secrets and, of course, the next crossover between "9-1-1" and "Nashville." (Spoiler alert: We're getting one, and soon!) When you're finished, grade the midseason finale in our poll and drop a comment with your thoughts below.

TVLINE | We haven't spoken since "9-1-1: Nashville" premiered, so I had no idea we'd be getting that Cammie cameo on "9-1-1." Smooth work there.
RAISANI | Thank you, we hope that there will be even more cross-pollination moving forward.

TVLINE | Well, you did reference Fire Fox (aka Marjan from "Lone Star") when Blue went viral the other week. What's the process of sneaking those Easter eggs into the script?
RAISANI | Well, each one is a little different. With the Fire Fox one, I just love "Lone Star." That show came out of my spirit, so I'm always looking to shamelessly plug it and try to figure out some way to resuscitate any piece of it that I can. With that specific mention, I love Marjan. In terms of Cammie appearing on the show, "9-1-1" was dealing with their space thing and [showrunner Tim Minear] just made a call and asked what we thought about bringing [Kimberly Williams-Paisley] on to their show. I thought it was great. Now that we're on the same network, even though we're in different states, we have the ability to do more cross-pollination if we plan it right. With "9-1-1" and "Lone Star," we had a period where they were both on Fox together, which made it a little bit easier.

TVLINE | OK, let's talk about the finale. First of all, Tim Matheson is so good in this role. Will Edward continue to be a thorn in the family's side this season?
RAISANI | Yeah, he's great. And he's basically now a series regular. I worked with him before on a show called "Burn Notice"; he directed an episode and was a main character on the show. It was a long time ago, but I remembered how amazing he was, and he's even better now. Some of the stuff he has coming downstream is tremendous. He's definitely part of our fabiric.

TVLINE | When Don broke that glass at the table, Edward said it was the real Don Hart showing his face. Is there a dark side of Don that we have yet to see?
RAISANI | What a perceptive question. In terms of the other ["9-1-1"] shows, Bobby had a troubled past with his alcoholism and and Owen was a bit of a narcissist, but both of those guys knew who they were. They had an internal peace, for the most part. With Don, I wanted to play that, on the surface, he seems like the most put-together of those three guys. But still waters run deep, and there's something dark in Don. We're going to do an origin story for him in Episode 11, and also the origin of how Don, Dixie and Blythe's love triangle came to be. We're going to explore his original sin, which is due to some damage he took as a kid. He has this inner rage that's always been there, and that's what Tim Matheson's character is always locking onto. You're not this Mr. Sunshine guy that you pretend to be. That was the first flash of what's down there.

TVLINE | Cammie mentioned the choking incident with her husband this week. Is that really how he died, from choking?
RAISANI | Yes. And the inspiration behind that came when I was location scouting in Nashville with Brad Buecker, who directed the pilot and is an executive producer on the show. We were at this sort of nightclub restaurant where they had live music. It was dark, and people were enjoying a great dinner. While we were there, someone suddenly started screaming to stop the music, and when they turned on the lights, we saw that a woman had died at her table. She just choked out, right in front of her friends and her husband. They were all stunned, and the craziest thing to me was that none of us realized it was happening. They were having the drama of their life behind us and nobody knew it. So when we were thinking about what would make Cammie go from one life — because we always wanted her to be in the music world — to working as a dispatcher, Brad and I were both like, that's got to be what it was. She felt helpless, and when she called 9-1-1, she got a busy signal. That feeling is what led to her conversion.

TVLINE | Since you brought up Cammie's work in the music business, when are we going to see our first performance on the show? Between her, Taylor and Dixie, I feel like someone's always talking about music.
RAISANI | I think the first big performance on screen is in Episode 9. There will be a duet, and there will be a big performance in what will either be our 12th or 13 episode, depending on how things move around. We may have some shuffling on the backside to maybe accommodate a crossover. So yes, there will be more music going forward. Dixie has to get her voice back.

TVLINE | Allegedly!
RAISANI | [Laughs] Very clever.

TVLINE | We haven't seen Sam since she and Ryan decided to press pause on their divorce. How are they doing?
RAISANI | They're doing well, and we will get back to them. We're going to deal with this hacking crisis that's coming in our midseason premiere, and Sam will be a big part of that just as a physician. But she and Ryan have been going to therapy and doing the work, and we're going to have another relationship story for them once we get on the other side of this calamity.

TVLINE | Let's talk about this big crisis: "Six hours or Nashville gets bloody?" How bloody are we talking?
RAISANI | It's going to get very bloody. It's going to be pretty wild, and that's not overselling it.

TVLINE | Poor Blythe already has her work cut out for her after that nasty fall onto some barbed wire. I assume she has a bit of a fight ahead of her?
RAISANI | You assume correctly. Jessica [Capshaw] has so much grit, and I think because she's so polished and beautiful and sophisticated and intelligent, people don't see her inner toughness and tenacity coming. I wanted to show the audience what Blythe is made of, so that's where her story is going to come from.

TVLINE | I spoke with Hunter McVey last week, and he mentioned a romance brewing between Blue and another member of the 113. Is there anything you can add to that?
RAISANI | I can tell you that there is a romance brewing, and by process of elimination, it's probably not excruciatingly difficult to identify who it might be. But she's somebody I think he's just adorable with. They had great chemistry right from the beginning. We saw their first meeting in the pilot and thought, wow, that could be something. So they will have a situation brewing.

TVLINE | That should be fun. We haven't had very many inter-firehouse romances before.
RAISANI | Yeah. We had Matteo and Nancy on "Lone Star," but one was a firefighter and the other was a paramedic, so we've never been as close as this one. And there will be some complications to that.