This season of 9-1-1 has not been smooth sailing for the Wilson family.
After fighting to bring Mara home on 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 4, you may have assumed that the Wilsons would have a lowkey evening in the Halloween follow-up installment, but that wasn’t the case.
This is 9-1-1, after all, and everything will be just fine before disaster strikes.
9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 5 saw beloved couple Hen and Karen in conflict when Hen could not spend the spooky holiday with her family. Though in a heartbreaking twist of faith, the 118 was called to an accident involving son Denny, and Hen had to work along with her team to save his life.
It was a devastating affair for Hen and her family (and hopefully, the last time we’ll see this sweet family struggling!), but Denny’s brush with death brought their family even closer together.
Aisha Hinds has played the warm, intelligent firefighter-paramedic from the beginning, alongside Declan Pratt’s Denny, whom we’ve seen grow up before our very eyes on-screen.
Alongside Tracie Thoms as Karen, the three have developed this beautiful on-screen chemistry and have made the Wilson family one of the best on television.
Bringing Mara into the family during 9-1-1 Season 7 has only strengthened that family’s bond.
I talked with Hinds and Declan’s mother, Dennisha Pratt, about the Halloween episode and their years on set together, during which time they helped craft the beautiful narrative of the Wilsons’ story.
I feel so lucky to have had such an illuminating conversation with the two women. They were candid and forthcoming about the joys of acting, teaching, and helping bring the beautiful stories of Hen, Denny, and the Wilson family to the screen.
Probably silly me, but I was like, “Oh, this episode is going to be fun; nothing much going on for Hen and Karen and their family during this episode. It’s going to be really chill for them.” And, of course, it was not that at all.
Aisha: Girl.
But before we get into that part of it, I have to imagine that Hen and Karen probably had that conversation about work, missing events, and family time in the past. How does Hen look at that situation now that Denny is getting older and with the addition of Mara?
Aisha: It’s so interesting because that conversation came up around when Hen was grappling with the decision to become a doctor in one of our previous seasons. They had a conversation about the demand of time and how much it could pull her away from the family.
And I vividly remember Hen making a decision, like, “I’m going to choose my family.” However, that doesn’t mean that being a paramedic firefighter gives you more time with the family.
I think she was just saying, “I’m not going to choose something, add something new to the dynamic, that might further compromise the time that already exists between my family and me.” So in the kitchen, she kind of says to her, “You know that this was a part of the deal, that holidays are a big time for us to work.
Maybe some other time I can compromise, but holidays, there’s no compromise there.”
But I think that there’s tremendous guilt that comes out of this particular event that happened with Denny.
And I can only imagine that even though it turns out the way it turns out, that’s probably going to be something that Hen carries on for the rest of her time and trying to figure out, “Okay, where are the places that maybe I can compromise, and should I try to compromise?”
Although the best place for her to have been that night was probably at work so that she could save her son’s life.
But I don’t know that she won’t be staying up at night wondering, “But if I were there, maybe I could have pushed him out of the way, maybe we wouldn’t have been on that street, and maybe we’ve been doing something as a family.”
It’s those questions that you’ll ask yourself forever and ever. So I think she has a decision going forward for the rest of her life, like, “Where do I need to be? With which family? The 118 or the Wilsons?”
Dennisha, as Declan’s mom, seeing him at the center of a huge episode, and with 9-1-1 being one of the biggest television shows currently, what is it like for you to see your son and have seen him grow throughout the series to now?
Dennisha: It’s been absolutely incredible to watch him grow and to see him really come into his own. Because he started out as such a little tot.
We work on scenes together, and we break down characters, but as he’s getting older, his level of understanding of the character breakdowns, Denny’s storyline, and his imagination — for example, when Nia was taken away, he was like, “But maybe one day we might see her again.”
To hear him talk about that, it’s been incredible to watch him grow, not only as a young man but as an actor. He respects the craft so much and to work with Aisha and Tracie. To see them all trust each other is beautiful to watch.
I see them respect him, and he respects them, and the world that they create together, the trust that’s built among the three of them and the other cast as well. I am so proud. I’m so proud of him. I am just so proud of him.
Oh, you should be. He does such great work on the show.
And as TV mom and then Mom Mom, what’s the bond like between you guys, and Tracie? How has it grown?
Aisha: It’s been beautiful. From day one, Dennisha has been so wonderful to have in this space. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s gracious. She’s present, but she also finds a way to just be invisible enough for us to step in and be the mom when we need to be the mom to Declan/Denny, which is tremendously supportive.
You could have those parents who are sort of over-consuming of their child, and it doesn’t hold space for us to create that bond with their child to become the parent, the on-screen parent. But she allows us to enter and have the space and creates a model for us.
Having her there, we can literally absorb her spirit and pride. I literally look into her eyes, and I see the way that she looks at Declan, and I absorb that as kind of the way that I look at Denny.
There was a moment while we were shooting the scene from this episode where he is pinned by that car, and his face is grimacing. In between takes, she just gently walks over and… I’m getting a little emotional.
She just gently walked over and quietly threw a thumbs up at him, just checking in. And he looked back at her and communicated that he was okay. And in that moment, it was like that check-in between a mom and their child; I stole it.
I was like, “I’ll take that, and I’ll put that in the scene,” and it’s like, “I’ll take the ball from here.”
It’s like someone who gives you a pass, like, “I’ll finish a job from here. I’ll make sure that he’s okay,” as the character and as his costar. And to your point, Whitney, it’s quite amazing that we have these themed episodes yearly and on many shows.
But for Declan to be centered in the Halloween episode was so beautiful, and it makes us all proud because we’re all rallied around him. There are so many storylines to play out on our show because we have a large cast.
So, when we get a moment where we can see Declan shine, we’re like, “Yeah,” and he lives up to the task, and it’s beautiful to watch.
Dennisha: When we got this episode for him to look at, I always read through it first before he sees it to see if there’s anything I need to bring up before I give it to him. But I trust the writers of the show when it comes to his character.
They do such a great job with him, but I always read through it first and then hand it over to him. And if we get the whole thing, I find his parts and like, “Here you go,” he reads through it, and I give him space, and then we come together, and I’m like, “Okay, what did you think?”
And then he’s like, “Okay, well, what did you think?” And then we talk about it.
So we try to picture it on the big scale and then break it down, like, “What do you think he’s feeling? Okay, how do you think Hen will react to this?” We go on an imaginary journey together without planning.
We leave it very open. “Do you see yourself on the car or on the ground?” He’ll be like, “Well, if the car has me pinned up, then I’m probably going to be on the car.” “Right. But if she has to do compressions, would you be on the ground?” “I don’t know; maybe they’ll bring me to the ground.”
We have these kinds of conversations to go over the technical stuff, and then our imaginations just fire off. We run lines very straight.
We’re just trying to memorize lines, but not memorize how you say them, because I don’t want him to get locked into a space that when he goes there, no matter what Tracie and Aisha are giving him, he stays rigid. It’s like, “No, you have to be flexible with that.”
He’s learning that himself. But we work on the lines, and then we get there on set, and it’s like, “Okay, you’re no longer Declan. I will be here in support of you, and I’ll be around, but now it’s your turn to step into this and create this world with Denny’s family up there.”
For Hen, she has to juggle many different roles throughout the series. She’s got the mom hat and the paramedic hat, but I don’t know if we’ve ever really seen them have to combine in the way we do in that scene.
How do you think it was for her to have to juggle both hats and be there for her son as a mother but also be there in trying to save his life?
Aisha: Yeah, to your point, Dennisha, I had never had that experience with the character. So, I wasn’t sure, and it became very frantic, and the emotion became very big because there was such an urgency in that moment.
And the urgency was the idea that she is the paramedic who needs to save his life, but she’s also his mom who needs to save his life. And both of those women are working at their peak to try to make sure that Denny doesn’t die in this scenario.
There’s a moment when everyone around Hen is concerned. She doesn’t particularly process it, but Chim, Kenny’s character, says, “Maybe you should step back.” And she says, “He’s my child. There’s no way I’m surrendering this moment to anyone to do this job.”
There’s a moment where Oliver’s character, Buck, even says to Pete’s character, the Captain, “Should she be up there?” Because the lines could be blurred, it could be muddled. She could actually be a disservice because she’s so emotional.
But in that moment, I was glad that the writers gave Hen an opportunity to operate with the fullness of her heart and bring both sides of her heart together to make sure that he saw and lived to see another day.
It was really nice as an actor to play with that dynamic. But I imagine that that side of your brain, as a parent, probably is going at it with the side of your brain that’s the paramedic.
That’s what was happening until there was a moment where she took a breath, centered, and figured out some plan that could work, and they would go through the blood transfusion. Here’s the other mom with a part of her being that’s literally helping her son.
The fact that they’re doing this blood transfusion in the field, which then transpires into her having to do compressions, and Uncle Chimney is right there on board.
It was just a full family affair. The girls are not far off, and it was a nice element that our writers gave us to really fight for the family amongst ourselves.
Dennisha, watching the show and Declan being on the show for so long, do you have a specific moment that you can remember where you were just really blown away by a scene with Denny and the family? Is there anything that stands out to you?
Dennisha: There are many things. Apart from this episode, his going with Karen to the science center was wonderful. It was wonderful to see their dynamic and how they came together. He went through an explosion.
He was really sad; whenever his sisters were taken away, it was always hard. We have to talk about his emotional state as an actor. Teaching him the tools to come out of that is important.
Denny’s been an only child. How long has he wanted to have someone? And now here’s this dream of being able to have a sibling, but then they get taken away. And here comes another one. Does this one get to stay? But then they get taken away, and him physically fighting to keep Mara.
For him to rise up and be so angry and protective of his little sister, and he knows what she fought through to get there. To physically push someone off to protect her. There are so many emotional scenes throughout this show that have showcased the strength of this family and the love of this family.
There are too many. We’d be here for a long time. And those little moments that you’ll catch them just being happy are also incredible.
***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***
You can watch 9-1-1 on Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.
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