Ryan Guzman said he went into the 9-1-1 season nine finale fighting to be part of the show’s ICE raid storyline, then ended up with Eddie Diaz taking a knife to the abdomen in the episode “Hearts and Flowers.” The scene left Eddie missing, with Buck the first to realize something was wrong before the rest of the 118 moved in after Anatoly Caster was apprehended and Eddie was rescued.
The finale tied Eddie’s ordeal to Anatoly, the scion of a corrupt businessman targeted in a police raid led by Athena Grant that exposed a human trafficking ring involving migrants in Los Angeles. It also came after last year’s death of the show’s first main character, a reminder that 9-1-1 has stopped pretending its emergencies stay temporary.
Guzman has said playing Eddie has helped him come to terms with his own identity, and that Eddie’s naivety is part of what shapes his relationship with Buck. He also said that when Eddie was shot by a sniper in 2021, he genuinely worried about job security, but this time he took the prospect of another near-death experience with surprising calm.
That shift says as much about the actor as it does about the series. Guzman said the cast does not get full scripts and instead receives production packets from showrunner Tim Minear, which keeps them guessing until the last minute. After nine seasons, he said, the show’s habit of throwing curveballs has become part of the job, and Eddie’s latest brush with death is simply the newest one.
For Eddie, that means survival again. For Guzman, it means ryan guzman has learned that on 9-1-1, even a stabbing in the finale is never the end of the story.
