Jennifer Love Hewitt Reacts to Real-Life Husband's Surprise Return to '9-1-1'

Jennifer Love Hewitt as Maddie on '9-1-1'

Since Season 2 of 9-1-1, audiences have been strapped into the occasionally turbulent, always emotional rollercoaster that has been Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney’s (Kenneth Choi) relationship. In tonight’s Season 7 episode, the couple embarked on a new chapter as they tied the knot, and in true emergency-responder fashion, the wedding did not go down without a hitch.

“When I knew what the ending was going to be, it made perfect sense,” Hewitt said in an interview with Parade. “To me, [a hospital is] exactly where Maddie and Chimney should get married. And it makes the most sense for them with all of those people in that room.”

In the episode, aptly titled “There Goes the Groom,” the big day ground to a halt when Buck (Oliver Stark) and Eddie (Ryan Guzman) realized that Chimney didn't just bail on the bachelor party he didn't want...he was actually missing. Turned out, due to exposure to viral encephalitis from a rescue that took place two weeks prior, he was roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a hallucinatory state. Over the course of the episode, Chimney dazedly wandered around L.A. believing it to be nearly 20 years earlier. Plagued by visions of Maddie’s abusive late ex-husband Doug (played by Hewitt's real-life spouse Brian Hallisay), Chim ended up at his former workplace, triaged a demolished farmer’s market and finally wound up back at his adopted parents’ home, all while the 118 raced against time to locate him before he succumbed to the brain damage caused by his exposure.

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“When [creator] Tim [Minear] told me that I was gonna go into the call center in my wedding dress and try to find my husband, it was amazing,” Hewitt said. “It's so Maddie and it's so good. And I love that she was just so proactive and really focused on not if she was gonna get him back, but when she was gonna get him back.”

The actress was particularly excited for her real-life husband Hallisay’s reappearance as Doug, saying she "can’t wait" to pour over the audience reaction.

“Initially, Tim and I had talked about it because I was curious if he was going to come back in a dream for Maddie, because that's the only other time she's been married, so I was like, 'Oh, no, is this gonna trigger something for her? What was that wedding day like?'” Hewitt explained.

“Then when I found out that it wasn't in my brain that he was coming back, but it was in Chimney's, I thought it was brilliant because it's obvious he's been holding on to something from his own trauma with Doug; and Doug, I think, affects people that way. He is a person that stays with you. I think it's very symbolic that he comes back to him at a time that's really challenging and dark for him, because that's who Doug is.”

Hewitt, who's been married to Hallisay since 2013, said filming the episode was especially exciting for her family: “My kids thought it was the coolest thing that their daddy was coming back to 9-1-1 and wearing a Santa hat and stabbing someone. They loved it. We have some Doug fans in our house; even though we don't love Doug, we love daddy.”

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As the episode unfolded, flashbacks returned viewers to various pain points in both Maddie and Chim’s life—her postpartum depression, his rebar accident. But those moments ultimately served as reminders of how far the characters have come.

“They're fated to prove to each other, or to have it be proven over and over again, that they will always come back together and it will always be okay,” Hewitt said.

“Kenny and I are just as happy as the audience is that Maddie [and Chim] finally get their moment,” she added. “We've been waiting just as long as everyone else and hoping for it. I do think this was the right time. I think that this season is the most solid Maddie and Chimney have been separately, and so I think that's really important to the love story because you're not seeing two very broken people jumping into yet another thing, which is maybe what we would have seen earlier with them.”

Once Chimney was hospitalized and treated, he and Maddie decided to go ahead with an impromptu wedding. Hewitt said she cherished filming the scene and finally got her first full cast photo, which she had framed.

“It was hysterical because I think we all looked at the size of the room and we were like, 'There's so many people, like, how many people are in the scene and how are we all gonna be put in there?'" she remembered. "So that was pretty funny in rehearsal. It's the only time in the show's history that I have been in a scene with literally every single person on the show."

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In a way, that reflects the Season 7 themes of growth and maturity for her character. “I think it's been a big season for Maddie in that you will see her with the other 118-ers, because Maddie has had a really hard time opening up," Hewitt explained. "When she came in, she was hiding from so much.”

As for the overarching feeling for Maddie this season? Hewitt describes what sounds a little like bliss.

“I chose not to have Maddie cry at the wedding, and the reason I didn't want her to cry is because I, for her, felt so much joy,” Hewitt shared. “And I was like, 'Maybe she just has too much joy. Maybe she can't even have happy tears because it's like she can't stop smiling.'"

For the first time in the show’s history, Maddie and Chimney are perfectly aligned and there are no loose ends to work through.

“I think they're in a place where they're going to be first responders and the emergencies might just happen around them for a minute, not to them," Hewitt said. "Which would be lovely."

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