The ‘9-1-1: Nashville’ Secret Family Member Twist, Explained

9-1-1: Nashville already brought the drama for its first episode.

In Thursday’s series premiere, fans got to meet the members of the 113, including the firehouse’s newest candidate, who has a connection to the captain.

As first revealed in the trailer, Chris O’Donnell’s Captain Don Hart secretly fathered a child, and he only just now told his son, Ryan (Michael Provost), when they randomly ran into said secret child, Blue (Hunter McVey), during a call. In the episode, the news came as a shock to Ryan, understandably, and Don explained that there was a brief time when he and his wife, Blythe (Jessica Capshaw), Ryan’s mother, were separated, but Ryan didn’t know.

A week before they got back together, Don ran into an ex at a bar, and they slept together. Blythe later told Ryan that she’s known about it and she and Don have supported them until the previous year. Unfortunately, Ryan won’t be able to stay away from his half-brother, as he officially works at the firehouse now as a candidate, doing his Academy training while out in the field. But there seems to be something bigger at play, as Blue’s mom, Dixie (LeAnn Rimes), has a plan and wants what’s owed to them, even though Blue doesn’t like manipulating his father.

Showrunner Rashad Raisani told TV Insider why Don told Ryan about Blue the way he did, noting O’Donnell’s character has been struggling “because he didn’t ever keep Blue a secret from his wife, but for lots of reasons he kept him a secret from his son.” He continued, “And once Don gets this email or this text from Blue that happened in our backstory before our pilot started, he immediately started to have incredible anxiety about, what is this going to do with my son? I’m going to have to tell Ryan, it’s going to really shatter him in a lot of ways and really make him reassess where he stands in the world.”

“And so Don has been dreading it, and because he’s a vulnerable human being, he’s been kind of putting it off like a lot of us do,” Raisani explained. “And then when he runs into Blue in the world, I mean, I think he feels like, OK, there’s no more denying that this has to happen, and it has to happen right now. And he almost feels like Don, who’s not a particularly spiritual guy, he feels like, wow, this is a bolt from the universe. This is fate. So I have to just accept it and embrace it. And so that’s why he tells Ryan in that moment.”

Things are probably not going to get any easier, and there is no telling what will happen, but the drama will continue. Tune in to new episodes of 9-1-1: Nashville on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC following 9-1-1 to see how it all goes down.