9-1-1 Star Kenneth Choi Talks Maddie And Chimney's Wedding & The 118's Reaction To Buck-Tommy Romance

Warning: SPOILERS for 9-1-1 season 7, episode 6.

Summary In 9-1-1 season 7, episode 6, Chimney goes missing before his wedding and sparks a city-wide search.

Despite challenges, Chimney and Maddie finally tie the knot in a hospital room.

Kenneth Choi shares excitement for the couple's journey and teases upcoming episodes.

Following a brief hiatus, 9-1-1 returned on May 2 to celebrate the wedding of two fan-favorite characters. Season 7, episode 6, "There Goes the Groom," sees Buck and Eddie break the news that Chimney never arrived at his bachelor party. Maddie's wedding day quickly turns into a city-wide search for her husband-to-be, as he may be suffering from viral encephalitis.

After Chimney is safely located and treated, he and Maddie opt to get married in his hospital room surrounded by family and friends. 9-1-1 star Kenneth Choi shares his excitement about the couple finally tying the knot, as there was a time when even he questioned if they'd make it down the aisle. However, he was hopeful that love would persevere, as Maddie and Chimney always seemed to find one another through the chaos.

Related What Happened To Eddie's Wife, Shannon, In 9-1-1 After being among the main secondary characters in 9-1-1, Eddie's wife, Shannon, suddenly vanishes, making it hard not to wonder what happened to herv

Screen Rant interviewed Choi about Maddie and Chimney's wedding, Buck's new romance, and the twists in store for the remainder of 9-1-1 season 7.

Kenneth Choi Belives Chimney And Maddie "Belong Together"

Screen Rant: Chimney and Maddie finally got married! Was there ever a time when you worried they wouldn't end up here?

Kenneth Choi: Yeah, there was that period where Maddie had postpartum depression, came back, and said, "I think we need to pause everything." There was a point where I thought, "Maybe that's what it's going to be. Maybe the storyline will be two parents parenting a child, but they're not together." So I was really concerned at that point. But love will find a way, and the love that Maddie and Chimney have for one another, I think, is unstoppable and invincible. So thank God, it persevered. They belong together. Don't you think they belong together? They've been through so much. Even at such odds. They've had all these external and internal forces trying to keep them apart, it seems, and they always come back to each other. There's magnetism between the two.

What Maddie went through with Doug was obviously very traumatic. Do you think there's a specific reason or an underlying fear that caused Chimney to hallucinate him?

Kenneth Choi: I think he hallucinated him because it's the furthest in his mind that he can go that way. This complete dark and complete light. Chimney is always on the fence about a lot of these big life decisions, and when you're on the fence about big life decisions, you think, "Is what I'm doing really right? No, no, no, of course this is the right thing I'm doing." Because that viral encephalitis brought this mental fog and a lack of mental clarity, he's trying to figure all these things out and trying to get back to her, but there's always this force pulling him away because that's just how Chimney is. What's the deepest, darkest force that could pull him away from that? It would be the manifestation of Doug. And then the angel, on the other counterpoint, would be his blood brother, Kevin. It was a lovely way to show this push and pull in Chimney's mind with this devil on one shoulder, and an angel on the other shoulder that our showrunner, Tim Minear, devised. I thought it was brilliant.

Reuniting With James Chen Brought Kenneth Choi Back To "Chimney Begins"

Speaking of Kevin, what was it like to play that brief moment when Chimney forgets that his brother has passed?

Kenneth Choi: When I saw him, it was lovely. A lot of acting has to do with your partner, right? It's like tennis. The better the tennis partner is, the better you are, and the better the game is. James [Chen] and I developed a very strong connection while we were doing "Chimney Begins." We haven't seen each other in years, but as soon as we saw each other, I looked right in his eyes, and I was right there emotionally. He just brought me right back to it. He was so generous with his time. He had a personal issue going on in New York and then had to fly out that day. We had him for a few hours, but we just locked in immediately. It was really lovely to have him there. That was towards the end of the episode. So I had gone through playing all this trauma, and it was such a relief to have this light moment, even though it was heavy emotionally, for Chimney and for myself. It was a lighter moment out of all these sort of dark, tragic moments.

Even though he doesn't remember being a firefighter, Chimney immediately leaps into action when there's a crisis. What do you think that says about who Chimney is at his core?

Kenneth Choi: Even with those conflicts swirling in his head, you just snap back to who you really are. And who Chimney really is is someone that wants to help people. He's someone that's a giver. He's someone that will overcome. It was lovely to have that moment, too. It was wonderful to have that thing where, all of a sudden, he just snaps out of it. And then by the end of it, when that character says, "Are you a doctor?" you can see he's in shock. He's like, "No, we're at a karaoke bar." So he doesn't even know in that moment how he's doing it. It's just reflex.

Kenneth Choi Breaks Down The 118's Reaction To Buck And Tommy

At the end of the episode, Chimney picks up on Buck and Tommy's relationship. I would love your thoughts on how the show chose to go about that revelation.

Kenneth Choi: I thought it was great, because you see the relationship develop in Episode 4, and then in 5, it builds, and no one really knows about it except for Maddie and Eddie. And to have this moment where they come in, and nothing is said, you just see physically, and you have to put it together. I thought it was kind of a lovely thing, because it's what all of the characters are doing. They're all sitting there putting it together. The greatest reaction, I thought [laughs], was Mrs. Buckley, who's played by Dee Wallace. If you watch carefully, she has this reaction of utter confusion, like, "What is happening here? What's going on? Why are they both dirty? What?" It was my favorite reaction, because it was genuine shock and awe. But I think for everybody else, especially the 118, the reaction is just like, "Oh, well, they look so happy together." And that's kind of all you really want for your best friends, isn't it? When you meet a best friend's significant other, all you want is for them to treat them right and for them to be happy, and at that moment, you can see that they're very happy. It doesn't have anything to do with, "Were they kissing?" It's just, "Oh, Buck finally looks like he's happy." I'm super excited for the storyline too because, personally, I became really good friends with Louis Ferrigno Jr. I think he's a great actor and this new energy that he's bringing in is wonderful. I think he's so charming playing Tommy Kinard. I'm excited to see where their relationship is going to go.

Is there anything that you can tease about what's next for Chimney in these upcoming 9-1-1 episodes?

Kenneth Choi: For Chimney, it's going to be, probably, some smooth sailing for the rest of the season. Chimney and Maddie will have some wedded bliss for the rest of the season, but for some of the other characters...not so much.

About 9-1-1 Season 7

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Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear reimagine the procedural drama with “9-1-1.” The series explores the high-pressure experiences of first responders — including police officers, firefighters and dispatchers — who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations.

These emergency responders must try to balance saving those who are at their most vulnerable with solving the problems in their own lives. The show draws from real-life, high-pressure experiences of first responders who regularly face heart-stopping situations that are often unpredictable, intense and uplifting at the same time.

New episodes of 9-1-1 air Thursdays at 8pm ET on ABC.