Tim Minear also tells TheWrap about going meta exploring

the show within the show “Hotshots” in Season 8, and all that spinoff speculation

“9-1-1” might be saying goodbye to Eddie Diaz in the near future,

with series co-creator Tim Minear saying that the firefighter is “serious as a heart attack” about leaving L.A. after Thursday’s fall finale.Episode 8, titled “Wannabes,” followed as Eddie (Ryan Guzman) continued to struggle with being separated from his son Christopher (Gavin McHugh), who left Los Angeles at the end of Season 7 to live with his grandparents in El Paso. After a begrudgingly quick FaceTime call made him realize his son is drifting further away from him, Eddie started to reevaluate his priorities — and near the end of the episode, he told Buck (Oliver Stark) he was looking at houses to buy there and potentially leave the 118.

But should fans really be worried about Eddie’s future on the show?

“I’m not sure exactly how to answer that question without spoiling too much, but let’s just say that [Eddie’s] feeling that maybe he’s got to leave everything behind in order to reconnect with his kid is very real,” Minear told TheWrap.TheWrap: Buck was immediately supportive and offered to help look at listings, but it’s clear losing his best friend would gut him in those final moments, especially as he recovers from his breakup. How’s Buck feeling at that moment?

Minear: Buck is exactly what you perceived. He’s supportive, he is gutted. This is going to drive him up a tree a little bit.

Fans will see this twist as yet another nail in the Buddie coffin, or as an incentive for Buck to try to convince Eddie to stay if he gets really serious about leaving. Where do you stand now on fans’ ever-growing passion for this ship?

It’s not up to me to dictate to the fans what their passion is, or how they feel about something. As always, I love all my children, and I love the relationship between Buck, Eddie and Christopher… Things won’t always go smooth.

It’s been fun seeing the show go meta as it explores Bobby’s connection to “Hotshots” and Brad Torrance (Callum Blue). Why spend so much time with this character and bring him into the firehouse?

I felt like there was a story to be told not just for Brad, but kind of contrasting the fakeness of “Hotshots” with Bobby’s (Peter Krause) real life. But also, there is a significant moment in Episode 8 between Eddie and Brad. So, you never know what interesting dynamics might arise from connecting characters you didn’t expect to connect. And the other thing too is that, because we had spent enough time on it in the first part of the season, I felt like it wanted an ending. I wanted to resolve it in some way. I wanted to close that chapter by giving it a proper ending.

After getting through the pulse-raising Bee-Nado that kicked off Season 8, and various big developments since then — Buck and Tommy’s (Lou Ferrigno Jr.) breakup, Hen’s (Aisha Hinds) family reuniting and Maddie’s (Jennifer Love Hewitt) surprise pregnancy — Minear relished giving fans a “bread and butter” episode of “9-1-1” for this fall finale. But viewers were still left with plenty of questions to ponder during the show’s winter break.

“I didn’t want to leave the audience [hanging] for months going out on the edge of a knife. But the knife will be quite sharp when we come back,” Minear teased.TheWrap spoke with Minear about the big question mark of Episode 8, ending the “Hotshots” show within a show storyline and the status of the next “9-1-1” spinoff series.