Mark Consuelos is a great host, but his passion has always been acting. The 54-year-old entertainer got to step back on set for season 9 of 9-1-1, and it’s exactly the kind of wild ride you want him on.
The show reaches for the stars and seas with the trailer showing him getting swallowed by a whale. Which isn't too far fetched, with the help of social media there have been some viral videos lately of kayakers getting gobbled and spit out by them.
Mark pops up in a multi-episode arc as billionaire Tripp Houser, a man who, in the first trailer scene, finds himself swallowed by the ocean's biggest giant while kayaking. Luckily, Eddie (Ryan Guzman) doesn’t hesitate to dive in and pull him to safety, while Hen (Aisha Hinds) performs life-saving CPR on shore. It’s the kind of over-the-top emergency that's perfect for TV.
Tripp is more than just a survivor, though - he’s determined to repay Hen for saving his life. “I wanna reward you for it,” he tells her at Station 118. Hen is having none of it. “You do not have to reward me,” she says. “I was just doing my job.”
But Tripp is steadfast on rewarding her with a Jeff Bezos-like opportunity - sending Hen into space. Karen (Tracie Thoms) refuses to join, claiming Tripp “doesn’t care about serious science,” so Athena (Angela Bassett) ends up going along for the ride. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Athena quips- and naturally, things go sideways when a geomagnetic storm hits mid-launch.
Meteors rain down on Earth, Station 118 scrambles to rescue their team in orbit, and chaos reigns.
Consuelos opened up about the role on Live with Kelly and Mark, calling acting “my passion." "I got to do a few episodes on this show called 9-1-1," he said. While he couldn't talk about the details, he teased, “I play a tech billionaire. His name is Tripp, and he experiences an emergency situation, so he needs to call 9-1-1.”
Season 9 also marks the first without Peter Krause, whose shocking exit in season 8 left a hole in the cast. Jennifer Love Hewitt admitted filming without him was “sad,” saying, “He was the person that mattered to everyone in the cast the most. He was our hero. And he always will be.”
Kelly Ripa's request
His supportive wife, Kelly Ripa, joked that she was pressuring him to befriend Bassett on set. “That was my whole thing. I was like, ‘You get in there and be friends with Angela Bassett so we can all have dinner,'" she said.
With whale rescues, space missions gone wrong, and meteor-filled chaos hitting Station 118, season 9 promises to be one of the most intense yet. 9-1-1 returns Thursday, Oct. 9, on ABC.