Why Connie Britton's Abigail Clark Left 9-1-1

Over the past seven seasons, "9-1-1" has proven itself to be one of the wildest, most unexpected network procedurals on the air. (You can see our list of the show's best episodes here.) It's not a shock that something from the mind of Ryan Murphy would delight in throwing audiences for a loop, considering his past shows like "Glee" and "Nip/Tuck." But the basic idea of "9-1-1," which follows a group of first responders in Los Angeles as they navigate troubled personal lives and also save the lives of countless Angelenos in sticky situations, allows for the unexpected. But sometimes the unexpected means that cast members depart in surprising fashion. Though the show's most recent season ended with a truly jaw-dropping departure, "9-1-1" has always been comfortable saying goodbye to its cast when the moment is right. 

In the show's first season, one of the main characters, Abigail Clark (Connie Britton), served as a 9-1-1 call operator dealing with some family issues at home. And yet when the show's shortened opening year ended, Abby left for good. Why did an actress as impressive and beloved as Connie Britton join this big new show for just one season? As it turns out, though fans may be disappointed to learn it, Britton was never meant to be a long-running fixture of "9-1-1." In fact, Britton's departure after one season was always the plan. Let's dig into why that's the case.

Abby Clark was, when "9-1-1" began, the main point of entry for audiences who may have wanted to get a sense of the experience of those who serve as emergency call operators, not just the first responders who are sent to different situations to save someone. Abby, like many of the other main characters, also had a turbulent personal life, living at home with her mother (Mariette Hartley), who suffered from Alzheimer's. While dealing with her mother's medical troubles, Abby also struck up a friendship with one of the show's other leads, the young and hunky EMT Evan "Buck" Buckley (Oliver Stark), a friendship that quickly turned into a romance. While Buck was introduced as something of a bed-hopping himbo who saves lives on the side, his connection with Abby as well as the ways he tried to support her through dealing with her mom added some maturity to the character.

But soon enough, Buck experienced heartbreak because of Abby. When her mother died in the first season's penultimate episode, Abby was inspired to take a trip to Ireland that her mom was never able to take. What that meant within the show's reality was that Abby was leaving Los Angeles behind, as well as her new paramour. In our reality, though, as Murphy explained to Deadline at the time, the truth was that Connie Britton had signed a one-year deal and despite being one of the show's bigger names (along with Peter Krause and the legendary film icon Angela Bassett), she was going to leave. "Connie had just come off 'Nashville,' and she didn't want to do another show right away," Murphy explained, saying that the compromise was for Britton to join the show for its opening season only with the potential to return in the future.

The good news is that Britton did return to the two-part finale for "9-1-1"'s third season, as she ended up assisting with a major train derailment while reconnecting with Buck and helping give him closure for their brief relationship. Yet as the show's co-creator Tim Minear explained in a post-mortem, her return at that time was almost certainly the last time we'd see Abby on the show moving forward. Minear noted that Britton is a very busy actress, having appeared in limited series like "The White Lotus," "Dirty John," and "Zero Day" since her time on "9-1-1" but that "the stars aligned for the finale."

If you've been a dedicated viewer of "9-1-1," even as it made the jump from ABC to Fox, you know that this is a show on which just about anything can happen. The cast members have dealt with swarms of bees, a capsized cruise ship, burning buildings, and more. So it's always possible that a character like Abby Clark can return in some capacity, especially now that the show has grappled with even bigger losses in its seven seasons. Yet as the show prepares to air its eighth season on the fall on ABC, it seems pretty likely that Abby isn't coming back. 

The time when she returned at the end of the third season was a bittersweet way to resolve the open-ended nature of her romance with Buck, who has since moved on (and has also come out as bisexual, a detail that had not been the case when the two characters were originally together). More importantly, Buck's own sister Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) serves as the focal 9-1-1 call operator, essentially replacing Abby. Though most fans wouldn't say no to seeing the luminous and talented Connie Britton once more in the world of "9-1-1," this is a case of a seemingly abrupt departure that made perfect sense creatively and has been so effectively resolved that to bring her back might undo one of the more solid interpersonal storylines the show has concocted.