911 season 8 episode 5 recap and ending explained: A Halloween curse hits [Spoiler]

Halloween might not be until next week, but Halloween came early for 911 fans with the show’s fifth episode serving up a thrilling holiday episode full of fun costumes and plenty of intense moments. 

The fun begins as Karen and Hen enjoy some Halloween fun with the kids, but the fun is short-lived as Karen tries to plead with Hen to take Halloween off so she can join them in trick-or-treating and doesn’t miss Mara’s first Halloween with the family. After some persuading, Hen says she’ll talk with Bobby about taking a personal day to try to be there for trick-or-treating. 

The action then moves to the 118 where the team is working to get the firehouse ready for trick-or-treaters. As they’re getting ready, Eddie is feeling down about not celebrating the holiday with Christopher, who has said he’s done with trick-or-treating as it’s for kids, and we truly feel for Eddie as it’s clear he’s struggling with all the change and Christopher putting so much distance between them. 

Getting back on track, the house continues to decorate for the Halloween celebration at the firehouse for the kids which is when Buck arrives with a super realistic mummy he got from a prop house which he thinks will be perfect for the party. He sets the mummy up at the end of the firehouse’s haunted house but it freaks the kids out a bit too much, so Buck attempts to move the arms off the candy dish which is when he accidentally pulls off the left arm and discovers the prop mummy was actually real. 

Needless to say, the discovery forces them to close down the Halloween celebration as Athena arrives with the police to take in the body. 

The curse of Billy Boils

After shutting down the Halloween celebration at the firehouse, the 118 responds to a call involving a dad who had gotten his head stuck in a pumpkin. Turns out the dad got his head stuck trying to do “pumpkin head” for the kids like when they were little. The 118 team tries to use some lube to get the pumpkin off but bacteria and mold from the pumpkin create an allergic reaction that has caused the man’s face to swell which is why they can’t get the pumpkin off his head by simply pulling it off.

They end up using a saw to cut the pumpkin off and then suction out the seeds he was choking on, saving the man’s life. The man is understandably embarrassed, but Buck assures the dad they’ve seen people injured in dumber ways as he then slips and falls, hurting his shoulder. 

Buck is taken to the hospital for treatment and Tommy comes to visit him which is when Buck tells him that he’s convinced he’s been cursed by Billy Boils, aka the man whose skeleton he had brought to the firehouse. He tells Tommy about how it’s no coincidence that Buck hurt his left arm after pulling Billy’s left arm off. After being discharged, Buck goes down the rabbit hole learning more about Billy, and says he was a man not to be crossed, and that he always gets revenge. 

Tommy tells Buck not to worry and says there is no such thing as a curse, but the next morning Buck wakes up and finds his face covered in boils. They call Eddie and he assures Buck that curses aren’t real and that he’s likely just having an allergic reaction or that the boils are caused by stress, telling him that they’ll probably clear up before shift begins. However, when the shift begins, the boils have somehow gotten even worse. 

A Halloween emergency hits close to home for Hen (Does Denny die?)

After shift, Hen comes home and Karen is not happy at all when she informs her that she wasn’t able to get a personal day to take Halloween off. As she tells Karen, Bobby told her and Chimney that only one of them could take the day off so they both agreed to work noting it wouldn’t be fair to the other if one of them took the day off. Karen understandably isn’t happy about how Hen always misses the biggest moments in the kids’ lives. 

We then fast forward to Halloween night which indeed brings about a number of crazy calls that culminate with a call that hits particularly close to home for Hen. 

Annoyed with 911 dispatch not doing anything about the kids pranking him, first with a flaming bag of dog poop on the porch followed by the egging of his house, a school principal snaps and chases off the teens who egged his house in a fit of rage. His reckless driving ends up causing an accident as he crashes his car into a house, pinning a trick-or-treater under his car.

As the 118 arrives on the scene, Chimney is shocked to see Gia and Mara on the scene which is when they then realize that Denny is the trick-or-treater trapped by the car. Hen does everything she can to treat Denny as she panics, which makes complete sense as Denny is in really bad shape. As they begin to lose him, Hen thinks on the spot and does a field blood transfusion using Karen’s blood to buy him time as the rest of the team works on moving the car. 

Fortunately, Hen’s quick thinking saves Denny’s life as they’re able to get him into the ambulance and to the hospital in time. 

911 season 8 episode 5 ending explained

We learn that Denny gets to the hospital and his surgery goes well. As he’s recovering, Hen begins to apologize to Karen for not listening and taking the day off as she should have been there and, if she was, maybe none of this would have happened. That’s when Karen assures her that she was so glad she was at work as it meant she was there to help save Denny’s life. 

As Hen texts the group to let them know that Denny’s surgery went well, he tells Tommy who responds that it must be nice to have a crew like that behind him. This triggers a thought for Buck, who tells Tommy he knows how to break the curse. 

Buck goes to see the grave of Billy Boils and says he has every reason to hate him, but that perhaps it isn’t a curse but a cry for help as he was abandoned by his posse when he needed them most as it’s their people that make life worth living. 

As Buck gives a monologue, we see Chimmney and Maddy looking at photos from Halloween night of Gia trick-or-treating, Karen and Hen enjoying time together with the kids at home, and Athena getting through the girls at school in showing their classmates the dangers of doing stupid things on Halloween. 

The episode closes with Buck telling Billy that he’s no longer alone, as he’s part of his posse now, and that he hopes he can rest easy now that he’s finally been laid to rest… oh, and if he could break the curse that would be great too.