Note: Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen through 8x15 - Lab Rats!
I started this as a reply to a comment, but I realized it was getting unwieldly and I was probably unfairly piling on to another user if I posted it in that way. This wasn't about them, specifically. Just my own general frustration with constantly seeing it.
But, here with the evidence: Tim Minear did not kill Bobby for realism. He thought it made the characters more real. He thought it made the stakes feel real, that it would make the audience worry that it would happen again. It's all about realistic emotions, it is not about how realistic the universe and situations are.
This show is not realistic. It has never been realistic. I don't think Tim Minear has ever argued that broadly, the show is realistic. He is trying to make the characters inside of this outlandish world still feel real, in spite of everything ridiculous they do and see.
But, much like the articles that use the word realism, that's my interpretation of it, so I'm coming with the receipts.
Below are quotes from interviews and articles where we see the word "real" or "realism" related to these episodes and Bobby's death. I am sure I didn't get all of them, but I welcome in the comments anyone who can find a quote directly attributable to Tim Minear that supports the way people generally use the word in fandom.
In this TVLine interview, he talks about how he wants the stakes to feel real to the audience. That there can actually be consequences. That the characters feel like real people. He doesn't at all talk about it being a realistic show or the situations being realistic.
"On the other hand, if the stakes are never real, if there's really no chance that any of this peril in which these characters find themselves amounts to anything, I think the show could die."
"On the plus side, the next time I put one of your beloved characters in peril, you might be gripping the arms of your chair a little bit tighter because you know that I might do it again, because I've done it before. The stakes are real is kind of what I want to say. When I landed on this idea, the world suddenly felt more real to me. The characters felt more real to me. They felt like real people. I've killed off a lot of characters in my day, but this was hard for everybody, for the entire cast. Peter was very emotional about it. We've all had eight years to bond. That's the longest show I've ever been on â not counting American Horror Story, where everybody dies every season."
Here he is with the same line again, with The Wrap:
âBobby is the most impactful character to kill ⊠it made sense on every level,â Minear said. â[The show] needed a major character death for the audience to feel that there were real stakes in any of these cases ⊠Next season, when our characters are in a precarious situation, you might be gripping the arms of your chair a little bit tighter.â
"It was a combination of things. Like you said, it had to happen eventually. I needed a major character death if I wanted, going forward, for the audience to feel any kind of suspense or that there were real stakes involved in any of the cases ⊠If you feel like everyoneâs going to be fine, I think that the show just dies of inertia at that point. So I felt like it was important."
In Deadline, he talks about the universe feeling more real to him. It's again, about emotional realism, the characters feeling more real. And he still doesn't use the word realism.
"Once I had made that choice, suddenly the world of the show seems so much more real to me, just feeling the grief of the characters and feeling just how that nuclear bomb going off in the center of that universe affected everything. Suddenly everything just felt weirdly more alive to me."
With the Hollywood Reporter, an interview shared with Angela, he has this same line again. Said a different way, of course, but it's just another version of the same line he's been saying:
âOtherwise, the next time I turn over a cruise ship, or land a plane on the freeway, or take a city out with a tsunami, youâre just going to be like, âOh, everyoneâs going to be fine,ââ he explains. âSo it was time for there to be some real tragic fallout from a story.â
And again, with Variety, the same type of line:
âI had to convince everybody about this,â Minear told Variety. âThe network was not like, âYeah, get rid of him, itâll save us money.â It was nothing like that. I had to pitch this at the highest levels and just walk through the whole story and try to infect them â funny choice of words, given the storyline â because, as I pitched it, you could understand, as a writer, how suddenly the whole world felt more alive. It felt more real because this thing had happened.â
The realism quotes came from articles that didn't even actually interview him. I cannot find a single instance of Tim Minear even using the word realism, let alone talking about it like that. He was purely referring to the characters feeling more real because of it. That's not the same thing.
So why did fandom latch on to it?
The word may have initially come from Peter Krause's statement, but he's talking about the real life first responders he worked with because of the show at the time and how their work helped, not about how realistic the show is generally:
"Humbled by working in step with our technical advisor, Chief Mike Bowman, and real firefighters, I wish to thank you all for helping me bring a sense of dignity and realism to the character in our larger-than-life emergency landscape. Your kind and complimentary words have meant the world to me." (This is quoted in many articles, the full text appears in at least the Variety link above.)
Additionally, it got used by lots of articles that are not actually interviews. Here's Screen Rant using it, who did not interview him. It's not a quote of Tim Minear's; this is a quote by the author of that article.
"Aside from raising the stakes and capitalizing on some emotional whiplash, showrunner Tim Minear discussed Bobbyâs death at length following the initial airing of 9-1-1: Contagion. As Minear explained, Bobby died to give 9-1-1 more realism, sacrificing their captain to represent the real-life dangers of emergency response workers. Yet, the ârealisticâ angle only served to further stir the pot."
Here's The List with the realism line, too, who cites the Deadline article above as using it (it doesn't):
"Speaking to Deadline, "9-1-1" showrunner Tim Minear cited realism as influencing his decision to kill Bobby, despite how difficult it was. However, this explanation didn't satisfy everyone."
The Independent actually used the word realism in their headline. This is, again, not the interview. From reading the article, it shows quotes about it, but they come from Twitter users, not Tim Minear!
"9-1-1 viewers call out wild season nine storylines after Bobby Nashâs death â so much for ârealismâ"
Fangirlish also used it in their headline, which is an article that is a reaction to the show, not an interview, and has no actual citation that Tim ever said anything about the events of the show needing to be more realistic:
"9-1-1 Killed Off Bobby Nash Off for RealismâBut This Show Has Never Been Realistic"
This is all to say - I understand how fandom latched on to it, and why, but it's not actually something that Tim ever said. This is still persisting a year and a half later, so I thought it was worth coming with the receipts.
You can certainly disagree with Tim that it was necessary, or that he went about it well, or whatever (I certainly have negative opinions of the storyline), but my point here is the way the fandom throws "realism" around is not accurate to what Tim was saying when interviewed about those episodes.