That was a really good episode of 9-1-1 -- excellent pacing, the right 9-1-1 style balance between heartwrenching and feel good, and one hell of a cliffhanger. Long reaction post is long:
Spoilery for 3x17: I was so relieved that the incident between Athena and the serial rapist didn't include sexual violence. It would have been easy to go there, even just verbal threats; but I think the wordless audio of the incident was perfectly horrifying. I did like at the end how May insisted that Athena be in her prom photos, and that she was proud of her mom for doing her job; it felt just slightly bitter because of how thoroughly May went after Athena and Athena's job for a sensationalized college essay. And I mean -- that felt right, teenagers are absolutely that fickle and emotionally variable, but my grown-ass adult self was side-eyeing May's earnestness like "Oh *now^ you find value in what your mother does and the pride Athena has in her work." Like it took Athena being beat to shit and getting a brilliant nearly single-handed collar on a violent rapist that wasn't on anyone's radar for May to be circumspect about her mom's work. Too real, lol.
As for the cliffhanger, I didn't realize until I saw Connie Britton's name on the credit scrawl that Abbie was returning *this season*, for more than a cameo -- I thought Abbie was slated to return *next* season, so this was a delight. Abbie is, I believe, my favorite character that Connie Britton has ever played, which is saying something because I have watched things specifically because she was acting in them!
Spoiler that was in the promo for the finale: I was DELIGHTED by the line drop in the trailer: "I'm looking for my fiancé!"
I started writing...a really long thing about Buck's relationships tied my reaction to the above promo, but it started to get rambly, so I dumped it in notepad to noodle at later for a future post.