Watch ‘9-1-1’ preview of Bobby’s tense reunion with his mom (exclusive)

Mama said there’d be days like this.

This week’s 9-1-1 is a family reunion, with Bobby (Peter Krause) unexpectedly reuniting with his estranged mother (Victor/Victoria and Clue star Leslie Ann Warren) and brother, Charlie (Sean O’Bryan, who actually had an unrelated small role in season 2 of 9-1-1: Lone Star!) — and Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive sneak peek below at their run-in amid chaos at a church.

“Well, we have a saying in the writer’s room ‘who got to eat last,’ and it feels like it’s been a while since Bobby’s really had a chance to eat,” 9-1-1 showrunner Tim Minear tells EW of this week’s focus on Krause’s fire captain. “We had established his mother and brother in a flashback episode last year, so I was just curious to know what she had been up to, what happened with her. Is she still alive? What she’s up to? So we get to meet her in this episode, and Bobby gets to kind of put some of his past to rest a little bit.”

Ahead of tonight’s season 8, episode 11, Minear also flags that viewers should read a lot into the fact that Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has gone through a hair transformation.

Episode 10 ended with Maddie escaping her kidnapper (Det. Amber Braeburn, played by Abigail Spencer) and then Buck (Oliver Stark) seeing Eddie (Ryan Guzman) off to Texas.

“It is brighter and it’s longer,” Minear says of Maddie’s coiffure, “which sort of indicates some time has passed. There’s nothing really that we’ve indicated for the audience, but for me the time jump is that last scene where Buck is helping Eddie move. Some time has passed there. And as far as the fallout from what Maddie went through, you’re going to see it in episode 12.”

As for how Buck is coping after Eddie’s move, Minear says this week’s episode will be an evolutionary one for Buck.

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“I think Buck did Eddie a favor by taking over his lease,” the showrunner says. “And I think what Buck discovers is that when you’re trying not to think about the person that you just lost, maybe moving into their house isn’t the best way to do it. So he has a little trouble kind of accepting the fact that Eddie is gone and the fact that he’s moving into Eddie’s house. It just kind of puts it in his face, and he has a little trouble with that.”

9-1-1 season 8, episode 11 airs Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.