At the end of 9-1-1 Season 3, Episode 15, Maddie and Josh had a decision to make. Their choice showed the humanity within the two of them.

Caution: There are spoilers for the ending of 9-1-1 Season 3, Episode 15. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can catch up on Hulu right now.

9-1-1 Season 3, Episode 15 picked up where the previous episode left us. We found out why the men were taking over Dispatch and how far they were willing to go. The episode also quickly picked up with Chimney figuring out why Maddie had told him she loved him.

Since she didn’t know if Chim had got the message or if anyone was coming to save them, Maddie and the rest of the Dispatchers had to take matters into their own hands. There was an attempt to pull the fire alarm, but that failed. If you thought the epi-pen that one of the Dispatchers had would come up, you’d be right.

Sure enough, Maddie grabbed the epi-pen and used it on one of the hostage-takers. However, something went wrong and the hostage-taker had no heart beat.

Now, many people would scream at the TV to let the guy die. After everything he did, is this really a man who deserves to live? Well, Maddie and Josh thought so, and both proved their humanity.

It would have weighed on them

Had the hostage-taker died, it would have weighed on Maddie, especially. As a former nurse and a 9-1-1 Dispatcher, she would have wanted to save as many people as possible. This includes someone hurting her.

We saw how she took the death of her husband. She killed him out of self-defense and that death weighed heavily on her heart. No matter how much he did to Maddie, she still couldn’t bring herself to want him dead.

While she would have wanted to hate the hostage-taker, she wouldn’t have been able to kill him. She only wanted to hurt him enough to get help.

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Death is the easy way out

Josh also wouldn’t have wanted Maddie to feel that weight. At the same time, he thought death was the easy way out. He makes it clear as he screamed at the hostage-taker “you don’t get to die.”

Death would certainly be easy. It’s the way out one of the hostage-takers opts for. Death by cop.

Life in jail is much harder. This is something Josh wanted the man who had attacked him to go through.

We got to see their humanities but also their idea of justice. Death isn’t the way.

9-1-1 Season 3 continues on Mondays at 8/7c on FOX.