The premiere episode of Fox’s “9-1-1” will be all sorts of problems for the lead cast, especially for Angela Bassett’s Sergeant Athena Grant. When the female cop is not out hunting down bad guys or rescuing other people, she’ll be at home struggling to come to terms with the fact that her husband Michael (Rockmond Dunbar) has come out of the closet.

In a sneak peek at the all-new series, Grant is seen attacking her husband in their kitchen moments after she dismisses the chance to hold hands with him at the dinner table. “Don’t you touch me! How could you do this to me?” Grant yells while getting physical with her spouse in the preview.

“Athena is really going through a crisis in her marriage,” Bassett says of her character’s problem with her husband’s sexuality. “She’s not ready emotionally to deal with it.” In addition to grappling with Micheal’s coming out of the closet, Grant will also struggle with her kids’ issues, especially her teenage daughter’s rebellion. “Put the teenage girl thing on top of it and it makes for a hectic household.”

At work though, Grant does not show signs of wavering from her personal problems. She remains at the top of her game and is even regarded as an inspiration by her colleagues. “She’s very good at her job. She things on her feet. She garners a great deal of respect from her peers. She enjoys being out in the field,” Bassett says of her role.

Grant is just one of the three lead characters in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s latest team-up. “9-1-1’s” pilot episode will also introduce Connie Britton’s Abby Clark and Peter Krause’s Bobby Nash. The former is a 911 operator who is internally struggling with the fact that her mother is suffering with Alzheimer’s and she’s the only one who could look after her. As for Nash, he is the captain firefighter who is having a hard time staying sober.

The pilot episode, which is written by Murphy, Falchuk and co-creator/showrunner Tim Minear, will introduce the three main characters and their busy lives as first responders. The first episode wastes no time in featuring various emergencies that will be pretty challenging for Clark, Grant and Nash. On top of those, their personal problems will start to pile up when they are not busy responding to emergencies.

“Everybody is great at their jobs and terrible at home, or have problems at home that they struggle with. The problem of moments they can do, the problem of multiple moments is what they have a hard time with,” Falchuk told ET Online of the three leads. “What happens when something happens to somebody you care about? That’s going to come down the line. There’s one rule we had, which you see in the pilot: They don’t go past the emergency room doors. What happens when you do have to go inside and what’s inside is what’s important?”

“9-1-1” premieres Jan. 3, Wednesday, at 9 p.m. EST on Fox.

RELATED STORIES