9-1-1: Lone Star Is Ending and There Is One Unavoidable and Devastating Plot Point
I'm fine. It's all fine.
This is it, kids. Our messy, firefighting stallion Owen Strand is going to ride into the figurative sunset.
News broke that Fox's 9-1-1: Lone Star, the spinoff of Ryan Murphy's 9-1-1 (now on ABC), was ending with its upcoming fifth season. Rumors had been rampant for months after regular cast member Sierra McClain announced she wouldn't be returning for the fifth season ahead of its production. (No Grace! Grace, no!) Other cast members also hinted that they were maybe making some other plans that did not involve wearing turnout gear. And guest star Robyn Lively posted on Instagram about being part of the "final season" before taking the post down.
But it was star and executive producer Rob Lowe who seemed to fuel the fire (wokka wokka) when he told Variety in August: "We all went into it pretty much knowing that it was going to be the last season, so that affected everything we did.” So, there was that.
And now, it's over. Or, at least, it's going to be over early next year, when the final episode airs.
This show means a lot to me -- as a fan and as a writer. I tuned in because the original 9-1-1 was so off-the-wall insane. It was like a procedural friend with really kinky benefits. And I will watch Rob Lowe do pretty much anything, so I was doubly on board for a spinoff that put that guy in a firefighter uniform. (To say nothing of actual goddess Gina Torres, who joined in the second season when equally goddess-like Liv Tyler left the show. Good heavens, what an aggressively gorgeous cast this show had.)
But it was so much more. I loved each and every character for different reasons. The storytelling was wild and unpredictable. The acting was spectacular all around. Every single one of these people made me laugh and cry for so many reasons. They became my kids. I adored them. Now they get to be great in other things, and I couldn't be more excited for their individual success.
I'm also glad that my favorite show won't languish and drag itself through too many seasons. It's a bummer when great shows end, but it bugs me more when shows last too long and the quality is diminished with every year. Stories end up recycled or veer towards the cheap and hacky. Actors and writers get bored, and the characters suffer for it. Can it go well? Sure! But more often than not, it's like, "Is this still happening? Really?" (Seriously, anthologies are the way to go. Keep your actors and writers and crews employed, do a different show every year.)
Since Rob Lowe is both the EP and the star, there was some talk that he could stay on and a whole new crew could come aboard. This would have sucked. No one wants 9-1-1: The New Class. Absolutely no one. As much as I want to see Owen Strand continue his self-destructive need to rescue people while he plumbs the depths of his own beautifully mangled psyche, I'd rather see his story wrap up in a really rewarding way. No more failed romances. No more fistfights with townsfolk. But this brings me to the only part of the end of 9-1-1: Lone Star that I'm truly not emotionally wanting to happen -- there is no way in hell Owen Strand is surviving this show.
Owen's story has always been how he has been weirdly able to avoid dying while he's wholly unable to save the people he loves. He survived September 11th, but he lost his whole firehouse. He got cancer, just like so many others who went back to the site, but he beat it. So many others still died. His ex-wife Gwyn, whom he still loved, almost came back to him, only to go back to New York -- where she was killed. When Owen was an adolescent, he couldn't save his little brother Tyler from drowning. That grief tore apart his family, and he lived his life thinking his own father blamed him for what happened. Once he realized that wasn't true, his father died. All this, plus his only son TK is an addict and a first responder who is prone to comas caused by danger -- always almost dying.
It gets worse. Chad Lowe played Robert Strand, Owen's half-brother he didn't even know existed. They finally met when the father they shared was reaching the end of his life. Last season, Robert revealed to Owen that he had a degenerative disease and wanted Owen to "help [him] die." We don't know that whole story yet -- Rob Lowe hinted that there's more coming on that in this final season -- but there's nothing happy about it! Needless to say, Robert Strand is also dead.
In addition to 9/11 and the cancer it caused, Owen Strand also survived a building collapse in Season 3 and a poisoning in Season 4. He's had several guns pointed at him and incurred the wrath of a white separatist biker gang. The running joke is that he can't be killed. It's a really funny joke! Guess what the punchline is?
So, yeah -- this story doesn't end well for Owen Strand. It can't. Especially knowing showrunner Tim Minear, who knows exactly how to turn the knife when it comes to breaking our hearts in the name of making his characters earn their stories. Tim Minear doesn't just turn the knife, he gives you aspirin before he plunges that knife to make sure you bleed more. He'll also sit on you while turning that knife, then maybe smack you in the face a few times to wake you up and make sure you're living through all of this.
9-1-1: Lone Star -- and the very doomed and beautiful Owen Strand -- will live on even after the book closes. We can be grateful for a nice, tight, five-season binge whenever we want on Hulu. And there's always fanfiction. (I might have written some.) (I might write more.)