9-1-1: Lone Star Episode 4
Tornadoes. What more can I say but we’ve got tornadoes. The end of episode 3 left us in wonder as a woman was driving right towards a tornado barreling down the street. Of course, it would be too nice to let us jump in right where the action stopped last week so we have to wait to learn her fate. We eventually get to see her hanging upside down in her car and the top of an ally. That’s right, several stories up in the air, hanging upside down. I couldn’t imagine how I’d react if that was me,
When three tornadoes strike the Austin area, you better believe all first responders are going to be needed. We get to see Mateo in his probie status. (I personally enjoyed this because my brother-in-law just finished his probationary year as a firefighter and that hazing process can be rough.)
Marjan is her typical bad ass self and jumps in first to be the center of all the action.
Still a secret…
Owen is continuing his chemo treatment but still keeping his diagnosis to himself. That obviously can’t last long with the side effects he’s facing, particularly all the vomiting he’s been doing. Judd keeps encouraging him to let T.K. know but Owen isn’t ready to share. Even when Judd tries to get Owen to relate to a father who died on a scene earlier, Owen still doesn’t want to let his guard down.
It isn’t until T.K. finds his anti-nausea meds that Owen is forced to come clean. T.K. believes his dad kept it from him, thinking he wasn’t strong enough when in reality Owen admits it’s his own fragility that he can’t handle.
Hey Mom!
We meet Michelle’s mother this week and she appears to be a really fun lady. She wants Michelle to get out and enjoy life and date a little. Michelle is too wrapped up in following the leads in her sister’s disappearance that she won’t allow herself to just live life. Michelle asks her mom to go through Iris’ things in the shed out back but her mom wants her to leave the past in the past.
It isn’t until the tornado has passed through and everything is tossed about in the backyard and the shed remains standing, that her mom caves in and asks Michelle to go through the shed together. It is when they are looking through a photo album that they see a picture of Iris sitting in the bed of a blue truck and they now have something new to follow.
Another shot?
Judd is struggling with a crisis of faith and it it’s leaving him and Grace in a difficult place. Judd doesn’t want anything to do with church and God after all of his men died in the explosion. He feels like God abandoned them and doesn’t want anything to do him.
Grace wants him to come back to Bible study or at least church on Sundays. After his shift attending to so many injured and in need of rescue after the tornado, Judd makes the decision to find his wife at the church. He isn’t ready to fully jump back into things but he is willing to go to church with his wife again.
The spotlight
Marjan and Paul spend most of their shift trying to be the center of the next viral moment. With all of their hard work and leaving Mateo to do all the grunt work they don’t manage to get captured on TV again. Mateo on the other hand is filmed handing out water and makes the news showing how the firefighters were helping the community.
Some Thoughts…
This episode was a lot of fun and I enjoy getting to see the action responding to a natural disaster. I especially enjoyed all the tasks they had Mateo doing and the comradery that is in a firehouse. I now have a favorite firefighter in Marjan.
Full disclosure, I loved watching Natacha Karam in The Brave. Marjan is really fun to watch on TV because she always gets to be in the center of all the fun moments. I wish I could repel down a building to a rescue. Her one liners are hilarious and she brings a lot of joy to the scenes. I wasn’t expecting her to be my favorite but after 4 episodes, I have to say she’s stealing the show. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her playing a bigger and bigger role and the series continues.
But wait, there’s more…
One thing I have been struggling with is how different this show is from 9-1-1. For a spinoff show, I’m not able to relate much back to the parent show except that they both have to do with first responders.
9-1-1 has a great mixture of firefighters, police officers, and 9-1-1 operators. I almost laughed when we had the short scene in the 9-1-1 dispatch center with the operators making a plan for tackling the incoming calls. It felt like a random scene thrown in to show they have an operating center. Carlos also has been playing such a minor role as a police officer. He’s mainly been there as the voice of reason for Michelle and a potential love interest for T.K.
Everything has been revolving around Ladder 126 and the firefighters. I’m not against the show focusing on them and those characters, but then call the show Ladder 126 or Austin Fire (probably couldn’t use the latter). I’m just not getting the same vibe as 9-1-1 and if you are a spin-off, you should still carry the heart of the original. Since I love 9-1-1 so much, I’ve been struggling with this aspect the last few weeks. On its own 9-1-1 Lone Star is great but as a spin-off it falls terribly short in my book.
Hmm…
I’m also very confused on EMS and the firefighters sharing a station. From everything I can see so far in the series, Michelle and her team are Paramedics and not EMS firefighters. We didn’t see her at the firehouse when they were restoring it in episode 1. Where was her team during that process? If she was going to be working with Captain Strand and Ladder 126 so much, I’m pretty sure their introduction wouldn’t have been out on a call.
From the information I was able to gather it looks like Austin has some EMS Stations, Fire Stations, as well as some Fire/EMS stations. Once again this brings me back to the beginning of this series and how it was never mentioned that Ladder 126 was going to be a Fire/EMS station. It just feels like an odd shift that hasn’t been explained well.
As I’ve mention in previous reviews, the medical aspect has seemed a bit unrealistic. I love the grab your attention, haven’t seen that before moments but if you’re gonna do something crazy could you at least make it a bit more accurate? With a show as high profiled as 9-1-1 Lone Star, they have to be able to afford to hire experts to be on set and help in the writers room. I didn’t notice anything too unrealistic this last episode but then again there wasn’t a lot of medical drama this week.
I still like it…
Now with all the negative aspects I bring to light, I do have to say that I am enjoying this show. It’s interesting and I love the Texas vibe. There aren’t very many shows based off of Texas and it makes it a little more fun. There is a lot of culture and life in Texas and with Austin booming there is the big city aspect they can play off of as well. It’s been great to see the city itself play a role in the series.
We’ve had corn silos, food eating contests, peppers, and back yard cooking. In fact, a lot of the Texas aspect revolves around food. I think we might be missing out on something for those of us who aren’t luck enough to live in the lone star state.
Writing in a firefighting crew that mostly is from out of state was a genius idea. We get to see Texas trhough their eyes and the way their home states shaped them. It also really helps as an audience that they can easily explain some Texasisms to us and they share them with the transplants.
I have high hopes for 9-1-1 Lone Star and I believe this show is moving in the right direction. I’ve been loving every episode more than the previous and can’t wait to see where these storylines take us. Don’t forget to tune in on Monday to catch episode 5 and witness Ladder 126 meet “firefighters” of another kind.
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