9-1-1: Lone Star Episode 8
This is the episode I’ve been waiting for all season. 9-1-1: Lone Star finally has a 9-1-1 feel to it. Full of shocking moments and epic revelations, I couldn’t contain my excitement as everything unfolded.
Too Many Snakes
Not snakes on a plane, but snakes in a laundry basket. I’d probably lose my cool if I saw a snake coming out of a laundry basket in my child’s nursery through a webcam. Ladder 126 beat the parents of that child to the house only to find a rattler in the bedroom and no babysitter.
After learning the laundry room is in the basement, the team finds the babysitter covered in numerous snake bites and hordes of snakes surrounding her. A little creative use of fire extinguishers allowed the team to rescue her from the snake pit she found herself in.
Doctor Checkup
Owen discovers his tumor is shrinking at his appointment while also learning that his treatment protocol has been tested on dogs with lung cancer. Because of these trials on dogs, it has been made available to their human counterparts.
Some of these dogs are surrendered and stay at a boarding facility while getting their treatment. When Owen walks into the firehouse with a beautiful Bearnaise Mountain dog, it’s obvious he decided to give one of them home.
Doggie Love
T.K. is excited at first when Owen walks in with the dog, but as soon as he learns Buttercup also has lung cancer, he wants nothing to do with the dog. Buttercup is drawn to T.K even though he refuses to pay any attention to him.
When Owen confronts T.K. about not wanting anything to do with Buttercup, T.K. breaks down and confesses to his father that he doesn’t want to love anything else that will die. T.K. is afraid of Owen dying, and now he also will get to witness the loss of a dog.
Owen reminds T.K. that life isn’t guaranteed and that he could die from cancer, while on a call, or out of nowhere. We all have limited time, and we need to live life in the moment. T.K. caves in and finally give Buttercup the love he’d been begging for. It melted my heart to see T.K. bond with the dog finally.
Are there bodies?
Michelle’s story is ramping up and finally has me really intrigued. After the truck was pulled out of the ravine, I’ve been dying to know if they found any bodies inside. Of course, we don’t get to jump right into the information we all want to know.
Instead, we get a flashback to three years ago with Michelle and Iris at a bar for karaoke night. Michelle is too nervous about taking the stage, and the two keep on drinking until Michelle has calmed her nerves down enough to get up and sing. That point never happened.
When we make it back to the present day, we soon find out that there are remains of at least four individuals in and around the area of the truck as well as blood in the truck that has been sent for analysis.
Michelle is asked if she can identify any of the belonging found in the truck. She doesn’t recognize anything on the table, not even an old burner flip phone until she comes to a bracelet. It’s one that Iris’ dad gave her on her 14th birthday, and she never took it off.
The look on Michelle’s face says it all as this evidence confirms to her that her sister was indeed in the truck.
The truth revealed
Michelle is called back to the precinct to listen to 9-1-1 calls made from the burner phone found in the truck. Numerous calls were made from Iris and contained paranoid delusions of people following her and putting tracking devices in her crown. Those calls indicated she was most likely exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia.
Michelle flashes back to the memory of her sister and mom celebrating her dad’s birthday with Michelle after he died. Iris burst out in laughter at an inappropriate moment, and Michelle called her out for not acting like herself. Looking back at the memory, she could see that schizophrenia made sense.
The results of the blood found in the truck came back as a positive match to Iris. While it will still take time for the bones to be identified, the blood and Iris’ bracelet is enough to know the mystery of her disappearance has been solved.
The 9-1-1 Call Center does Exist
One of the best parts of this episode was seeing the inside of the 9-1-1 call center for more than 5 seconds. Grace takes a call from a man who is worried about a break-in at his house. His wife is sleeping in the back room, and he doesn’t know how to protect her.
Since he has a knife, he decides to go after the intruders and hangs up the phone. Grace hasn’t obtained his address yet and asks her boss if they can get approval to get his cell phone billing information.
As soon as they have the address, the police rush to the house. What they find at the house isn’t a break in but his wife, Amy, who is frantically looking for her husband. It turns out that Bruce has dementia and wandered away from the house.
So Many Break-Ins
The 9-1-1 dispatcher next to Grace is fielding a call about a break-in. Grace quickly gets the address of the call and asks Amy if that address means anything to her. She and her husband lived at that house 15 years prior.
The family who currently lives in the house barricaded themselves in the back room while waiting for help to arrive. Bruce kept trying to break into the room, thinking his wife was trapped in there. Grace is able to convince Bruce that he isn’t at his house but at the home he used to live in.
When he realizes what he did, he follows Grace’s directions and walks out of the house with his hands up to his wife, waiting with police officers.
I wanted to do a happy dance when we actually got to witness a 9-1-1 call from the dispatcher’s perspective. We got to see more than just Grace answering a call. It was nice to see the interaction between them and this critical part of our first responder system.
It’s not over yet
Just when things start to wind down, we are in for a few more surprises. The father in the house collapses after the events of the break-in. Thankfully both the 126 and EMS have arrived on site. While the mom is doing CPR on her husband, T.K. gets ready to knock down the door to the bedroom.
As soon as the door is broken, a gunshot goes off. The little boy picked up the gun that his dad was holding and shot when the door was broken, thinking someone was going to hurt them.
T.K. collapses in the hallway with a gunshot wound to the chest, and all attention turns to him to save his life.
Is T.K. dead?
At the hospital, the entire crew is in the waiting room while Owen is in with T.K. They were able to stop the bleeding and repair the damage, but T.K.’s life hangs in the balance. At this point, it is unknown if T.K. will wake up and if there will be brain damage.
Owen begs T.K. to squeeze his hand but is met with no response. Even Carlos is unable to get through to T.K. Buttercup lays curled up on T.K.’s bed while everyone waits to find out his fate.
This was an ending I was not expecting. I usually pride myself in catching the foreshadowing in storylines, but this was a surprise. Because they were able to get me, it made me enjoy this episode even more. Now I can’t wait to see how T.K. will recover, because come on, he has to recover. I will be waiting with bated breath for Monday to come around.
But wait there’s more
Michelle is called to the homeless encampment she volunteers at. One of her patients has collapsed, and his life was hanging in the balance as Michelle rushes to save him. Once he is loaded on the gurney, Michelle grabs his daughter and loads her into the ambulance with him as they head to the hospital.
It’s at that moment we get a glimpse of some of the people living in the encampment. This includes a woman who obviously recognizes Michelle. Sitting inside a tent is none other than Michelle’s sister Iris.
I jumped with glee when we got a close up of her face. Ever since we knew there was a woman that needed to be seen in the encampment that we never got around to actually meeting, I had a gut feeling it was Iris.
Last week when they pulled up the truck, I thought they wouldn’t find any bodies—the first sign of doubt I had when the blood matched Iris from the truck.
This is 9-1-1
For the first time since we met Michelle, I’m actually interested in her story and how we are going to reconnect with Iris. This episode was everything I needed for this to feel like 9-1-1.
I was surprised multiple times this week, and all aspects of the episode were enjoyable to watch. We were able to see the police officers, 9-1-1 dispatchers, as well as Ladder 126 in action this week. It was a completely rounded story and held up to everything 9-1-1 has become.
Maybe Lone Star has finally found its groove, and it’s only uphill from here. I hope next week is just as exciting and gets my blood pumping. I can’t wait for Monday night and to see where we are going on this journey.
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