Okay, ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’s Asteroid Event Could Be Great
The new year brings a harrowing new mega-disaster for Owen Strand (Rob Lowe) and Firehouse 126 to battle when 9-1-1: Lone Star kicks off its three-part series finale in January. While the impending cataclysm may never eclipse the amusing lunacy of a Sharknado-like invasion of killer bees in the mothership, 9-1-1, the notion of Strand and his team fighting an asteroid heading for Earth is too ridiculous to avoid.
Adding to the intrigue, the final three episodes come almost two months after Season 5, Episode 9, “Fall From Grace,” dramatically bridging the insufferable suspense as the popular 9-1-1 spinoff concludes. For a network procedural meant to appeal to a broad audience, Lone Star is at its best when it goes full-on crazy with wildly outlandish storylines and plot points that feel ripped right out of a throwback B-movie. By all accounts, Lone Star is saving its best for last.
What Is ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ About?
9-1-1: Lone Star is a popular procedural spinoff of 9-1-1 created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Flachuk, and Tim Minear. Set in Austin, Texas (the Lone Star State), the plot revolves around New York transplant Owen Strand (Lowe), who moves from the Big Apple to Austin with his drug-addled son, Tyler Kennedy (Ronin Rubinstein), and becomes Captain of Firehouse 126. Following his heroic efforts saving lives in the attacks on 9/11, Owen contracts lung cancer that informs his decisions at and off work.
As Captain Strand establishes his unit and adjusts to his new surroundings, he meets several dedicated emergency responders and employees who become close friends and colleagues. They include EMS Captain Michelle Blake (Liv Tyler), intrepid firefighter Judd Ryder (Jim Patrick), Judd’s wife and 9-1-1 operator Grace Ryder (Sierra McClain), paramedic Marjan Marwani (Natacha Karam), firefighter Paul Strickland (Brian Michael Smith), TK’s partner Carlos Reyes (Rafael L. Silva), and countless supporting characters who make Lone Star a compelling ensemble drama.
The best way to accommodate such a large ensemble cast is to create the largest disaster possible, allowing each main and side character to showcase their dutiful responsibilities. The more extreme, the better. Knowing this, Lone Star continues to outdo its season finales with one epic cataclysmic event after another, with the latest teased in the fifth mid-season trailer.
‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ Finale’s Air Time & Premise
As seen in the pitch-perfect trailer, Lone Star is poised to go out on a literal bang. The teaser depicts a fiery three-part finale airing between January 20 and February 3, 2025. In the clip, Captain Strand and Firehouse 126 receive an emergency alert on their devices, claiming an asteroid is headed straight for Austin, Texas, making an impact in approximately one hour. Facing a real-time ticking clock scenario, Strand and his team must prevent the asteroid from causing as much damage as possible while assuaging the panic-stricken citizens.
“So maybe it is the end of the world,” Strand morbidly jokes before mobilizing Firehouse 126 for an emergency response. The clip also depicts the asteroid blasting through the atmosphere and racing toward Earth, which causes chaos and pandemonium in the streets as locals rush for cover. As a plan is conjured, the emergency responders must deduce whether the asteroid will “splinter into a million tiny pieces or become a statewide extinction event.”
Regardless of how much damage the asteroid will deliver, the event is the perfect way to conclude 9-1-1: Lone Star. Not only does it one-up itself by giving fans the most unsettling existential threat of any season finale, but it also delivers exactly what fans have come to know and love about the show: over-the-top absurdity. As one character mentions in the teaser, “Anyone else getting End of Days vibes?” The overt reference to the so-bad-it’s-good Schwarzenegger movie speaks volumes about what fans want and what the writers are willing to grant.
Why ‘Lone Star’s Asteroid Event Is the Perfect Send-off
Lone Star has been building up to its epic asteroid finale event since the beginning. Season 1’s finale found Austin under siege from a solar storm, forcing each character to use their professional specialties in disparate storylines. One such plot involved Grace receiving a call from an ill astronaut from the International Space Station and successfully linking him with his family to say farewell.
In Season 2, Austin was buried by a dust storm, forcing the members of the decommissioned Firehouse 126 to work independently. This enabled the characters to delegate different tasks and give each member their own time to shine in the popular TV procedural. The trend continued in the Season 3 finale when Judd gets struck under a fallen building, triggering Strand’s 9/11 PTSD.
Of course, it’s impossible to forget the silly yet highly amusing “Bee-Nado” 9-1-1 opener that launched Season 8. Delivering exactly what fans wanted, the procedural leaned into its ludicrous SyFy Channel stylings and made no apologies for how crazy and outlandish the action became. Fans embraced the B-movie aesthetics and reveled in the sheer silliness of the improbable plot. The more ridiculous, the better the response.
Therefore, nothing could be greater or more enthralling than watching Captain Strand and his team work out the interpersonal drama as a scorching asteroid races toward Earth when Lone Star concludes in February. After prepping audiences since season 1 with its devastating storms and causing a stir with 9-1-1‘s “Bee-Nado” event, it’s only right to go out with a real bang and bombard audiences with one final countdown when Lone Star says goodbye on February 3, 2025. 9-1-1: Lone Star is available to stream on Hulu.
