Spoiler alert! This story contains spoilers for the March 28 episode of 9-1-1: Lone Star, “Sellouts.” Make sure you’re caught up before you continue reading.
Anybody who’s watched 9-1-1: Lone Star for any amount of time knows that Owen Strand doesn’t always have the best of luck with women. This season he already lost a potential love interest, when FBI agent Rose Casey was killed in an explosion, and last season he and got into a bunch of trouble with Catherine Harper, when he first accused her of having an AARP fetish before the couple was stalked by a serial killer. With the fire captain getting involved with a new love interest in “Sellouts,” it seems all but guaranteed for things to fly off the rails, and co-creator Tim Minear confirmed as much.
Owen (Rob Lowe) met Kendra Harrington (Michaela McManus) at a cancer fundraiser, where he mistook her for a bartender. She was actually a billionaire heiress, but either way, things got flirty and they quickly ended up back at his place. Tim Minear spoke to EW about what’s to come, confirming that there’s “going to be a little bit more” to Kendra that we’ll discover in episodes to come. He said:
It's sort of a Murdaugh-like family. And Owen is going to enter that world and see that sometimes there's a seamy underbelly of the glitzy, ritzy exterior of the super-rich.
There’s certainly never a dull moment on 9-1-1: Lone Star, especially if it has to do with Owen and his love life. Even before we learn more about Kendra and her family’s seedy underbelly — and the captain becomes what Tim Minear called “blue collar arm candy for this kind of socialite” — the relationship started off with a classic Strand misunderstanding.
After their steamy hookup, Kendra snuck out early, leaving behind a card and a check for $100,000. His fellow firefighters were all too amused with the idea of the captain in an American Gigolo situation, but that got easier to believe when she sent him another $40K after their second date. Of course in the end, she clarified that the money was a donation to charity. The co-creator said they had fun with that story, and it sounds like things are going to get exciting for Owen as he navigates this new world. Minear continued:
As soon as I saw Michaela and Rob together.... They have such great chemistry, they look great together, and she's funny. She has a serious presence onscreen, but she's fun, and so I wanted Owen to kind of enter into a world that he wasn't used to, which is this world of wealth. And, hilariously, he thinks she might be paying him for sex, which just made us all laugh.
As always I can’t wait to see what Owen gets himself into next, and I’m interested to see if Kendra will be his date to that Tarlos wedding that hopefully is just around the corner! 9-1-1: Lone Star will return at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, April 4, on Fox. Be sure to check out our 2023 TV schedule to see what other premieres are coming soon.
