9-1-1: Lone Star Ends Its 5-Season Run with an Asteroid, a Nuclear Scare and a Nice, Tidy Bow: ‘126 Forever’

This post contains spoilers from the series finale of Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star.

Firetrucks with sirens blaring and whizzing by while watching the series finale of 9-1-1: Lone Star might seem too perfect. But, then again, so was the series finale of the Fox series.

The season 5 ender picked up right where the penultimate episode left off, with the cast bracing for impact as a massive asteroid barrelled towards Austin, Texas. It hit alright, but, for the sake of what was shown in the episode, with minimal casualties.

It did, however, cause some damage to a nuclear reactor at a local university. So once Captain Owen Strand (Rob Lowe) was able to reach the 9-1-1 call center — cell towers were down and they were functioning on a generator but without service — and hear about the possible fallout, he and the 126 headed towards the school.

And they had one of their best medics along for the ride! Tommy Vega (Gina Torres) didn’t actually die at the end of the last episode, and the asteroid’s arrival woke her up. Despite her fatal cancer prognosis, “I can stand, and if I can stand, I can help,” she told the ghost of her dead husband Charles (Derek Webster).

When the team arrived at the school they had 10 minutes until “total meltdown” but first needed to find Dr. Chalmers, who knew where the “scram button” was to shut down the nuclear reactor. Eventually, they find him nearly unconscious on the floor in a hallway with a brain bleed. It looked like there was nothing the team could do; the man needed an O.R.

But Tommy won’t give up that easily, and she had nothing to lose. She asked Mateo Chavez (Julian Works) bring her a drill. Nancy Gillian (Brianna Baker) reminded her that performing a craniotomy is illegal and “if, no, when this man dies” Tommy would be charged with manslaughter. Tommy was unphased: A manslaughter charge sure beats a nuclear explosion, and Tommy’s health was fading fast.

The team managed to get the instructions from the professor and make their way to the nuclear reactor. Time was ticking by, and the reactor — along with everything near it — was heating up. When Strand, Mateo, Judd Ryder (Jim Parrack), Marjan Marwani (Natacha Karam) and Paul Strickland (Brian Michael Smith) reached the area, an explosion sent them falling several stories and badly injured.

With only three minutes to go, Strand reminded the team, “Remember your training, the way to compress each others wounds. Nobody bleeds out!” as he crawled his way towards the control room and the scram button.

Time was ticking by and the team was struggling. “I don’t know how much longer I can go,” Mateo said. Judd wasn’t having it: “Hey, don’t y’all do that. Don’t do that. C’mon. C’mon. 126, let’s dig deep. Do it for the people that you love, and I don’t mean outside this room. I’m talking about the people that you love inside this room, right here and now, OK? I love each and every one of y’all like you’re my own brothers and sisters. I love you more than I love my own brothers. Now hang on. C’mon.”

After “I love yous” all around, Marjan declared “126 forever.”

And with 10 seconds to go, Strand made it to the button, and heroically hit it with less than a second to go. Paramedics rushed in to help the critically injured members of the 126, and the man that found Strand looked devastated as he took the captain’s pulse.

But he was fine! Of course he was fine! Right?

Well, with a five-month time jump and a few check-ins with characters, they were certainly talking about Strand like he was gone. But, as was already going to be the case pre-asteroid, he was gone… from Austin. He’d taken the job of Chief of Police back in New York City.

Which meant there were still a few loose ends to tie up — and they all sure made a lovely bow.

Tommy’s tumors turned out to be swollen while they were shrinking, and she’s now officially in remission and heading back to work. Marjan is pregnant with her first baby with new husband Joe, and Paul is thrilled for them. Mateo appeared in court for his assault charge which was possibly going to get him deported — but his heroics and a Strand-inspired speech led her to fast-track his citizenship.

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TK Strand (Ronan Rubenstein) is no longer working at the 126, which meant he and Carlos Reyes (Rafael Silva) were able to adopt TK’s half-brother Jonah. Judd was named the new Captain of the 126, and his daughter visited the firehouse to see him step into the job. She even asked about the photos of all the men on the wall, all of Judd’s fallen comrades from the disaster in the series premiere.

In the final moments of the series, Strand sits in a beautiful, brick-walled office and looks at his helmets from Austin and his firehouse during Sept. 11. And then it’s back to work for him: There are many more disasters and many more citizens to rescue.