‘9-1-1: Lone Star’: Rob Lowe on Playing Owen Again & Show Ending ‘Still in Its Prime’

Rob Lowe as Owen — '9-1-1: Lone Star' Series Finale
Spoiler Alert
Kevin Estrada / FOX

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR for the 9-1-1: Lone Star series finale “Homecoming.”]

9-1-1: Lone Star brings Owen (Rob Lowe) full circle in the series finale — but not without leaving audiences to wonder if he might have died trying to shut off a nuclear reactor!

The asteroid was just the beginning, and it falls on the 126 to shut down a nuclear reactor with a meltdown imminent. Everyone is injured as a result of the cooling tank rupturing, but no one more than Owen, who still manages to save the day. A five-month time jump reveals that he survives — and does move to New York to take the chief job.

Below, Lowe reflects on Owen’s journey, shares if he’d reprise his role in the future, and more. (Plus, read what would’ve happened next with co-showrunner Rashad Raisani here and check out our First Response aftershow for the finale here.)

This is a nice full circle story for Owen, bringing him back to New York, and there was that attempt to make us think that he might’ve died. Talk about having that be his ending and finale story.

Rob Lowe: Well, one of the great things storytelling wise about this world is unfortunately for real first responders, the reality of their lives are that at any given moment, believably and realistically, something could happen to them. So we always have that at our storytelling fingertips, and we all sort of collectively felt that that was a button we should push in the finale, but not fully. It is sad enough to mourn a show going out. It’s still in its prime. Let’s not also mourn the loss of characters that people love.

Rob Lowe as Owen — '9-1-1: Lone Star' Series Finale "Homecoming"

Kevin Estrada/FOX

But Owen was ready to die — he was severely injured when he went to push that button. 

These people go to work every day knowing that this could be the day that they don’t come home. So it’s always been one of the great honors of playing this character. And also one of the great — talk about a great thing to have in your hip pocket as an actor for subtext. There’s a lot of roles out there where you’ve got to manufacture all of these amazing subtextual tortures and intrigues and emotional turmoil within you. This is part and parcel for the job. This could be your last day with your loved ones and to have that baked into the character, all these characters, every day was one of the great things about playing the character.

Talk about filming the finale, especially the scenes at the reactor because you were separated from everyone else.

Yeah, I think one of the things that Tim Minear and Rashad [Raisani] did so well is that they were honest to who Owen is. And Owen has always been kind of a man on his island. He was the only survivor in his firehouse in 9/11. He’s a widower. He is responsible for people and he is a family man. But at the end of the day, Owen is always kind of alone. And I think that that was nice that played out literally even in the finale.

Speaking of that: He figured out his professional life. Why couldn’t he ever figure out his personal life?

I know. Again, that’s also very common to that job. It’s an intense job. It’s very hard to be a significant partner to people in that job. And then Owen had a lot to reconcile with and he never was able to do it. I was always hopeful he would do it. Owen had such amazing women in his life, but just practically they would end up getting their own TV series after they had their time in the spotlight with Owen. It’s kind of hilarious.

I really enjoyed watching Owen and T.K.’s (Ronen Rubinstein) relationship evolve over the years. What did you enjoy most about it?

I kind of enjoyed it dovetailing what I’ve seen raising my own sons, which is going from having to be a hands-on father in sort of child, adolescent, young man way to being peers and partners and taking it to that next lifelong level. T.K. and Owen are now peers on the job, and when we met them, T.K. couldn’t hold the job. I like seeing that kind of growth.

Ronen Rubinstein as T.K. — '9-1-1: Lone Star' Series Finale "Homecoming"

Kevin Estrada/FOX

For whom is it going to be harder to be in different states?

Oh, wow. I know. I think it’s going to be equally hard. T.K. and Owen are incredibly bonded. They’re deeply, deeply connected. And now that T.K. has his own family, I think that gives Owen comfort that it’s time for him to find out what his next chapter is. Owen completed his mission. He rebuilt the 126. He created a family there. He helped T.K. rebuild himself and there’s a new family there. But now it’s time for Owen to literally walk off — not into the sunset but the sunrise, he headed east — and find out his next chapter.

We got great stuff with Owen and Judd (Jim Parrack). From where those two started to see where they ended up was so good.

I always loved the Owen-Judd relationship and Jim Parrack is just one of the best actors. He’s up there with anybody I’ve ever worked with and it was an honor to act with him every week. And I love that he was given such real estate in this last season. He really deserves it. I always loved seeing real, mature two guys in capital letters having their relationship. It was one of my favorite themes of the show.

What are you going to miss about Owen and the show?

The number one thing I’m going to miss is pulling up to that set every day and marveling at the scope and the scale and the spectacle of what we would routinely do before lunch — other shows wouldn’t be able to do in weeks. I mean, it looked like a movie every single day. And I don’t know that we will see the likes of this show on network television anytime soon in our new economy. And it was really fun to be a part of it and super proud that we were able to make the show look so big and be so big, week in and week out. I’m really going to miss that.

And I’m going to miss all the collaborators we had, not just in the amazing cast we have, but the writers and the effects people, the crew, the camera department, the sound department. They were the best of the best. And I think that’s why the show goes out at the top of its game because this was the A team. Lone Star was A+, A caliber network television prestige at its finest.

Could we see you again as Owen? I mean, there’s 9-1-1. There’s this possible spinoff coming…

I mean, I never say never. I never say never. And I would be open to anything as long as it is not trying to be a cheaper, on low budget knockoff of what we worked so hard to establish. I think we leave a legacy, not to put too fine a point on it, on storytelling, big spectacle, big cast, great actors, stars, and if there’s an appetite for that that still exists. I’m down.

Did you take anything from set?

I did. I did. I took my turnouts, I took my firefighting outfit, and hopefully, I won’t need it. But living in Southern California as we now know, it’s good to have that around. I took my piece of the rubble that I was gifted on the first day of shooting. I was gifted from the fire department in New York with a piece of a steel beam from 9/11, the World Trade Center. And it was on Owen’s desk for years. And we did a storyline actually where he was finally able to kind of put that behind him and he packed it up delicately and put it away to keep it forever, but not have it in front of him on his desk. And so I kept that, that very real, very significant prop.

Is there anything you never got to do on Lone Star as Owen or filming wise that you wish you’d gotten the chance to?

Well, I was always arguing for more scenes on horseback, and I did get one little quick, quick one this year. I loved when Lone Star leaned into the western. If it were my druthers, I would’ve done that all the time.

I will say I think the show had a lot more life in it. But in terms of storytelling, we kind of emptied the chamber. I mean, there are definitely more stories to be told, but I feel that we were able to our favorite stories, for sure. I mean, there was one where we were going to have Owen coming to Los Angeles and interacting with Angela [Bassett] and the group at the mothership. We had a whole thing for that that never came to fruition that would’ve been really fun and really exciting.

I mean, you still can do that. You can always go over to 9-1-1.

They know where to find me, that’s for sure.

Thanks again for doing this today. You were so good all five seasons, it’s such a great show, and I do wish there was going to be more.

Thank you. That means a lot to me. Five seasons of something that works. it’s very rare. It doesn’t come around all the time. And I end up at the end of the day feeling grateful that I had the opportunity to work with such amazing people and that people liked it as much as they did.

9-1-1: Lone Star, Streaming Now, Hulu

TV Guide Magazine Cover
From TV Guide Magazine

What to Expect From 'The Hunting Party's Love Triangle and Mystery

Manifest alum Melissa Roxburgh and the showrunner of NBC’s Hunting Party tease TV Guide Magazine about what’s ahead for the “government conspiracy that just keeps unfolding” — plus, the series’ “good” love triangle. Read the story now on TV Insider.