In this week’s episode of 9-1-1: Lone Star, Carlos finds himself at odds with his feelings about the new man in T.K.’s life, Tommy goes on a date, and Owen finds himself in a surprisingly hairy situation as he offers to take care of Catherine’s hairless cat.
Hey jealousy
Following T.K.’s unintentional relapse caused by Sadie drugging him, he’s been attending meetings on a daily basis. He’s upset, because this time, it wasn’t even his choice for this to happen to him again. As he’s discussing his meeting, he brings up a guy named Cooper, and Carlos remarks that he’s been mentioning him a lot lately. To add insult to injury, just as Carlos is getting ready to start making dinner, T.K. informs him that he already grabbed something to eat with Cooper after the meeting. Oh, and he’s his sponsor now. Carlos’ budding jealously morphs into sadness when T.K. says that the reason he had so much anxiety about starting over with his sobriety again is because this is the first time he’s had to go through it without his mom there to support him.
The Cooper issue continues when Carlos wakes up in the middle of the night and sees that T.K. isn’t in bed beside him. He hears him talking out in the living room, and he peeks outside of the bedroom door to find T.K. on the phone with … Cooper. Of course.
Oh, to feel alive again
Tommy is still attending her grief group, and a fellow attendee, Morris, has caught her eye. He asks her out on a date, which sends Tommy spiralling as she tries to figure out what to wear. Grace comes by to lend her some support before she leaves, and Tommy almost backs out of the date entirely. She starts to get upset as she tells Grace that it’s too soon, but Grace reminds her that Charles would have wanted her to live her life. She deserves to have fun again.
Tommy worries that the date is already off to a rough start, because she immediately begins to talk about Charles. She’s embarrassed, but Morris knows exactly how she feels, and he doesn’t mind. In fact, when they reach an item on the menu that was his wife’s favorite, he begins to cry. Grace is surprised to see how early Tommy gets home that night, and she’s even more surprised when she learns that the pile of tissues on the table belonged to her date, not her. Tommy still thinks the date was a success because it was the first time she’s felt alive again since Charles passed.
Daddy issues
Catherine ends up getting a call to go on a last-minute business trip, which is a problem, because she’s supposed to be taking care of Horacio for the next few days. Owen is surprised to learn that she has a child with her ex-husband, which she never told him about … but no. Horacio is a cat. Owen offers to take care of the cat for them, but Catherine is hesitant at first. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him, even after the Ginsburg incident, it’s just that she worries he may get along with her ex a bit too well. She may or may not have a type.
Owen awaits Patrick’s arrival, and he’s beside himself when a much older man is waiting at the door with a cat carrier in hand. Patrick begins to give him specific instructions on how to take care of a sphynx, but Owen is still stuck on trying to figure out what in the world Catherine thought they had in common. Later, Judd suggests that perhaps Catherine is into older men. This sets Owen down a warpath, and he immediately lays into Catherine about it with snide remarks after she gets home from her trip. He bluntly tells her that she has daddy issues, and he’s “daddy.” They’re interrupted by the arrival of Patrick, who has come to pick Horacio back up. However, this man looks nothing like the man that dropped the cat off. The two idly chat for a few moments, revealing that they are indeed essentially two sides of the same coin, and the man that dropped the cat off was actually Patrick’s father (Patrick Sr.). Owen tries to backtrack after Patrick leaves, but the damage has already been done, and Catherine doesn’t want to hear it.
I want all of you, even the broken pieces
Carlos’ jealousy threatens to boil over when he comments on how nicely T.K. is dressed one evening, only to find out he’s wearing that outfit to attend another meeting. And surprise, Cooper is coming to pick him up! Carlos goes to answer the door, and he finds a young, attractive man standing there. When T.K. gets home later, Carlos gives him the cold shoulder as he sits down at the table with dinner for one — after all, he assumed T.K. would be getting dinner with Cooper. Carlos admits that he was upset that T.K. called Cooper instead of waking him up, and T.K. tells Carlos that Cooper is straight. But that’s not the issue. Carlos is hurt because even though he understands why T.K. is confiding in his sponsor, he feels like Cooper is getting pieces of him that he doesn’t. T.K. assures Carlos that he doesn’t want those pieces of him, but Carlos wants all of him. T.K. tries to explain to Carlos that even if he does come to him the next time that he feels the urge to use, it won’t be enough. He needs to turn to someone that has been there before.
Later, T.K. is shaken up after a difficult call where a kid watched his mother die as he sat beside her in the car. Carlos comes home to find that T.K. blew off his meeting that night, and he’s looking through baby photos instead. As Carlos sits down beside T.K. and tries to talk to him, he begins to realize that he doesn’t know what to say to him in this situation to make him feel better. T.K. goes to lay down, and when Carlos comes into their room, he tells him that he’s not hungry, and he just feels like being alone. Carlos makes him come out of their bedroom though, and T.K. is shocked to find that he invited Cooper over. He may have — perhaps — done a background check in order to get his phone number. Carlos knew that he wasn’t equipped to help T.K. through this spiral, but he knew who would be. He pulls a Han Solo on T.K. when he goes to leave, responding to his boyfriend’s soft “I love you” with a self-assured “I know.”
Catch next week’s episode of 9-1-1: Lone Star on FOX on Monday, April 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Stay tuned for our continued coverage on the series, including episodic recaps and more!
