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‘9-1-1: Lone Star’: Rob Lowe Opens Up About the Show’s Decision to Kill Gwyn Off

Poor Gywn. She settles down in Austin during the pandemic on 9-1-1: Lone Star, living with her son, T.K. and ex-husband, Owen.

Yet when she finds out she’s pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s baby, she moves back to New York. And that, in a nutshell, is why Lisa Edelstein no longer is a relevant 9-1-1: Lone Star character.

Rather than fading into the background, 9-1-1: Lone Star killed Gwyn. We’re not giving away any spoilers. At the end of last Monday’s episode, “Red Vs Blue,” T.K. received a phone call, telling him the awful news about his mom.

Rob Lowe, who portrays Owen Strand, said killing Gwyn was a better ending for the character he wanted to remarry a season ago. That’s life in TV land. It’s better to be dead and memorable than a boring afterthought.

“We felt like this was the best resolve of her character’s arc,” the 9-1-1: Lone Star fire captain told Entertainment Weekly. “You know, she lives in New York, she has a significant other in New York, she’s [just had] his baby. Those are stories that certainly wouldn’t fit in the 9-1-1: Lone Star, Texas universe. She lives a separate life there. So it had kind of run its course.

“The question was, “what’s the most fulfilling, dramatic, juicy thing, way to service that story?” And you know, there’s nothing more dramatic than an unexpected death, as opposed to her just being on the phone every sixth episode or something like that.”

Gwyn died off-camera. And this is a spoiler alert, she was hit by a bike in tonight’s episode called “In the Unlikely Event of an Emergency.” Here’s the plot tease: “When Gwyn has an emergency, Owen and T.K. travel to New York, but the plane experiences a mechanical failure. T.K. reflects back when Gwyn helped get him into rehab years ago.”

You know how 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star usually kick off an episode with the sound of a call coming into dispatch? That’s how we find out about Gywn. Liam Benson, a bike courier, phoned into to 9-1-1 NYC.

He tells the dispatcher that he was riding his bike in the designated lane and that he looked away for a split second. That’s when he hit Gwyn. She fell and hit her head. There was blood everywhere, he said. Then Liam figured out that Gywn no longer was breathing. That’s when he asked the dispatcher what to do about the baby.

Yes, Gywn was pushing baby Enzo in the stroller. “She must’ve pushed the baby out of the way in time,” the caller said. Then you hear him telling Enzo, “your mamma loved you. She did, yes she did.”

Lowe told EW that he always enjoys working with Edelstein. On 9-1-1: Lone Star, there was no faking the chemistry.

“Lisa and I have always worked well together,” Lowe said. “I thought we had really special chemistry from the minute I met her, in the pilot episode of The West Wing. I love any time I get a chance to work with her. And she was a great lift on the show.”