911 Lone Star 4×04 ‘Abandoned’ Recap/Review
- Kassia Skorzewska
- Apr 23, 2023
- 9 min read
Following last week’s episode of 911 Lone Star, we saw Carlos Reyes, one half of the show’s beloved couple, Tarlos, get hit over the head with a shovel as he entered a house to search for clues following Iris Blake’s disappearance.
Worried T.K.
The other half of Tarlos, T.K. Strand, is first seen at the 126 firehouse, as we see him worried about his fiancé. He’s seen pacing the bunk room, calling his father to ask for advice, having called and texted Carlos multiple times with no answer, before he gets hung up on.
He’s seen talking with his fellow paramedic and firefighters as he begs his paramedic partner, Nancy Gillian, to call the hospital, and check up on Carlos, who supposedly stayed the night with Iris.
Finally, he’s seen calling 911 dispatcher Grace Ryder to see if she can track down Carlos’ phone, which is found to either be disconnected or had the battery removed. This is when T.K. comes to the realization that something is seriously wrong.
T.K. and Gabriel Reyes
T.K. then shows up at the house of his in-laws, acquiring about Carlos. When he finds out Carlos is not there either, he explains to the worried parents the situation. As Gabriel tells Andrea to not panic, T.K. receives a call from Grace, telling him the last call Carlos made from his phone was at 10 pm the night before in front of the house Iris had been found in.
Gabriel and T.K. head over to the house to search around, when detective Grier shows up. The same detective who didn’t believe Iris’ story about being abducted last episode. Explaining her theory to Gabriel, T.K. stalks up to her, explaining in a haughty tone how this is out of character for Carlos, and he knows something is wrong.
Being told to leave the room, T.K. heads into the living room, where he eventually discovers an ID in the fireplace, as if someone tried to destroy it. Noticing it belongs to Donna Burton, the woman who went missing in episode two, and who Iris went to look for before she disappeared, Gabriel and detective Grier realize they have a possible string of abductions.
Over at the police station, it’s discovered multiple women have gone missing over the years, leading Gabriel to believe they’re dealing with a serial killer.
Looking through a box of information and evidence on the missing women, T.K. finds out that all missing women, who were diagnosed with mental illness, all went to the same pharmacy.
Arriving at the pharmacy, Gabriel and T.K. ask the pharmacist working who filled the missing women’s prescriptions, leading them to the name of Darryl Keyes. Gabriel is then seen asking the pharmacist for the address of Darryl.
Carlos’ capture
Carlos is seen waking up from unconsciousness in the kitchen of Darryl and his mother, Trudie’s kitchen, wrists zip tied to a pipe, and ankles zip tied together. Disoriented, and with blood streaked down his face from the shovel, Trudie pulls a batch of cookies out of the oven, then urging Carlos to take a bite of one, “Don’t be silly, I’m only offering you a little piece of heaven.” As Trudie hangs her apron on the back of a pantry door, the door opens and the body of a woman kind of slumps out, with Carlos realizing he’s probably not going to make it out of this situation alive.
Shortly, Darryl arrives home and notices Carlos tied up in the kitchen. Finding out he’s a cop due to his badge, Darryl starts panicking about how they’re going to kill Carlos, explaining the size of his neck looks like a “tree stump,” when his mother suggests they slit his throat. Deciding to kill him with morphine, Darryl heads over to the pharmacy to steal some, taking his bike and dumping Carlos’ car on the way.
Cleaning up the blood from Carlos’ head from the floor, Carlos starts talking with Trudie, trying to explain to her “this doesn’t need to happen.” Suddenly hearing commotion outside the window, Trudie looks outside and sees cops converging on the neighbourhood. Placing a strip of duct tape over Carlos’ mouth, there’s a knock at the door, Carlos sees T.K. at the front door on iPad footage from a Ring Doorbell.
Grabbing a knife, Trudie goes to answer the door, as a panicked Carlos begins trying to undo the zip ties on his wrists and ankles. As T.K. is asking Trudie if she’s seen or heard anything strange in the neighbourhood, and asking if she’s seen Carlos, showing a picture of him to Trudie, Carlos manages to slide himself down and kick the shovel to the kitchen floor, sending a clattering sound through the house. Confused, T.K. peers past the front door, as Trudie brushes the sound off as being her cat.
Following T.K.’s departure from the front door, with Carlos seeing a chance of hope distinguishing before his eyes, Trudie comes back to the kitchen and starts talking about how Carlos must be his “mother’s prize,” as she takes the tape off of Carlos’ mouth. Looking back out the window, she carelessly mentions the presence of police outside as she heads to the stove. Taking a chance, Carlos begins screaming for help at the top of his lungs. Hearing faint cries for help, a cop looks over to the house, but is seen getting into her cop car as loud music is turned on in the house, signifying she heard something from the house but didn’t hear the actual words. Returning back to the kitchen after turning the music on, Trudie grabs a knife from the counter and brings it to Carlos’ neck, with Carlos saying he promises to stop screaming for help.
Asking Trudie to let him go, Carlos manages to get Trudie talking about Darryl, beginning to have a heart-to-heart with her, with Trudie saying, “a mother’s best friend is her son.” As we see Darryl return to the neighbourhood on his bike and watch the cops leave the neighbourhood, Carlos listens to Trudie tell him about Darryl and his childhood. When Trudie finds out T.K.’S mom is dead, and realizing she won’t be at the wedding, Carlos says, “No, I think she will be. Sometimes I feel all the love she had for him. She’s sending it through me, otherwise I don’t know where all this love comes from.”
At that, Trudie is convinced Carlos needs to get out of the house, but once she gets the zip ties cut, and Carlos manages to stand up weakly, Darryl returns. Lunging at Darryl, Carlos begins struggling with him, eventually getting the upper hand, and beginning to punch him, before Trudie injects him with the morphine Darryl returned with.
As Carlos falls off of Darryl, starting to slip away from the morphine, Gabriel and T.K. barge into the house, with T.K. falling to his knees at Carlos’ side. Begging Carlos to stay with him, T.K. notices the morphine on the floor, and when Trudie confesses all of it has been injected into Carlos, T.K. turns back to Carlos, not feeling a pulse.
Beginning CPR, Gabriel calls for backup to bring Narcan, as we watch T.K. desperately trying to bring his love back to life. Arriving with Narcan, T.K. injects it into Carlos’ thigh, and in a few agonizing seconds, Carlos takes a deep breath, suddenly bolting upright, moving back and yelling “Get off me!” as T.K.’s hands are on him.
With T.K.’s and Gabriel’s faces finally registering to Carlos, he sits there, catching his breath, as T.K. keeps telling him everything is okay.
Once he’s wheeled to the ambulance, Carlos thanks T.K. for saving his life, with T.K. responding “Oh baby, you saved your own life. I was just holding onto it for a little while,” with Carlos replying, “it’s yours.”
As Carlos is loaded into the ambulance, Gabriel asks if T.K. will ride with Carlos. Affirming that he will, Gabriel heads off screen. Before hopping into the back of the ambulance, T.K. tries phoning his dad, getting a “voicemail box is full,” message, indicating he tried calling his dad all day and leaving multiple messages with no response.
Owen and the FBI
Wearing a wire with his meeting with Sgt. O’Brien, the rest of the Honor Dogs crew rolls up on their bikes, asking Owen and O’Brien to take a ride with them. Arriving to the Honor Dog’s headquarters, the Honor Dogs reveal they know someone has infiltrated their little group. Finding out O’Brien founded a group of bikers who were made up of first responders, it’s revealed that the current atmosphere of the Honor Dog club is nothing like the atmosphere it was when O’Brien founded the group. Stupidly, and of his own volition, Owen then reveals to the Honor Dogs that he is the infiltrator and he’s currently wearing a wire. Meeting the FBI agents at the truck they were listening in to the conversation on, Agent Casey gives Owen a very disapproving look.
After giving a statement to the FBI, O’Brien reveals to Owen they don’t want to see his face again, indicating the agents are pissed at Owen.
Ending
The episode ends with us seeing a mysterious man building a bomb with the stolen ammonium nitrite.
Parallels
There were so many parallels in this episode with scenes from previous seasons! The scene where T.K. injected Carlos with the Narcan was very reminiscent of the pilot episode, where Owen injects T.K. with Narcan following his overdose. In a reference to that episode, Ronen Rubinstein (T.K.) reveals he injected the Narcan into the same thigh Owen injected it into in T.K.’S thigh.
The storyline of T.K. and Gabriel working together to help find Carlos is a parallel to season two’s ‘Bad Call,’ where, when the paramedic crew was kidnapped, Carlos worked with his father-in-law, Owen, to find the paramedics. Another parallel from that episode is seen when T.K. and Gabriel are talking outside the ambulance and Gabriel asks T.K. if he’s going to ride with Carlos. In ‘Bad Call,’ Gabriel had asked Carlos if he was going to ride with T.K., who had been injured by the kidnappers.
And in a parallel to season three’s ‘Push,’ when Carlos wakes up, disoriented from being revived with the Narcan and starts yelling “get off me,” in a panicked state, T.K. grabbing his arm to try to keep him from hurting himself is very reminiscent of the scene in ‘Push,’ where T.K. wakes up from his coma and begins choking on the breathing tube, Carlos grabs his wrists to keep him from hurting himself.
Another significant parallel is when T.K. arrives to the house where Carlos is being held to ask about seeing anything suspicious around the neighbourhood. T.K. arrives to Trudie and Darryl’s front door at 3:18 pm, the same episode last season in which he proposed to Carlos at 3:18 am.
Episode 5, ‘Human Resources,’ will be airing on February 21.
4×05 synopsis: Owen defends Marjan when a rescue complaint forces her to make a challenging ethical decision. Meanwhile, Grace befriends a young boy who becomes a frequent 911 caller, but when she discovers he may be in some real danger she must step in.
Next episode
Seeing the synopsis for next week’s episode, we see that something is going to lead Marjan to resign from the Austin Fire Department.
After three seasons of seeing T.K. injured and being a danger magnet, us fans finally got our wish of wanting to see the roles reversed with Carlos being injured. Many fans only wanted a light stabbing, but we got a whole psychological episode of Carlos being held captive by a serial killer, which was most likely traumatizing for Carlos. Knowing 911 Lone Star is a TV show and they can’t show everything, I really hope we see at least some references of the aftermath of Carlos’ capture, and I hope we see some talk of how Carlos is recovering before we see him back at work, in what will probably be episode six. I hope we see T.K. phoning Carlos from the fire house, checking up on him and making sure he’s resting. I also hope we see a small scene of Carlos recovering in the hospital, as we’ve seen T.K. in the hospital three different times. I mean, I think Rafael Silva would look enormous in a hospital bed and gown, but also small at the same time, as the show seems to make this 6’1 man look so small in vulnerable scenes.
Rubinstein has said his next favourite episode after this one, is episode eight, specifically where we’ll see a heartfelt scene between Owen and T.K. having a talk that will mend their relationship after we saw that T.K. didn’t get the support from his father he so desperately needed when Carlos was missing. Knowing Rubinstein never steers us fans wrong when he says we’ll love a scene or an episode, I know episode eight is going to be amazing.
I’m also excited to see how T.K. copes with almost losing Carlos, because in still photos from future season four episodes, it looks like T.K. is almost always touching Carlos and is probably going to have a hard time not letting him out of his sight.
This was Silva’s biggest storyline of his acting career, and he absolutely killed it! Apparently, according to an article in which he was interviewed, Silva filmed the scene of him in the kitchen, tied up, over a period of three days! He acted his heart out in a psychological episode that saw him go through so many emotions, fearing he’d never get to marry T.K.
Ronen is also just an incredible actor! We saw a side of him we normally don’t get to see, a side of him being frantic and worried over Carlos, a role we normally see reversed. We also keep seeing Ronen’s expressive green eyes, a character in and of itself. In emotional scenes, Rubinstein’s eyes are so expressive that we can just FEEL the emotions seeping out of them, and like they always say, facial expressions are a huge part of your performance as much as dialogue is.
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