Summary
A major wrench is thrown into Owen and Gwyn’s baby plans in “Displaced”, while T.K. tries to adapt to his new position.
This recap of 9-1-1: Lone Star season 2, episode 7, “Displaced”, contains spoilers.
There are a fair number of things going on in “Displaced”, but it mostly revolves around two things: A sudden wrench thrown into Owen and Gwyn’s baby plans, and Tommy trying her best to be a working mother while steadily realizing that she might have to make some sacrifices she’d rather not in that regard. It was low-key, at least compared to how bonkers this show can get, but it was also impressively character-focused, finding a new angle for what should be played-out storylines. Tommy’s issues, in particular, struck me as a depiction of motherhood that is rarely seen in film and TV, and I’m happy the show didn’t take the easy way out in regard to the parentage of Gwyn’s child. But more on that in a minute.
It makes more sense to start by unpacking what Tommy was up to since it also tied into T.K.’s decision last week to become a paramedic. He found himself in a new environment that he’s obviously suited to professionally but perhaps is ill-fitting for socially given he has given up his position as one of the “cool kids” to chill with the “nerds” – that’s how Nancy puts it, anyway, but Nancy is still reeling from Tim’s death, which to her also meant the loss of a partner and a huge shake-up of the status quo.
Naturally, then, Nancy takes some of her frustrations out on T.K., especially when he starts making changes and getting in Tommy’s good graces. He meant well, but to Nancy, he still felt like an imposter, so the touching gesture that the 126 made in honor of Tim was a sweet payoff, and Brianna Baker really sold the moment.
But one of the ways T.K. endears himself to Tommy in “Displaced” is by making sure she can attend her daughter’s taekwondo black belt exam, and that, it turns out, only solidifies the anxiety she has been feeling about leaving her husband to be a full-time father while she goes out to work. Her children are used to their father being their primary caregiver now; they’re used to going to him with their problems, and trusting him to be there for them in a way that they feel comfortable with. The times when Tommy is at home are spent inadvertently putting more pressure on her daughter than she feels comfortable with, so when Tommy arrives at the dojo thanks to T.K. abusing the ambulance’s siren, 9-1-1: Lone Star season 2, episode 7 cleverly flips what should be a nice moment into a crushing one. Tommy’s daughter doesn’t want her there – not out of spite, of course, but because she doesn’t want that additional pressure.
Of course, on some level, Tommy knows this, and can’t take her frustrations out on the kids, so she takes them out on her husband instead for being “too perfect”. It’s petty, and she knows she’s lashing out, but thankfully so does he, so while he’s able to stand his ground about not changing the way he’s there for the kids, a family food fight at least makes her feel better. (Food fights give me terrible anxiety – who’s going to clean all that up?!)
But the big news of “Displaced” is that Owen… you are not the father! That’s quite an out-of-nowhere turn, perhaps too out of nowhere in the realms of ass-pull dramatic twists, but it’s teed up by Gwyn discovering that the baby is two weeks further along than she thought, meaning that her ex of 15 years, Enzo, might well be the father. She neglected to mention this to Owen because she figured it wasn’t relevant – famous last words, I guess. It turns out to be very relevant, even after Owen declares that he’s ready and willing to raise the baby anyway and that she should just delete the email and never find out the results.
Gwyneth, though, sees through that. She knows it would be a niggling question in the back of his mind forever, and more to the point, she was with Enzo for 15 years and only just broke up with him recently – far from being her rebound from Owen, it’s more like Owen was her rebound from Enzo, which is much more of a blow for him than the simple matter of a for-old-times’-sake sexual fling. The best joke of 9-1-1: Lone Star season 2, episode 7 comes courtesy of Owen trying to convince Gwyn that she doesn’t need to know who the biological parent is: “When the baby arrives and it’s pretentious and insufferable, we’ll know who the father is anyway.” When she says that description applies to Enzo as well as him, Owen has to quietly mumble that he was talking about Enzo in the first place. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Two men and their egos make this situation very complicated.
