9-1-1: Lone Star – Season 5 Episode 8 “The Quiet Ones” Recap & Review

The Quiet Ones  

9-1-1: Lone Star season 5 episode 8 starts with Wyatt handling a 91-1 call from a man named Julio. Julio is being attacked by two men while house-sitting for his friend. Wyatt manages to get him safely outside the house, but the third assailant reaches Julio and stabs him to death. 

Elsewhere, TK visits Enzo to talk about what happened. Enzo asks TK to contact his business manager and set Jonah in a boarding in Switzerland. TK is mortified by the thought of strangers raising his brother in a boarding school. He tries to talk to Carlos about adopting Jonah, but Carlos is not ready to be a dad. He wants to solve his dad’s case first. However, TK says he is done living his life on pause, waiting for Carlos to focus on them. Their conversation is interrupted when Carlos gets a call about Julio’s case and leaves. 

In the meantime, Owen delivers food to Tommy. She is a lot better since we last saw her after her surgery. She is looking to start an experimental treatment with 97% efficacy. Owen tries to encourage her as he has been through chemotherapy before. However, Tommy gets a call from the hospital informing her that she will have to settle for traditional treatment with 50% efficacy. Sadly, her insurance doesn’t cover experimental treatments.  

Owen is heartbroken for her. He visits the mayor, who tells him there is nothing much he can do. The mayor is also done reviewing the proposed city budget, and it is getting ratified the next day.  In order to help, Owen asks the team to go through the budget and find unnecessary spending before the 24 hours are up. Eager to help Tommy, everyone chips in and finds a few things on the proposed budget. 

At the Ranger’s office, Carlos realises that Julio was set to testify against a drug gang a few days before he was killed. It turns out that this is the second time a key witness has been killed in a Ranger’s case. The Chief tells Carlos that before his dad died; he was working with a high-level source inside the gang. However, the man, Nestor, went missing and two days later, Senior Reyes was killed. Carlos questions why no one told him this, but the Chief insists they checked it out and there was no evidence linking the murder to the gang. Carlos promises to keep his cool if the Chief allows him to investigate Julio’s case. The Chief agrees but demands that Campbell keep Carlos in line. He also advises the two to find some evidence to bring to the detective in charge of the case. 

This is how Carlos finds himself convincing Wyatt to ignore protocol and let them listen on the 9-1-1 call made by Julio. After listening to the call, Carlos notes that one of the attackers said his friend’s name when Julio hit him with a hot pan. They take their findings to Montero and though he doesn’t like the Rangers; he lets them join the case. The assailant, Elias, also lost a tooth when Julio hit him with the pan and the police verified his identity. They prepare for a surprise raid and Campbell is shot after he kills Elias. 

At the scene, Nancy picks on the weird energy between Carlos and TK. Carlos tries to talk to TK while Nancy gives Campbell first aid. As they talk, Carlos notices blood coming from the roof. Upon checking, they find Nestor tied up and heavily bleeding. They rush him to the hospital and wait for him to get out of surgery. As they wait, Carlos tells Campbell about his fight with TK. Campbell advises him to wait on the kids. He says he has 4 kids but they slow people down things and Carlos might never solve his dad’s case.  

The doctor later informs them that Nestor is out of surgery and unconscious. He is in bad shape as he lost a lot of blood. His organs are shutting down and it is highly unlikely he will make it through the night. Once Nestor briefly wakes up, he asks to speak to Senior Reyes, but Carlos offers to talk to him.  

We circle back to the fight for Tommy. The team interrupts the city meeting and objects to the proposed budget. They point out some of the extravagant misuse and Marjan streams the incident on her social media channel. Her kids, who follow the proceeding online, alert Tommy and she rushes to her team. After objecting and arguing back and forth with the Mayor, he asks the police to kick Owen and his team out. However, the police bravely join the protest and the Mayor and his advisors are forced to rethink their situation. Ultimately, they agree to pay for Tommy’s experimental treatment, but she turns the offer down. She demands that the Mayor offer the same to every civil servant in the city. Backed in a corner, the Mayor begrudgingly agrees. 

Back at the hospital, Carlos tells Nestor about his dad’s death. It turns out Nestor and Senior Reyes had grown to be friends. Before Senior Reyes died, he had warned Nestor to watch out for a snitch in the Ranger’s office. Carlos begs him to tell him the name as Nestor starts to decline rapidly. The episode ends with Carlos walking out and telling the Chief and Campbell that Nestor died before he revealed the traitor. However, in a flashback, we learn that Nestor mentioned Campbell as the traitor.  

The Episode Review

The blood literally drained from my face in that last scene. Do you understand the level of Campbell’s betrayal? For more than a year, Carlos has been investigating his dad’s case. He has been sharing fond memories of his dad with Campbell. He even asked him for marital advice and thought Campbell shared his loss. After all, Campbell used to be Senior Reyes’ partner in some cases. All this time, he was staring his dad’s killer in the face.  

The betrayal side, our Tarlos ship is not sailing well. Seeing Carlos and TK grow apart hurts so much. Now, TK wants to adopt his brother, and that is the noble thing to do. However, Carlos needs to solve his dad’s murder first. It is a complicated situation, and to be fair, none of them is wrong. Even though the timing is not right, I hope these two will stick it out to the very end. We need a happy ending, but the trailer for next week has us on our knees, praying and pleading. Does Carlos survive the gunshot?