Warning: This article contains spoilers from 9-1-1: Lone Star season 5, episode 12.

Heading into Monday’s 9-1-1: Lone Star series finale, star Rob Lowe told Entertainment Weekly the entire cast was “on the table” in regards to who might not make it to the end of the final episode.

And there were plenty of ways to go: that asteroid hitting Austin and possible nuclear meltdown, of course, but on top of that Tommy (Gina Torres) is still facing that terminal cancer prognosis.

While at various times through the episode, it seemed like any combination of Tommy, Mateo (Julian Works), Paul (Brian Michael Smith), Marjan (Natacha Karam), TK (Ronen Rubinstein), Nancy (Brianna Baker), and/or Judd (Jim Parrack) could meet their end while working to stop the nuclear meltdown, it’s ultimately Owen (Lowe) who appears to die with a look of peace on his face after stopping the meltdown at the literal last second.

But just kidding! No one dies! After a conversation between TK and Carlos (Rafael Silva) that continues the assumption Owen is gone, the show ends with the reveal that the fire captain and devoted dad is alive and well, living back in New York City and serving as fire chief.

“My ultimate feeling was, ‘It’s hard enough that the show’s ending too early,'” co-showrunner Rashad Raisani tells EW of not killing off any series regulars. “That, to me, was the real loss. So why not allow these people to emerge, and give the audience a message of hope at the end of it? Letting them see these characters went through hell, but they came out the other side. I wanted to leave them with that instead of ‘The show is over and, just so you know, TK is dead,’ or something like that.”

Here, Lowe, Torres, and Raisani break down where all the 126 first responders end their Lone Star stories.

Owen moves to New York City, becomes fire captain

“We all kind of felt that having a more character-driven culmination as opposed to an event-driven culmination actually did more of a service to his character, and to the audience’s embracing of that character,” Lowe says of Owen’s ending. “I think you wrap things up based on a character’s history and what they represent. So for Tony Soprano, I think he went out in the right way. And I think Owen Strand, based on who he was, went out in the right way.”

“He really is ready to go full circle,” Raisani adds of Owen’s decision to move back to New York. “The firehouse is, until the asteroid, thriving. It’s vibrant again, and TK is vibrant again. His purpose here has kind of come to an end. And so then it was like, ‘Where does he go?’ And I think he goes back to where it all started. That’s at least what he intends to do.”

Tommy beats her cancer

After being told her tumors were growing instead of shrinking, giving her possibly just days to live, Tommy musters all her energy to help the 126 after the asteroid strike — ultimately collapsing after performing an essential (and illegal) in-the-field medical procedure. But in the flash forward at the end of the finale, the EMT captain is given a clean bill of health.

“When I talked to Gina about doing this arc, I said, ‘We’re never going to kill Tommy.’ I gave her my word on that,” says Raisani. “At the same time, I really wanted to show just how scary and unpredictable cancer is — but that, no matter what, every day these first responders go to work. I wanted to play that level of stakes, and that feeling. But at the end of the day, I just didn’t want to leave the audience with a punch in the stomach.”

“She’s such a fighter,” Torres adds of her character. “She never gives up in herself or what she believes in.”

Marjan is (very) pregnant

“They didn’t waste any time — a wedding night kind of situation, I think,” Raisani says with a laugh of how pregnant Marjan is in the flash forward, just months after her wedding to Joe (Karam’s real-life boyfriend, John Clarence Stewart). “We’ve often played Marjan’s adrenaline and her action and her feistiness, but Natacha and Marjan both have this softer, loving, beautiful side that’s no less strong — just a different type of strength. And because she was single and a pretty guarded character for most of the journey of this show, we thought, ‘What’s the most outward sign of growth and maturity of her character that we could have?’ And I think that her pregnancy was the way to see that she’s going to be this amazing mom also and that she can be capable of such love, but also such courage and strength.”

Mateo gets his citizenship, and doesn’t marry Nancy

After punching that off-duty officer in episode 11, Mateo faced deportation because of his Dreamer status. But even though a quickie “sham” wedding may have kept him in Austin, he wanted to respect girlfriend Nancy’s decision to never get married. In the flash forward, we find their relationship is still going strong — with no wedding bells in their future.

“I don’t think that they get married, to be honest,” Raisani says when asked if he pictures the couple ever walking down the aisle, “because that was Nancy’s conviction, and part of Mateo’s growth was realizing ‘I have to decide if I want the institution or the person.’ He calls the possible wedding a “sham” but that’s what he wanted — without the “sham.” Yet, he was willing to forego that and get deported rather than force Nancy to do something that she didn’t believe in. I think they absolutely end up together, and maybe end up in a common law marriage or something, but I don’t think he would ever try and force her into a wedding.”

TK quits his job, adopts Jonah with Carlos

Ahead of the asteroid impact, TK told Carlos he had a solution to the social worker’s concern about placing Jonah in a home where both parents had such dangerous jobs. In the final moments of the finale, it’s revealed Tk has quit his job as an EMT to care full time for his half-brother.

“I just wanted that last scene with them to be a celebration of where they are as a couple,” says Raisani. “They’ve come so far together, and they’ve really earned their joy through suffering and sacrifice. I just wanted them to have a truly happy ending. And I think you see both guys look like they have the weight of the world off their shoulders, which they’ve been carrying around for a lot of the last two years.”

Judd becomes 126 captain

Judd may end 9-1-1: Lone star without Grace (Sierra McClain, who left the series ahead of this fifth and final season), but he’s sober, with his daughter and son, and newly appointed the captain of the 126.

“As we approached the end, I went back to the beginning. I just started looking at the show to see ‘Where do we start and how can we end it?’ And the three people that immediately came to mind when I was doing that was Judd, TK, and Owen. Judd loses his entire firehouse. And so this show, from the beginning, has been in a lot of ways about Judd sort of growing into being the leader of his own firehouse, and the father of his own family — both at home and at the 126.”

“Judd is a flawed man,” Raisani continues, referencing the character’s rage and recent battle with alcoholism. “But you see when he and TK both talk about their shared addiction in episode 11, he’s become a more humane, a more compassionate, a more humble leader. His struggles actually prepared him to take the mantle. Owen says to Judd and episode 9, ‘It’s always been yours. I was just keeping the seat warm.’ And to me, that was really kind of the statement of the series.”

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