Chris and Owen

This article focuses on the alliance between Chris McLean and Owen exclusively in Total Drama Action.

Overview
In order to stir up the drama and increase ratings, Chris brought Owen back into the competition as a saboteur to create more mayhem amongst the remaining competitors. He managed to secure Owen's cooperation by offering him money to repay his family's debt.

Rock n' Rule
Owen returns in this episode after he supposedly filed a successful lawsuit against the show, for having his jaw broken by Chef Hatchet in Masters of Disasters and the other for being unfairly eliminated at the hands of Courtney in Ocean's Eight - Or Nine. However Owen reveals in the confessional that Chris really just offered him fifty grand to do so, and that it would make up for his family spending the same amount of money (that they did not really have) on a cheese cellar. But the offer had one condition: Owen would have to start acting as an antagonist and sabotage the other contestants. He states that the only reason that he accepted the offer at all is because he needed the money to help his family, as he would never want to do anything harmful to his friends (except for Courtney).

Crouching Courtney, Hidden Owen
The alliance has a greater emphasis in this episode because Owen begins to sabotage the participants, at the behest of Chris. Chris sends Owen to sabotage one of two teams, but instead of sabotaging just one, he sabotages both of them due to not wanting to give a team an unfair advantage, annoying Chris. Owen took care of Leshawna Jr., for Harold, which was forbidden because it was not sabotage. At the next challenge, where Duncan and Harold had to climb a cliff and collect a bonsai tree, Owen went along only because Chris wanted him to sabotage either Duncan or Harold and take their chances of winning a reward away. While Owen was ascending the cliff, by being pulled up by a crane, Chris becomes furious at him for letting Duncan and Harold help each other and for not doing his duty. He pulls Owen up and threatens him that if he doesn't sabotage at least once, he won't be getting the fifty thousand dollars he was promised and will be fired. After climbing the cliff, Owen finally does some sabotage work by ruining Duncan and Harold's small friendship by asking Harold what he misses about Leshawna, knowing Duncan would respond negatively to his answer. Duncan then insults her, causing an enraged Harold to throw a glass of water into Duncan's face and then brutally punching him. This allowed Harold to win the challenge after he takes down Sasquatchanakwa.

2008: A Space Owen
Owen's guilt over sabotaging his friends is seen to reach a maximum level after he receives an award from home for being the most honest and trustworthy person at his school. After Harold saves the cast on the spaceship, Owen sabotages his work and breaks the window on the spaceship using Harold's nunchuks. Owen then backs away from the broken window so no one would suspect him. Near the end of the episode, Harold rats out Owen as the saboteur since he was the only one not accounted for when the window broke. Owen's continuous farting prevents Harold from questioning him any further, thus saving him from being exposed. Owen votes for Harold to leave since he knows about his sabotage work. When Harold was taken to the Lame-o-sine by Chef, he tells the others that Owen is the traitor.

Top Dog
In the confessional at the beginning of the episode, Owen admits that he is actually starting to enjoy sabotaging. At the beginning of the first challenge, Owen sabotages Courtney by dropping blood, from a prick in his finger, into her shark's tank, causing the beast to become insane. Courtney fights with it and later on she fights with a pack of sharks. Courtney did not participate in the second challenge, thanks to Owen's sabotage work. He is also seen hindering Duncan, but does not sabotage Beth. In the second challenge, Chris secretly gives Owen a GPS as a reward to get him out of the forest first and win himself invincibility. Owen and his bear plan to trap Duncan and Beth so that they could not win. Owen does not sabotage Beth, but successfully fools Duncan when he puts up a sign pointing in the opposite direction of the Film Lot. However, this causes Duncan to fall straight into a hidden hole, which Owen honestly did not expect. Owen and his bear then become trapped in a net. Thus, he does not have enough time to sabotage Beth, and she makes it back to the Film Lot first. After a few days, Owen, Duncan and Courtney finally get back. Owen's secret is revealed when Courtney gets a message from her lawyers saying that Owen is the saboteur. Beth and Courtney then immediately confront him. Owen says in the confessional that he is glad that his secret had been revealed and that he can go back to being his old self. At the Awards Ceremony, Courtney is voted out, but she is soon joined by Owen when Chris fires him from his job. He says that there is no point of "having a spy that's been spied", indicating that the alliance has ended.

Trivia

 * The parallels the alliance between Chef Hatchet and DJ, as it is an alliance between a contestant and a staff member. However, these alliances have a few differences.
 * The alliance between Chef Hatchet and DJ was illegal and no one knew about it. Its purpose was to make DJ tougher and help him win the million dollars so that he could split it with Chef. However, this alliance was not illegal, since the producers knew about it. Its purpose was to make Owen sabotage the remaining contestants and bring more drama to the show, in exchange for Owen receiving $50,000 to help benefit his bankrupt family.
 * Owen's actions of sabotage are similar to the reality show "The Mole", even describing himself as a mole twice.
 * This is currently the only alliance between a contestant and a staff member of the show that actually brought a contestant back to the game, as Chef's alliances were both with contesants who were already in the game, and Ezekiel never actually got to rejoin the competition despite his alliance with Chris.