The fifth and final season of 9-1-1: Lone Star Premieres September 23 on FOX, with new episodes airing weekly on Mondays. While its ending feels premature from a narrative perspective, there have been rumors of the show’s cancellation ever since 9-1-1 Moved to ABC in 2024. The news came months later Term announced that main cast member Sierra McClain has exited the series, leaving behind the fate of Grace and her relationship with Judd.
The 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 4 finale saw fan-favorite couple, TC and Carlos, finally tie the knot after years of build-up. However, the ceremony was accompanied by an unexpected tragedy. Days before his son’s wedding, Gabriel Reyes (Benito Martinez, How to get away with murder) was shot and killed by an unseen assailant. The Texas Ranger isn’t the only character to meet their end, with Owen’s brother, Robert, choosing to die humanely rather than succumb to his Huntington’s disease. Co-showrunner and executive producer Rashad Raisani shares that the new season will pick up one year later, with the events still weighing heavily on the characters.
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Screen Rant Interviewed Raisani about the creative decision behind the season 5 time jump, what Sierra McClain’s exit means for Grace and Judd, TK and Carlos’ year of marriage, and whether fans will be satisfied with the 9-1-1: Lone Star Series finale.
The writers suspected that 9-1-1: The Lone Star would end after Season 5
“We knew that a big-budget show like ours, in the current television environment, where people are all trying to cut costs and make savings, was a perfect storm against us.”
Screen Rant: When you wrote the fifth season of Lone StarDid you know it would be the last?
Rashad Raisani: We have a feeling that this may be due to some financial realities of our situation. We’re a Disney-owned show, and we’re airing on Fox, and we were hitting the end of our contract cycle before there was a big renegotiation for fees. So we knew that a big-budget show like ours, in the current television environment, where people are all trying to cut costs and make savings, was a perfect storm against us.
Even though, I think the show has never been more successful from a viewership point of view, our financial realities and our corporate alignment is not right. And so we have the feeling that it’s coming, although it’s not official-official, because I think people from the two different companies tried to find ways to make it work, but I think it’s just not within reach. So that said, we definitely came into this season thinking we have to make sure our stories line up to give us a proper ending if this ends the last season.
Sierra McClain is out of the series. Was she completely gone from the last season, or did you have some time with her before that?
Rashad Raisani: Yes, unfortunately she left before we rolled any cameras. We had no access to her at all, no matter how hard we tried.
Grace has been such an integral part of the show since the beginning. Is there anything you can tease about how the show will address you off?
Rashad Raisani: The thing I would say is that Sierra McClain is so central to the DNA of this show. She is literally the voice on the other end of a call on a show with 9-1-1 in the title. She is the one who says, “What is your need?” So not even just her work, but her spirit and her soul was kind of the center of the show from an emotional point of view. I think most people would say Jude and Grace are the heart and soul of Lone Star, and half of that is gone now. So there is no way that we could just send it or quickly write it off.
We just had to embrace the loss to our show and, frankly, share the pain that we felt behind the scenes in front of the cameras, and make it the story, especially for Judd. To not hide from it, but at the same time, to try to honor what both Grace and Sierra McClain meant to the show and to try to make sure that we keep the most respect and love for Grace and Sierra as we go forward. And I think we did it.
Jude must find a purpose outside of Grace in 9-1-1: The Lone Star Season 5
– His wife is gone, his son is leaving, he gave up his beloved job, and now he has nothing, his center is not in grace, where does he go from there?
What’s next for Jude without Grace physically present?
Rashad Raisani: That’s a great question. If you remember in our sort of prequel episode called “Saving Grace,” when Judd and Grace met, Judd was in a very desperate place. He even considered suicide to go back to when he met Grace, and she saved him. I mean, “Saving Grace” is the title of the episode. From the first day for them, she was the center of his life, the moral center. She’s the thing that just kind of holds Jude together.
And as we approached the season, we thought, if Jude is a guy who needs purpose, he needs the purpose of being a firefighter, he needs the purpose of being a good man for grace, he needs the purpose of being A firefighter. Father to Wyatt, especially in the wake of Wyatt’s horrific injury, what would happen to Judd if we stripped all that purpose away? And his wife is gone, his son is going out, he quit his expensive job, and now he has nothing. He doesn’t like his center, so where does he go from there?
And so his arc for our final season is to find his purpose on his own two feet. And then, as far as his job goes, Jude desperately wants his old job back at the firehouse. This is what he is meant to be. But as he will find out, there is no way to just go back to the situation he was in before because the world has changed. And therefore if he will find a way back to the goal, he will have to pay a significant price. And so we’ll see just how comfortable he is doing that.
Last season there were multiple deaths. Owen kept his word and stayed by Robert’s side, so what impact will this have on him?
Rashad Raisani: It’s going to have a massive impact because, as you said, we’ve had a number of deaths, and two of them in particular, the deaths of Robert, Owen’s brother, and Gabriel Reyes, Carlos’ father, but also Owen’s father. consuegro, who is his co-father-in-law, they were going to be in-laws together with Carlos and TC, he had that double loss right at the end of last season, and so he was traumatized by it. A year later, when we woke up, he was caught in the fog of both grief and guilt.
Because, to your point about his brother, Robert, not only was he there, we’re going to find out that there was more to the story than a pretty painless exit for Robert, and Owen harboring a lot of complicated feelings about how it was Down. And the feelings aren’t really gone, and they’re festering in ways that Owen doesn’t even want to be aware of. But we’re going to have some incidents later this season that will force that to the surface. That he will have to have an account to go beyond this.
9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5 Picks Up One Year After TK and Carlos’ Wedding
“You get a nice snapshot of where they are as a couple.”
So there will be a one year time jump between seasons 4 and 5?
Rashad Raisani: Exactly. Just under a year. In fact, this becomes a major story point. To be honest, we didn’t know as we wrote this and shot when exactly we would air again. So we chose this number a year. At the time, it seemed like that was about when we would come back. It turned out to be a little more than that. But also, there are some historical reasons.
For example, for Yod to come back as a firefighter, if it runs for a year when a firefighter is on Shabbat, they have to go back and start over. So for Jude, it becomes a sort of impossible situation to think I would have to start all the way over as a probie and have to come back. For TK and Carlos, they are coming up on their one year anniversary. It’s a nice benchmark to see, how has the relationship progressed? What are their struggles? What are their joys in a year? You get a nice snapshot of where they are as a couple.
Why did you decide that the season 4 finale was the right time for TK and Carlos to get married?
Rashad Raisani: I think that this wedding was a long time coming. Since we saw their chemistry pretty early on in season 1, I think we knew this was going to be a relationship that was going to stick, but we wanted it to have its own space. And I think that season 2, they are not committed to each other enough. Season 3, we didn’t have enough real estate to give them the right lead to their wedding.
I think in season 4, we finally have the opportunity to say, “Okay, we’ve done all this, we have enough ground to build this story the right way, so let’s do it.” And then that allowed us, in season 5, because to me, when you talk about a wedding, the wedding is not the end of the story – it’s the beginning of the story. And so if season 4 was about them getting to the wedding, season 5 is about, what does the wedding look like? And what will it look like going forward? And that’s what we can really dive into this season.
Well, flashbacks happen… is it possible we might see Benito Martinez again in some capacity?
Rashad Raisani: Nothing is impossible. I will just say nothing is impossible. Put it this way.
Raisani hopes the 9-1-1: Lone Star series finale leaves fans wanting more
“I hope everybody feels like, ‘Well, that was too soon.'”
Everyone in The 126 has seen incredible growth over the past four years, but is there a character whose arc resonates with you in the last season?
Rashad Raisani: Owen’s arc is about loss and about guilt, and to me, it’s very powerful and universal. I’ve lost my family since we did this show, and I went through that fog you’re in and luckily, it seems, I just came out of it. And so that one is very personal. I think Carlos and his obsession with finding out who killed his father – many of us find ourselves stuck in the past over a trauma that we just can’t move past or get over. And we see his character deal with that and see the actor, Rafael Silva, really come into his own.
He was always a great actor, but when we got him, he was so young. He’s still very young, but he’s really matured so much as a person, as an actor, and to see it all fuse into his storyline in this fifth season is really special. And then with Gina Torres and Jim Parrack, we gave them two of the most compelling storylines we’ve ever given anybody. They have to go to some dark places as actors. They are not always known for going to the darker places, although they are more than capable of it. And I think we’re just seeing the full extent of their power as actors.
And so watching the arcs is great too. And then there’s Brianna Baker, who plays Nancy, who barely had any lines in season 1. And then in season 5, she has a massive storyline where I think she’s proving that she’s a star that’s going to have her own series before too long. I could go on. And then I feel bad not talking about Julian, who is magnificent. I mean, all of them—Ron and Natacha and Brian—I love them all, and I think they all do such a great job with their stories.
Do you think fans will be satisfied with how everything wraps up?
Rashad Raisani: I hope everyone feels like, “Well, that was too soon.” That’s what I really want people to feel like. I’m immensely proud of how we ended this show. Of course, I’m a little biased, but I think it has the perfect poetic ending for everyone. And that’s not to say it’s necessarily a happy ending, but I think it’s a beautiful ending for the characters and a true ending to who they are.
I am immensely proud of it. I’m still cutting it, so I haven’t technically seen it yet all finished. But the main thing is, I think people will feel like “Well, wait a second, how are we done? I want more”. And I think maybe that’s the sign of a good place to leave, if people still want more. But I have some real mixed feelings because I wish it wasn’t the end of the journey with all the characters.
About 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5
The series was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear
In the upcoming fifth season, Captains Strand and Vega, along with the 126th team, race into action when, in a multi-episode opening storyline, a catastrophic train derailment endangers several lives including some of their own. With Jude resigning from the 126th to take care of his recently disabled son Wyatt (Jackson Pace), Owen must find a new lieutenant to replace Jude and has a difficult decision ahead when both Marjan and Paul apply for the promotion.
9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5 stars Rob Lowe, Gina Torres, Ronen Rubinstein, Jim Parrack, Natacha Karam, Brian Michael Smith, Rafael Silva and Julian Works.
Tommy is ready to take the next step in her relationship, but she finds that the road to happiness is filled with obstacles. On his 30th birthday, TK gets a surprise visit from someone from his past that could change his and Carlos’ lives forever. Now officially husband and husband, TK and Carlos’ marriage is put to the test when Carlos becomes obsessed with solving his father’s murder.
9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5 premieres on FOX on Monday, September 23 at 8pm ET.