Showrunner Explains TK And Carlos’ Marital Conflict In 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5: “I Didn’t Want To Sugarcoat It”

9-1-1: Lone Star season 5’s fall finale airs Monday, December 2, and will see Gabriel Reyes’ murder investigation come to a head. The Texas Ranger was killed by an unseen assailant during the show’s fourth season, leaving Carlos heartbroken days before his wedding. While he and TK make it down the aisle, Gabriel’s death continues to haunt their first year of marriage. Carlos decides to follow in his father’s footsteps by trading his Austin PD badge for that of a Texas Ranger. He exhausts himself searching for new leads, unable to be at peace until he finds Gabriel’s killer.

The couple face an additional conflict when TK’s stepfather is arrested, and Jonah is left without a guardian. While TK wants to adopt his little brother, Carlos is too fixated on Gabriel’s murder investigation to even consider the responsibility of fatherhood. This creates a divide, as neither appears willing to change their stance. When speaking with ScreenRant, co-showrunner and executive producer Rashad Raisani explains why the fan-favorite pairing needed a major conflict during 9-1-1: Lone Star’s final season. Check out his response below:

Rashad Raisani: The thing I’ve been searching for is to tell TK and Carlos as a true marriage story and all marriages have conflict in them. That’s just human nature, and I didn’t want to sugarcoat it. It seems to me that there’s an appetite to have these guys just having this sort of blessed, frictionless existence and giving them some peace, but I just feel like the way to make their relationship truly rich is to see them engage with conflict like people have in their real lives and then to find a way to overcome it, to compromise, to sacrifice.

To me, that makes their relationship all the more beautiful. So we were looking for potential conflict points between their relationship that felt both organic, but also showed that at no point did these guys ever stop loving each other. The thing about life is it finds a way to create fissures between people even when they love each other. And so for us, the thing that always felt like a fissure point, even going back to season 4, was that TK has always had this paternal drive. He wants to be a dad. It’s a very big part of what he wants his identity to be.

And Carlos has always had, due to his own background and how he grew up with his own father, some trepidation about it and made no secret of it to TK in season 4. He said, “Hey, this is going to be an issue for me, and you have to just make peace with it or let me go.” And TK made peace with it and said, “Okay, I’m not going to push it.” But then what, of course, we wanted to do, was to create a circumstance where TK could still be true to the promise that he had made Carlos about not pushing it, but yet create a new dynamic that would force TK to revisit that subject of becoming a parent.

That’s where the idea of Jonah suddenly becoming this loose football that somebody needed to protect or somebody needed to claim. And TK, I think, is justified completely in saying, “I know we talked about that we would forego being parents for a while until you’re ready, but we have to do it now. This kid needs us.” And then on the other hand, we wanted to juxtapose that with the moment that made it the worst for Carlos.

And to me, that was right as he’s on the cusp of solving his dad’s murder. When he is the least emotionally available to have that conversation so that, hopefully, the audience can see both guys’ points of view in this conflict and maybe even be, hopefully, torn about whose side they’re even on. To me, that’s the sign of a juicy and real conflict if you’re thinking, “Boy, I kind of agree with both of them on this.” And so we just wanted to put them both in a vice like that where there, really, wasn’t a good solution for them and force them to have some tough decisions to make.

Carlos And TK’s Conflict Is Introduced During 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 4

It’s possible that Carlos will never want children.

In 9-1-1: Lone Star season 4, episode 12, “Swipe Left,” TK and Carlos realize their future aspirations do not align. While TK wants children, Carlos doesn’t think he’ll be ready for the commitment anytime soon, if ever. TK chooses his then-fiance over the desire to be a father, but everything changes when Enzo is arrested for a handful of crimes, including fraud and tax evasion.

Because TK and Jonah’s mom, Gwyn, was killed in a bicycle accident, the toddler is left without either parent. Enzo’s solution is to enroll him in an elite boarding school, which would separate Jonah from his remaining family members. TK refuses to let his brother be raised by an institution, prompting him to start looking into the adoption process.

Although circumstances have changed, Carlos’ feelings about fatherhood have not. The Texas Ranger is even less inclined to expand their family, as he can’t devote proper time to a child while preoccupied with Gabriel’s murder case. Regardless of whether the married couple is ready for parenthood, Jonah must be adopted to stay in his brother’s life, putting Carlos and TK at a true crossroads.

The fall finale of 9-1-1: Lone Star airs Monday, December 2 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

A spin-off series of 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star is an action-drama series created for Fox. The series follows Rob Lowe as Owen Strand, a firefighter from New York City who, after having rebuilt a team in the aftermath of September 11th’s attacks, is brought in to form a new one in Austin, Texas. 

Cast

Rob Lowe , Liv Tyler , Ronen Rubinstein , Sierra McClain , Jim Parrack , Natacha Karam , Brian Michael Smith , Rafael L. Silva , Julian Works , Gina Torres

Release Date

January 19, 2020

Seasons

4

Network

FOX

Streaming Service(s)

Hulu

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