Things aren’t perfect at the Tarlos house.
As the 9-1-1: Lone Star couple prepares to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, Carlos (Rafael Silva) spends his evenings immersed in his job as a Texas Ranger and investigating his father’s murder—which apparently leaves him too exhausted to spend time with TK (Ronen Rubinstein).
In an exclusive sneak peek clip for Entertainment Weekly from season 5, episode 5 of the Fox first responder drama, Tarlos is seen getting hot and heavy only for TK to notice Carlos has fallen asleep.
“He fell asleep during sex,” TK tells the therapist. “No one has ever fallen asleep on me during sex.” Carlos begs TK to stop talking about sex, and the conversation quickly turns to the underlying issue that led to Carlos’ exhaustion.
“This scene has everything you could want from Tarlos: We have drama, humor, intimacy, all wrapped up in one scene,” Rubinstein tells EW of the exclusive clip.
But that’s not the only reason the actor was excited to film the therapy session. Rubinstein says Lone Star co-creator Tim Minear and co-showrunner Rashad Raisani have long known that he’s “a big fan of Brad Pitt’s career,” and they created the scene as a direct homage to Pitt’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. “They even called that out in the script,” the star says. “They even shot it like they were shooting the therapy scene in the movie. They always like to sprinkle Easter eggs in for me. It was really cool.”
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly’s free daily newsletter to get the latest TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
“What I appreciate most about that opening scene is that our show moves so fast and there are a million cuts to every scene, and we rarely let the scene breathe and have awkward silences—but Rashad really insisted to the editors, ‘Let the air die, let the lines be awkward,'” Rubinstein says. “From an actor’s perspective, it’s really cool and rewarding to be able to do something like that, because we don’t really get to do that very often. I love that they changed the formula for us and made it about Tarlos’ relationship. I think that’s a huge sign of respect for Rafa and me.”
