How ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ Explains Grace’s Absence in the Season 5 Premiere
This article contains spoilers for the September 23 episodes of ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’. ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ returned to Fox on Monday night with a major train derailment and a major cast change: As previously announced, Grace Ryder, played by original cast member Sierra McClain, is no longer a part of the show. In the Season 5 premiere, her husband Judd Ryder (Jim Parrack) explained why she wasn’t in Austin with him and their daughter Charlie: The ever-religious Grace was volunteering for a Christian charity overseas. Executive producer Rashad Raisani told TheWrap that, if the show gets a sixth season, he’d love to see her return. “I mean, I love Sierra McClain. I think she’s the core of the show and no one can replace her, period,” he said of writing her character’s absence. “We found ourselves in a situation where she wasn’t with us. So we just said, ‘Okay, the show has to go on. So how do we solve this logistical crisis behind the camera and turn it into a story crisis?’ Raisani explained. He added, “You’ll see as the season goes on, her absence, especially in Judd’s life, gets bigger and bigger and leads to its own crisis. It gives Jim Parrack a lot more nuance that really starts to come into play in the middle and back half of the season.” As we learn in the premiere, Carlos Reyes (Rafael Silva) is now a Texas Ranger, like his late father Gabriel. “That’s going to be a really big part of our story in Season 5,” Raisani said of the storyline of the former cop still investigating his father’s murder. He told viewers to expect “some crazy episodes, I think people won’t believe that certain episodes aren’t the season finale.”
The train crash — which involves a life-threatening cloud of toxic chemicals — continues in the next two episodes. “Episode 2 is a big action movie, and [the next episode] starts to feel like a horror movie,” he said, citing classics like “The Fog” and “Halloween” as inspiration for the third season. “In Episode 2, our first responders do their thing. In Episode 3, they’re the ones in trouble. The monster’s chasing them. They’re all on the scene, and there’s a giant, giant toxic cloud of death chasing them,” Raisani said of the “intense” three-episode arc that may be the most epic the show has ever done. “We really went all out. We didn’t pull any punches,” said Raisini, who spoke to TheWrap before the show’s cancellation was announced.
