Watch ‘9-1-1: Lone Star’s’ Tarlos Fight to Adopt Jonah: A ‘Strong Conflict Point,’ Showrunner Says (Exclusive)
A sneak peek of season 5 episode 8 shows Carlos (Rafael Silva) and TK (Ronen Rubinstein) clashing over custody of TK’s younger brother on the Fox drama.
Things aren’t going well in the Tarlos household.
Last week’s episode of 9-1-1: Lone Star saw TK (Ronen Rubinstein) cut short his birthday party after his stepfather, Enzo (former Lost Henry member Ian Cusick), was arrested on fraud and conspiracy charges. Now, TK is worried about what will happen to his half-brother, Jonah, and—in this exclusive sneak peek of episode 8 of season 5 for Entertainment Weekly—discussing the possibility of adoption with Carlos (Rafael Silva) doesn’t go well.
Carlos feels like he’s tried to be more present and not let the hunt for his father’s killer affect their relationship, but TK still feels like there are “three people in this marriage”: “You, me, and your father’s killer.”
Related: 9-1-1: Lone Star Deleted Scene: Carlos and TK Cut Their Wedding Cake—and Do Exactly What You’d Expect “When Carlos and TK got married, we were always looking for deeper conflicts that they could have that still allowed them to love each other—so there wasn’t cheating or anything like that,” 9-1-1: Lone Star co-showrunner Rashad Raisani tells EW. “They love each other. But in real relationships, even healthy relationships, there are really strong points of conflict.”
For Carlos, “it’s always been his father’s murder,” Raisani continued. “That definitely causes problems. And then with TK, going back to last season, he told Carlos that he really wanted to be a father and Carlos said, ‘I’m not ready,’ and TK said that’s fine. We didn’t want TK to be a jerk and bring that up again without a new context, so we thought it would be great if we gave TK a new urgency, which is, ‘My brother is going to be abandoned if we don’t adopt him,’ and have that go against Carlos saying, ‘But I’m right on the brink of solving my father’s murder and I don’t have time for that.’ So that leads to conflict between them.” Related: 9-1-1: Lone Star’s Benito Martinez Read Your Gabriel Conspiracy Theory—and Agrees The desire to set up that conflict—and casting the “incredible and subtle” Henry Ian Cusick—led the Lone Star team to tweak their original plan for introducing Enzo: “We always had this character in mind, and we always knew he would be rich and maybe have some Bernie Madoff-style baggage, but we originally envisioned him more as a comedic contrast to Owen [Rob Lowe], who would be funny and quirky,” Raisani says. 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. “Then we started to realize that there was a lot of real pain and love there with TK and Enzo, because this guy actually, honestly, probably had more to do with shaping TK into the man he became than Owen did,” he added. “We realized we couldn’t write him as a joke because he meant so much to TK. And so we thought this would be a great way to pivot from TK thinking of himself as a son to these two dads and starting to think of themselves as fathers. That’s what brought us here.”
