9-1-1: Lone Star co-creator breaks down the season 4 premiere — and teases 'real peril' to come
Ahead of the 9-1-1: Lone Star season 4 premiere, co-creator Tim Minear teased "some meat and potatoes" that would kick off three major story lines — and he certainly made good on that promise.
In addition to a freak storm system that was downright biblical, the latest episode of the Fox first responder drama saw Carlos (Rafael Silva) grappling with his secret marriage to Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca); Tommy (Gina Torres) falling for Trevor (D.B. Woodside), whom she comes to find is her new pastor; and Owen (Rob Lowe) finding himself at the center of an FBI investigation involving his new biker buddies.
As fans eagerly await the rest of the season, we asked Minear to break down those big moments from Tuesday's premiere — and tease what's to come.
Owen's biker bombshell
"Is it a midlife crisis? I don't think so," Minear tells EW of Owen wanting to join the biker gang before realizing they are a domestic terror group. "Owen has a real hard time making male friends of his own generation. When he buddied up with Billy [Billy Burke], Billy tried to steal his firehouse, Billy tried to knock it down with a wrecking ball. And then he starts to bond with Sergeant O'Brien [Neil McDonough]. And these two are a buddy cop movie together. They're so great together. But at first it's like, 'Boy, I really started to [like] this guy and he might be a Nazi. That can't be good.' But this story line also allows us to play some real peril, and put Owen into a position that he hasn't really been in before."
FOX Rafael Silva on '9-1-1: Lone Star'.
Carlos' secret marriage
"There was something always in the back of my head that they had a failed romance of some kind when he was still questioning, when they were much younger," Minear says of Carlos and Iris' history, which Silva has previously said was planned from the beginning of the series. "And we felt like that Iris story never quite got its full resolution [when Liv Tyler left the show at the end of season 1], so maybe there's more to be played there. And Lyndsy Fonseca is so lovely and so wonderful and so funny and such a great dramatic actress, so it just felt like there was a reservoir of talent there that we could tap. And boy, were we right, she is fabulous."
FOX Gina Torres and D.B. Woodside on season 4 of '9-1-1: Lone Star'.
Tommy's new crush is also her pastor
"We had her little fling with Julius, which was a little bit of a tributary, but Tommy is a very mature, beautiful, accomplished woman, and I wanted to give her somebody that felt like that that was a compliment to all her terrific qualities," Minear says of pairing Tommy with a newly single dad whom she comes to find is the new pastor at her church — a twist that allowed Minear to scratch a creative itch he's had for some time. "We knew Tommy and Judd [Jim Parrack] and Grace [Sierra McClain] all attended the same church, and for the last two years I kept wanting to have a reason to go to that church and see a Black Gospel choir. That was something that I just thought it would be so great to see."
FOX Rafael Silva and Ronen Rubinstein on '9-1-1: Lone Star'.
What's in store for the rest of the season?
Though we didn't see major developments for Mateo (Julian Works), Nancy (Brianna Baker), Marjan (Natacha Karam), Paul (Brian Michael Smith), Judd, or Grace in Tuesday's premiere, Minear promises plenty of drama for the entire firehouse in season 4.
"Marjan is going to have a run in with an institution that comes completely out of left field for her. It's not something that she sees coming, and it throws her whole sense of herself and her purpose into question, which is going to have ripple effects for her," Minear teases of a storyline that also involves Paul, who "is going to meet somebody who he doesn't have to play any games with. That's going to be a revelation for him."
And as if trying to get his ex to sign divorce papers and planning a wedding isn't enough, Minear teases that Carlos "is going to have a run-in with the mother nobody wants," an experience "that is going to bring him almost to the point of death."
"We're also going to learn more about Mateo and his connection to a character in Los Angeles," adds the co-creator, who promises that Nancy and Mateo "are still going strong." He says the same of Judd and Grace, who will spend time with extended family this season. "Not just Judd's grown son," Minear explains, "but we'll also meet more people in Grace's family. We're going to meet her sisters, and we're going to revisit an unresolved matter she had with her father in season 2. So there's a lot coming up. And episode 4.... Man, I can't wait for everyone to see episode 4."
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