Marjan's 9-1-1: Lone Star journey is leading to a 'big twist' and 'fight for her life,' says Natacha Karam
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Natacha Karam misses her 9-1-1: Lone Star costars.
"I hadn't seen the cast and anyone that I'd worked with in months," the actress, who stars as Marjan, tells EW of filming this week's episode of the Fox first responder drama, which saw her character out on the road after leaving her position at the 126. "I was off on my own sets that weren't the firehouse — that didn't have anything to do with where we usually are. There were these amazingly talented supporting guest stars and stuff, but I felt like I was doing a completely different show."
Marjan quit her job as a first responder earlier this season to, as Karam puts it, "find some answers and do some soul-searching. She's recalibrating and getting her instincts and impulses back in line. That process takes a whole lot of effort, there's a whole mountain to climb."
Kevin Estrada/FOX Natacha Karam on '9-1-1: Lone Star'
That journey leads her to help a seemingly loving couple — Grant (Dahmer and American Horror Story's Cameron Cowperthwaite) and Kiley (Mr. Iglesias' Brooke Sorenson) — fix their Winnebago, only to find that Grant has been emotionally and physically abusing his girlfriend. Marjan works with a trucker (Glee's Dot Marie Jones) to try and help Kiley escape, but ultimately Marjan has to get Grant apprehended by to cops in order to free Kiley from the relationship.
"Through helping this woman escape, she realizes that her calling is in fact to help people," says Karam, "that she does nothing better in this world, and finds nothing more important than being of service to other people. She's incredibly good at being of service to other people in high-stakes life-is-on-the-line dangerous situations, which not everybody in this world is capable of doing."
So is Marjan now happily heading back to the 126? When we see her next, Karam's character will have sold Owen's bike, rented a car, and hit the road back to Austin. "She's thinking, 'It's all been solved. I'm going home. Captain Strand's going to welcome me with open arms,'" says the actor.
Kevin Estrada/FOX Natacha Karam on '9-1-1: Lone Star'
But nothing is easy on Lone Star, and Karam teases that Marjan will end up in a "terrifying standoff" with Grant that leaves her in "a fight for her life" that all leads up to "a big twist" in the final moments.
"I think it's an episode that you're going to have to rewatch once it finishes," says Karam, who herself had to process it more than once. "When I was got to the last few pages of the script, I audibly gasped. I instantly went all the way back to the beginning and read it again."
9-1-1: Lone Star airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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