‘9-1-1: Lone Star’ Scoop on Tarlos’ Struggles in Final Season — Plus Premiere Sneak Peek (VIDEO)

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Husbands (we love typing that as much as you love reading it) T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos (Rafael L. Silva) are coming into the fifth and final season of 9-1-1: Lone Star (premiering Monday, September 23 on Fox) already dealing with the unsolved murder of the latter’s father. But there’s more drama to come.

Carlos’ obsession with that investigation is going to put their marriage to the test. T.K.’s half-brother, Jonah, is coming to Austin (which is sure to affect Rob Lowe‘s Owen as well). Below, co-showrunner Rashad Raisani previews that and more that’s ahead for the fan-favorite couple. Plus, watch an exclusive sneak peek above of Carlos and T.K. in the Season 5 premiere.

T.K.’s half-brother is coming. What can you say about what brings him to Austin and what that means for both T.K. and Owen?

Rashad Raisani: Great question, because it isn’t just about T.K., it’s also about Owen. We had such a big storyline in Season 2, where, Owen’s ex Gwyn [Lisa Edelstein], the mother of T.K., got pregnant and Owen thought it was his and then it was revealed that it was actually Enzo, her second husband and the guy who kind of took Owen’s place in T.K.’s life after Owen sort of backed off as a dad because of 9/11. Enzo really did have a giant hand in raising T.K. and he fathered Jonah, T.K.’s little brother. So we wanted to, as we’re sort of looking at this series to wrap it up and talk about family, get back to who is T.K. going to be as a son and as a brother and also as a father going forward as this series comes to a close. Jonah, that little boy, and Enzo, his stepfather, seemed like the perfect characters that we could kind of tell that story through.

Also, it’s gonna force Owen to acknowledge, kind of going back to his past as T.K.’s father and the years that he was absent, that some damage was done to T.K. and that Enzo had a lot to say about what kind of person T.K. would become. So there’s a lot of reckoning about the past that’s gonna come through with his character. Also, he’s just a whole lot of fun. So I think there’s a lot of fun that’s gonna happen as well.

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Carlos is investigating his father’s death. What can you preview about that investigation? That’s also going to involve Campbell (Parker Young), right?

The way we’ve been talking about Campbell and Carlos is that they’re like two brothers, the big brother and the little brother. Carlos comes along, and in Campbell’s mind, he got kind of a free pass because of who his dad, Gabriel Reyes, was, the legend, and to go to the front of the line and become a Texas Ranger. The first episode is about these two brothers both fighting for daddy’s love and daddy being Chief Bridges, their boss. But what’s gonna happen is they learn to respect each other and they’re gonna discover that they’re so much better when they work as a team and they really complement each other brilliantly, not just as investigators, but as characters and frankly to me, as actors. I think just they have a wonderful dynamic that only gets richer as the season goes forward.

Carlos’s father’s murder is a thing that Carlos is not giving that up. It is the central driving force in Carlos’ life. And there’s no way we’re going to end the series without giving that poor guy some answers. So there will be some answers at the end of the day on that.

The season description says that T.K. and Carlos’ marriage is put to the test because Carlos becomes obsessed with solving his father’s murder. What can you tease about how we see that play out and how tough things are gonna get in the middle of that for them? I do have faith that they’re gonna be okay by the end.

A big part for me about their marriage was I really wanted to treat it like a real marriage, and by that, I mean that even though these guys are so wonderful to each other and they’re so handsome, life isn’t perfect no matter who you are and everybody has real struggles that affect even great relationships. And the true strength of a relationship isn’t the absence of challenges and problems, it’s how you grapple with them and encounter them and if they make your relationship stronger or weaker.

Kevin Estrada / FOX

And so for Carlos, this burden of his dad’s murder is going to sit there and take up a lot of oxygen in the room and T.K., who is an incredibly supportive husband, is gonna try and be patient and graceful and allow Carlos to have that space. But at a certain point, he’s got to advocate for them to have a future together, and that’s part of what you were talking about with Jonah. I like to think that little boy, in some ways, represents the future of their relationship and Gabriel’s murder represents the past of their relationship, and there’s gonna be a tension between those two things and that’s gonna be their central dynamic this year, is that one person is struggling to get answers in the past and the other person is struggling to move on and build a future, which I think is a very relatable human experience.

All of this makes me think about kids, and that has been a bit of an issue for them in the past. How does that come into play?

I think that’s another pressure point because Carlos was very upfront with T.K. about, “Hey, I’m not ready to have kids and I don’t know if I ever will be,” and then now that his dad’s been murdered, in his headspace, that’s the last thing that he’s got the bandwidth or the emotional energy to deal with. But like I said, T.K. is feeling like life is happening right now, like we don’t get moments back, and especially as a first responder, they see that you can’t take anything for granted. And circumstances are going to align that are going to [lead to] a situation where T.K. is like, I know that you were uncomfortable with taking this next step as a father, but I feel like it’s something powerful that I need to do, and to make that a crisis point for them as well.

I hope that the audience can see the argument from both of their points of view and just go, “S**t, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I would do either.” That’s what I hope because I feel like people have real problems that aren’t so simple as to say, well, he’s right, he’s wrong, whatever. We just wanted to put them through that.

9-1-1: Lone Star, Fifth and Final Season Premiere, Monday, September 23, 8/7c, Fox