#ls press

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.

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.

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.

There was also a job change for T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) — he’s now a stay-at-home dad, with him and Carlos adopting his half-brother Jonah.

“Because T.K. wants it so much, he knew that he would have to make the sacrifice,” says Rubinstein. “I think he’s at the point where his priorities are a little different. It’s now starting a family with the man that he loves rather than continuing his work as a first responder. And we know how much he loves that and how passionate he is about that. So it truly means a lot for him to step away from that.”

He adds, “I think Tarlos deserves a happily ever after they’ve been through everything and have still managed to come out at the end as incredible men, incredible partners, incredible professionals, and then I would think incredible fathers. It’s really beautiful full circle, and I’m so happy with how they ended it.”

Silva agrees: “And I don’t think there’s ever a bad time to give visibility to families that look like T.K. and Carlos. There is never a bad time to bring it to center and front and shine the spotlight on people that are in a same-sex relationship who are just trying to have more love in their lives by adopting kids, by having kids. It doesn’t make them extraordinary. In fact, I think the search is to explain how beautiful it is to be in an ordinary situation where you can just adopt kids without facing so much unnecessary adversity, so much false adversity because of a false narrative that has been created about a community that is based on love.”

Torres, Parrack, Rubinstein, and Silva are all on board to reprise their roles in the future in some capacity (9-1-1, the potential spinoff, or a revival).

Co-showrunner Rashad Raisani provides an exclusive preview of Rafael Silva and Jackson Pace's futures on the Fox drama.

It's been 15 months since the season 4 finale of 9-1-1: Lone Star, and it appears a lot has happened in the world of the 126.

First-look photos exclusive to Entertainment Weekly show that Carlos (Rafael Silva) has graduated from the Austin Police Department to the Texas Rangers, following in his late father Gabriel's footsteps. "Carlos has this giant mystery in his life of who killed his dad, and that's not just going to be a procedural story. It's an emotional one," executive producer and co-showrunner Rashad Raisani tells EW of Carlos working with the same elite law enforcement team his dad previously did.