9-1-1: Lone Star Boss Addresses the Controversial Way Grace Was Written Off: ‘We Did All We Could to Protect Her’
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9-1-1: Lone Star is officially back for its fifth and final season, but fans who have been following the series from the start may have noticed at least one face missing from Station 126: the show’s signature 911 call dispatcher, Grace Ryder.
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Deadline reported in June 2024 that Sierra McClain — who played Grace since Season 1 — was leaving 9-1-1: Lone Star after four seasons and would not be in the series’ last season. The news came three months before news broke that FOX had officially cancelled 9-1-1: Lone Star after five seasons.
More: How much the 9-1-1 cast makes per episode, including who earns the most
“From the start, fans have followed the heroic and deeply moving stories of the men and women who make up Austin’s 126, so a huge thanks to one of the greatest creative teams in all of television — Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear — for creating one of the most action-packed dramas anywhere,” Fox President Michael Thorn said in a statement at the time. “Now in our final season of the show, we’re set to give it the high-stakes send-off it deserves, complete with breathless rescues, insurmountable odds and relatable personal struggles, thanks to our incomparable, stellar cast led by Rob Lowe and Gina Torres.”
Why did Grace Ryder leave 9-1-1: Lone Star?
In the premiere of 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s fifth and final season, Grace’s husband, Judd Ryder, surprises his son, Wyatt Harris, and his girlfriend, Leigh-Anne, with a new home that’s fully ADA accessible after a biking accident left him paralyzed from the waist down in Season 4. “Let me get a picture of this for Grace. She would kill me if I didn’t,” Judd says. “The new family and their happy home. This one’s for the mantle. Gracie told me she’s sorry she can’t be here.”
Leigh-Anne responds, “I’d say she has more important things on her plate right now.” Judd then turns to her and Grace’s daughter, Charlie, and explains, “Mama’s doing the lord’s work.”
9-1-1: Lone Star later confirmed that Grace, who has been open about her faith throughout 9-1-1 Lone Star, left her family and Austin, Texas, to volunteer with Mercy Ships, a faith-based organization that performs life-saving surgeries around the world. “She knew it was inconvenient,” Judd says in the episode. “She knew that it was terrible timing. But she felt the touch of God. I can still see her face that day. Her eyes were shining with tears. Not just tears — this fire, too, you know? And I never loved her more than I did in that moment.”
In an interview with TV Line co-showrunner Rashad Raisani defended how 9-1-1: Lone Star wrote off Grace, explaining that killing the character off was “quickly dismissed” as it “didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do by her.” “The only thing we could think of to justifiably pull Grace away from her family and job was an even greater calling. And the only thing in Grace’s world that could answer that was God,” Raisani said.
He also acknowledged the negative feedback to how Grace was written off. “People are allowed to feel the feelings they have about it,” he said, “but we did all we could do to protect her character. Without getting too churchy about it, the Bible is filled with stories about characters who follow a call from God at great inconvenience to — and frankly to the detriment of — the people they love the most.”
Replacing Grace as a 911 dispatcher for Austin is none other than her stepson, Wyatt. “We wanted to show that no matter what your physical situation is, you have so much to offer,” Raisani told Entertainment Weekly ahead of the Season 5 premiere. “I’m proud that we’re able to tell that story for a lot of people who may have something that makes them feel like they have struggles, but to see that there’s always ways that you can do something great. So [McClain’s departure,] I think, ended up being a fortuitous thing in allowing us to go bigger with that storyline.”
Before Grace’s exit, Raisani revealed to TV Line that the original plan for Wyatt in Season 5 was to become “a bit of an acolyte” to Grace at the call center “but Sierra’s departure accelerated that.” “He’s been taught by the best,” Raisani said.
In an interview with Screenrant ahead of Season 5, Raisani explained that the writer’s room wrote off Grace how they did in order to honor her relationship with Judd. “The thing that I would say is that Sierra McClain is so central to the DNA of this show,” he said. “She’s literally the voice on the other end of a call on a show with 9-1-1 in the title. She’s the one who says, “What’s your emergency?” So not even just from her job, but her spirit and her soul have been sort of the center of the show from an emotional point of view. I think most people would say Judd and Grace are the heart and soul of Lone Star, and half of that is gone now. So there’s no way that we could just dispatch of it or quickly write it off.”
He continued, “We just had to embrace that loss to our show and, frankly, share the pain that we felt behind the scenes in front of the cameras, as well, and make that the story, particularly, for Judd. To not hide from it, but at the same time, to try to honor what both Grace and Sierra McClain meant to the show and to try and make sure that we kept the utmost respect and love for Grace and for Sierra as we went forward. And I think we did it.”
Though Grace won’t appear in 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s final season, Raisani hinted that she and Judd will still have their happy ending by the time the series ends. “If you remember in our sort of prequel episode called ‘Saving Grace,’ when Judd and Grace met each other, Judd was in a very desperate place,” he said. “He was even considering suicide going back to when he met Grace, and she saved him. I mean, ‘Saving Grace’ is the title of the episode. Since day one for them, she has been the center of his life, the moral center. She’s the thing that’s just kind of held Judd together.”
He continued, “And so as we were approaching this season, we were thinking, if Judd is a guy who needs purpose, he needs the purpose of being a firefighter, he needs the purpose of being a good husband to Grace, he needs the purpose of being a father to Wyatt, particularly in the wake of Wyatt’s horrific injury, what would happen to Judd if we stripped all of that purpose away? And his wife is gone, his son is moving out, he gave up his beloved job, and now he doesn’t have anything. He doesn’t have his center in Grace, so where does he go from there?”
Raisani went on to explain how Grace’s exit will help Judd find himself again after leaving Station 126 in Season 4. “His arc for our final season is to find his purpose on his own two feet,” he said. “And then, as far as his job goes, Judd desperately wants his old job back at the firehouse. That’s who he’s meant to be. But as he’s going to find out, there’s no way to just walk back into the situation he was in before because the world has changed. And so if he’s going to find a way back to that purpose, he’s going to have to pay a significant price. And so we’ll see just how comfortable he is doing that.”
More: The all-time best firefighter shows in TV history
Why did Sierra McClain leave 9-1-1: Lone Star?
Deadline reported in June 2024 that McClain chose to leave 9-1-1: Lone Star after renegotiation drama over her contract. The magazine reported that representatives for the cast first approached 20th Television, the production company for 9-1-1: Lone Star, in 2022 about securing raises for Season 4. Their effort was rejected, however, as 20th Television pushed renegotiations until after Season 4, according to Deadline.
When the cast tried to renegotiate again a year later before Season 5, their representatives were told there would be no renegotiations, which led them to believe that Season 5 would be 9-1-1: Lone Star‘s last. Instead, the actors were offered extra compensation, described as bonuses. Deadline described 20th Television’s bonuses as a “take it or leave it” offer. After a back and forth with the studio, McClain, who was offered the bonus, decided to not take the extra compensation and instead leave the series.
FOX announced in September 2024 that 9-1-1: Lone Star had been cancelled and would be ending after Season 5. Though not as expensive to produce as its parent series, 9-1-1, which was cancelled by FOX due to the cast to produce the series before it was saved by ABC, Lone Star was still costly to make, which marked its days at FOX. (Like 9-1-1, the budget for Lone Star primarily went to pre-production and post-production time for the VFX necessary to make its natural and man-made disasters look realistic.)
Raisani confirmed to Screenrant that McClain won’t be in Lone Star Season 5, even in a guest appearance. Unfortunately, she departed before we rolled any cameras. We didn’t have access to her at all, as much as we tried,” he said.
For more on 9-1-1, check out how much the 9-1-1 cast makes per episode, including who earns the most
9-1-1: Lone Star is available to stream on Hulu.
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