9-1-1: Lone Star co-creator breaks down that explosive (and deadly) episode

There's always the risk that a 9-1-1: Lone Star character won't make it to the end of the episode — but the death on Tuesday's episode of the Fox first responder drama still came as a shock.

"I felt like there had to be a casualty, a casualty that mattered," series co-creator Tim Minear tells EW of wrapping up the Honor Dogs story with an explosive episode that saw the deaths of multiple members of the biker gang — as well as a handful of FBI agents, including Agent Casey (Amanda Schull).

Here Minear opens up about Agent Casey's death, the real reason for the Honor Dogs story line, and what's to come for the 126 in the rest of season 4.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you have to kill Agent Casey?!

TIM MINEAR: Well, I think that probably a lot of people expected we were setting up a love interest there, and for me, the fact that they actually had a lot of fun, bantery onscreen chemistry made it all the more poignant — because in the end there you could see, 'Oh, there maybe could have been a sparring, fun relationship between these two characters.'

But when you are doing a story like this, there is this feeling of something coming, something scary is going to happen. So I felt like there had to be a casualty, a casualty that mattered. And for me, Agent Casey is a character whose heart was in the right place.... As a storyteller, you want it to be impactful — and you want to affect somebody where it's going to matter, to your main character. So that is why she had to go. I actually would have loved to have kept Amanda around, I thought she was fantastic. And by the time we shot that episode, I was really regretting that she was going to have to go, but she had to go.

You told us that "things are never what they seem" on this show, that was definitely true of the Honor Dogs not actually being behind the terror threat.

I wasn't super interested in playing uber villains. Obviously, the Honor Dogs come across as uber villains, but in fact they are just disgruntled white collar guys who are cranky more than anything, and full of hot air. They are not really going to go out and blow up anything.

All bark and no bite, you might say?

I think so, right? [laughs] Except there is that one crazy nut job in the mix here, and that's [Richard Meehan] Mikey. So even [Neal McDonough's] O'Brien's misdirected young nephew, in the end, is being coerced into doing all the things that we have seen him doing. In fact, there is a moment in episode 5 when he comes into the fire station to steal the radio so he can surveil a call after starting a fire, and Marjan kind of sense something and says, "Is there something else I can help you with?" And you can just tell that he wishes he could say, "Can you please help me? I'm being forced to do things I don't want to do."

The FBI is a little incompetent, Owen is rash and impulsive as always, and at one point you think that because O'Brien started the club, "He must be the big kahuna, he must be the bad guy." But in the end, it's just a lot of miscommunication, and one really bad guy: Mikey.

What inspired this story line?

Underneath all the undercover biker gang story, it was really, for me, the story of Owen and this other male friend bonding. Owen has had some trouble bonding with male friends in the past — they try to steal things from him! But in this instance, I think... I really love watching Neal McDonough. Everyone assumes he is going to be the bad guy, because he always plays the bad guy, and so we went down that road a little bit, and it's like, "Oh, he's a good guy. Oh wait, he's a bad guy. Oh, he's a good guy." I love showing America that McDonough is actually a real good guy.

But yeah, this was really about male friendship. And the episode ends with Owen watching O'Brien and his little nephew, and thinking about how that little boy won't have a father. I love that moment so much.

What can you tease of the coming episodes?

Well, we saw at the end of the episode that Owen has some thoughts about TK and Carlos' wedding. So we'll see him become a bit of a father of the groomzilla. So that will be a lot of fun, Owen trying to create the perfect wedding for Carlos and TK, which of course will not go exactly according to plan.

And this next episode is called "Tommy Dearest", which is all about Tommy's relationship with Trevor's daughter [Bella Blanding], and what it's like to navigate a new relationship when there are preexisting kids. Gina Torres is like a thing that is lit from within by the light of heaven. She is so good, and so funny, and she really gets to show off her comedy chops in this episode, so I can't wait for you to see that. Then, further on, we'll be hitting Marjan on the road — more than once — which will be fantastic. And I am really looking forward to a semi-crossover with 9-1-1 that is coming up, that has to do with Mateo.

9-1-1: Lone Star airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.

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