[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5 Episode 11 "Impact."]
First of all, we're not even going to entertain the possibility that 9-1-1: Lone Star may have just killed off Tommy (Gina Torres) in the series' penultimate episode. She's a fighter! But it certainly does look that way...
It's been a rough final season of the show for Torres, she admits in TV Insider's 9-1-1: Lone Star after show, First Response -- and a "lonely" one. "It's been incredibly lonely being away from everybody. I remember when I was starting out, Julia Roberts was doing an interview about Steel Magnolias, and when everybody else was shooting her funeral, it was the only time that she had been separated from them and I didn't really get it and how lonely and sort of out of it she felt," she shares.
"And then I was shooting all of this whole, literally half the season I'm pretty much away from what everybody's doing," she continues. "So those little blips in time, those little moments that I get to seal away, where they come to visit and or Marjan's [Natacha Karam] wedding, those are great moments where I get to see everyone again."
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It was "important" to everyone involved that they got Tommy's arc this season "right." Earlier in the season, she was diagnosed with cancer. We've seen her fighting ever since. "A lot of work went into every aspect of that, not just me, but also hair and makeup and the writers getting it right, and aligning ourselves with Stand Up to Cancer," says Torres.
In this episode, Tommy is optimistic heading into her appointment with her doctor; she's able to keep an egg down and watch an entire episode of Bridgerton without falling asleep. But then the doctor tells her that it looks like her tumors have grown, despite her treatment supposedly a sure thing. Tommy suggests that her immune cells attacking the cancer could cause the tumors to swell before shrinking, but that's rare. The doctor recommends she begin preparing ... to only have possible days left to live. But her girls are in Atlanta visiting their uncle, and when Tommy calls to bring them home, she learns they have concert tickets. She keeps them in the dark.
"It's Tommy sacrificing," Torres says of her character in that moment. "What's the last image of their mother that she wants them to have, and why not let them have one more beautiful memory in the place of a sad one?"
It's after that that Tommy sees her late husband, Charles (Derek Webster). She immediately thinks that there's a medical reason (a stroke, a tear in her heart just threw a clot) and wants to call 9-1-1. "They've been to this address enough," he tells her. But she knows he's not real, that he has to be a hallucination due to the stress and chemo. He kisses her. "I'm here to bring you home," he tells her.
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"I love Derek. I love working with Derek. He's a mensch. He's funny and he's so generous as an actor and we really just enjoyed each other and the time that we got to spend together again, I mean, it wasn't easy, but if there's anyone that I would love to do that dance with, given the circumstances and just the history that we created during my first season, our first season, then yeah, then it was great," Torres says. "It was a wonderful surprise when they told me he was coming back."
But Tommy worries about the girls and who will watch over them. (Their uncle.) She thought she could beat it, she says. He tells her she gave everything she had, suffered so much, fought so hard, and now, she can rest. She lays back, tells him she loves him, closes her eyes and ... We'll have to watch the finale to learn her fate.
Speaking of the finale, Torres teases, "The goodbye of the 126 is not going to be satisfactory for everybody, but you get to see us at our best."
Watch the full video interview above for much more from Torres on this episode and finally working with Karam in Episode 10.
9-1-1: Lone Star, Series Finale, Monday, February 3, 8/7c, Fox
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