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As previously reported, Sierra McClain exited 9-1-1 Lone Star ahead of season five, and the show returned to Fox last night with its first episode after her departure from the show. Fans who couldn’t tune in might be wondering how her character, Grace, was written out of the show so abruptly. Keep reading to find out more… The show explained in the first episode that Grace had gone abroad to volunteer with the real-life organization Mercy Ships, which is a global charity founded on Christian principles that runs non-governmental hospital ships. Showrunner Rashad Raisani told TVLine that killing off Grace “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.” Rashad added, “People are allowed to feel the feelings they have about it 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.” He added to The Wrap, “I want to make a point to say, I love Sierra McClain. I think she’s essential to the DNA of the show and there is no replacing her, period. We found ourselves in this situation where she was just not available to us. So we just said, ‘OK, well, the show must go on. So how do we take this crisis of logistics behind the camera and make it a crisis of story? You’ll see as the season goes on, her absence, especially in Judd’s life, looms larger and larger and leads to its own crisis. It gives Jim Parrack many more nuances that really start to emerge towards the middle and back half of the season.” This is the show’s final season on Fox.
