‘9-1-1: Lone Star’: Natacha Karam Explains Marjan’s Major Decision & New Path

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 4 Episode 5 “Human Resources.”]

On 9-1-1: Lone Star, when someone at the 126 is facing a complaint, everyone just assumes it’s Owen (Rob Lowe), even if he hasn’t hit anyone lately. But that’s not the case this time.

Instead, it’s Marjan (Natacha Karam), with the woman she rescued from her mobile home as her husband drove off with it — and her still inside it — claiming the firefighter’s use of the word “crazy” made her feel unsafe. The (reunited!) couple wanted Marjan to post a public apology on social media with a link to their GoFundMe … or face a lawsuit. Marjan ultimately decides to quit — via a video she shares online — and leaves behind the 126 (for now?).

Karam assures us she’s not going anywhere and teases what’s ahead for Marjan.

This isn’t goodbye for you, right?

Natacha Karam: No. There is processing time for Marjan. You will follow her as she gets further into her self-discovery and she needs to learn what’s right for her and what her calling is in life. The audience is going to get a chance to follow her on that. And then finally she’ll make a decision.

But that was quite the farewell scene with the 126, especially Marjan and Paul’s (Brian Michael Smith). Talk about filming that.

It was actually a very emotional day filming that because to think that Marjan’s been backed into a corner where she’s facing her own morality and integrity and in order for her to feel OK and in line with her integrity, she has to say goodbye to something and a lot of people who she loves very much… I think for her, staying there would be too difficult and there’s some soul searching to be done, which is why she has to leave.

When we were filming it that day, there was this kind of weight that was present of none of us know what’s coming next. It’s always hard to say goodbye to someone when you don’t know when you’ll be back again.

I have to respect her for what she did, and her reasoning is sound because she can’t do her job and keep civilians, the 126, or herself safe if she’s worrying about everything she does or says in the middle of a dangerous situation. Is any part of her questioning her decision?

Yeah, of course she is. I think she thinks that in that exact moment she’s incapable of doing her job to the standard that she would like to and lives are totally literally on the line every moment in that job. So if you’re not feeling 100 percent, you shouldn’t really be there. And for her, it’s too difficult to sit there and slowly figure it out. She needs to leave and have that time to face herself and do her soul searching.

Kevin Estrada/FOX

Is this experience going to change how she views how she uses her social media? Because yeah, she does good with it with her young followers, as she mentions, but the attention it brings her also led to this situation. But for her, the good does still outweigh the bad, right?

Yeah, I think the good does outweigh the bad with her use of social media. I think for most people that have a kind of sense of morality or purpose, social media can be very useful because it gives you access to so many people and even just the opportunity to make one person feel seen or heard, let alone hundreds of thousands or millions of people is a huge responsibility. I think Marjan never forgets that social media comes with a responsibility, not just fun.

You’ve brought up this self-discovery path she’s on now. What is her plan exactly? Just to hit the road and figure things out as she goes?

Yeah, I don’t think she’s ever really had that time to herself. There’s always been something that needed to be achieved, whether it was learning to become a firefighter, passing whatever test she need to become, whether then it’s becoming one then moving from Miami to Austin. She hasn’t really had time off and doesn’t really ever get time like this. So I don’t think she had a plan. She just knew she needed to get away from Austin, get away from the firehouse, spend some time on the road, see if anything comes up when she’s just with her own thoughts, spending time inside herself and not having any distractions really. Or she thinks.

I suppose it’s too much to hope that she ends up in Los Angeles and crosses paths with the 118 for a 9-1-1 crossover.

[Laughs] I think that that idea had been played with. But that is not where she ends up. No, instead she does end up sort of northern… I won’t say where she ends up.

We saw Owen in the cabin when he spent time away. Is she following in his footsteps?

She’s going a little further. She’s going to different states. She’s really on a road trip on that bike.

I noticed looking at the photos from the episode after this one, there’s one where it looks like everyone could be FaceTiming her (below). So is that something we’re going to be seeing?

Yeah, that does happen. For a while Marjan’s not really going to be around, but she doesn’t disappear out of people’s thoughts. And so for the other characters to still have what feels like an authentic experience of their friend leaving, there will be check-ins. They’ll be trying to figure out where I’m at, what I’m up to, get advice. Paul and Marjan stay in contact. They’re best friends, so they touch base often. But I can’t really say much else about that.

Kevin Estrada/FOX

I liked the scenes in this episode between Marjan and Owen and him telling her that she always has a place at the 126. She does have a home there because of Owen.

I think that’s what makes it hardest for her to walk away. That’s why she can’t just sit in Austin in her apartment and think about it. She has to get really far away, get the space that she needs, and really not get pulled back in by anything other than her own sense of what’s right and wrong and what’s for her.

It’s probably a good thing she’s getting out of town now because there’s this bomber (Brennan Keel Cook) storyline, and so far, she’s the only one to interact with him. Did he set off any serious alarm bells in her? She seemed to maybe know something was odd, but not really exactly what’s going on.

Let’s just say not yet. The alarm bells haven’t gone off yet. She’s distracted with what’s going on with herself. He seemed like an odd dude, but the penny hasn’t dropped yet.

Marjan says she’ll be back for T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein) and Carlos’s (Rafael Silva) wedding. So does that mean she’s not really going to be involved in any of the planning, but just all of the fun of it?

Yeah, I think it looks that way because she’s gone for quite some time and she doesn’t know what the answer is to whether she’s going to come back and work there but she definitely knows that she’s going to come back and still be friends and celebrate the people closest to her. So during the season that a lot of the planning is happening in she won’t be there.

What else can you say is coming up?

There is an episode where actually the audience gets to follow Marjan out on her little Route 66 discovery of self. And as per usual in Lone Star world, it doesn’t go quite as planned. Basically it’s kind of an isolated movie with just Marjan.

How many rescue scenes does she get in that episode?

[Laughs] I can’t say anything about that. She’s not a firefighter anymore. What do you mean?

Yes, but we know her. If something is going on, she’s going to step in.

What else would we make a movie out of, I guess. But yeah, there’s that to look forward to. The audience does get to go travel with her.

Can you say if we’ll see any other main characters in that episode, or is it mainly going to be new one?

It’s mainly going to be new characters. She’s in a different state.

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Everything going on right now with her stems with that rescue from the chopper, which was awesome for Marjan. Going back to that, talk about filming it.

I love filming stuff like that. We don’t do green screen very often because a lot of [the time] what you see is exactly what we did. When we’re rappelling down the sides of mountains or those kinds of things, that is literally us hanging down the side of the mountains. Sometimes in the wide shots, it’s a stunt double.

But with this one, obviously we’re in a helicopter, so it was quite fun because there was a green screen, all the hanging and the ropes, and then a little simulator that was shaking the whole house when I was actually in the mobile home.  It was lots of physical stuff with our amazing stunt team. My co-star who played the woman who I got out of the house, I think it was her first time on wires. And so she was like, “What a fun way to be doing this in my pajamas, all comfortable.”

Originally, I was in the firetruck when Owen gave the command that I was going to go down in a helicopter and you get to see that cheeky bit of excitement that Marjan gets when she gets to do something full of adrenaline. But to cut the episode together to make more sense, that kind of disappeared. And then me and T.K. appeared in the helicopter rather than having the whole thing explained.

That cheeky excitement is why it’s so hard to imagine Marjan away for too long.

I mean, hey, a lot of things could go wrong on Route 66 on your motorbike. There’s a lot to see and there’s a lot to experience. It depends how far away from home you get.

I cannot wait to see this journey of self-discovery from Marjan because I feel like it’s going to be exciting.

It is. It’s really big. There’s kind of almost like a two-hander. It’s not even just one movie. It’s kind of two episodes that go back-to-back. I think it’s [Episodes] 8 and 9.

9-1-1: Lone Star, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox