Hen and Karen Wilson have seen their fair share of struggles throughout eight-plus seasons of 9-1-1.
They were in for the fight of their lives during 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 4, when the couples fought to bring their daughter, Mara, home to them after corrupt Councilwoman Ortiz did everything she could to keep them apart.
As usual, the couple stood strong, and they stood together as they always do, and in the end, Mara finally came home to them.
The talented, lovely, and refreshing Aisha Hinds and Tracie Thoms, who play Hen and Karen Wilson, respectively, were kind enough to take some time to chat about the emotional hour.
Talking to the two women who make up one of television’s greatest relationships was a joy. Their banter and love of the series and characters shone through during this conversation, which tapped into the journey to bring Mara home and what they’d like to see from the characters in the future.
Hint, hint: Aisha is ready for Tracie to SING!
Check out this lively chat under the cut, 9-1-1 fanatics!
I wanted to start with a question for both of you. Throughout this series, Hen and Karen have gone through many different life events, and they always come out stronger on the other side.
How important is it to both of you to showcase their dynamic in this coupling and this beautiful family, which is really the OG 911 relationship?
Aisha: Right.
Tracie: Right.
Aisha: That’s the privilege and the blessing to be able to do that, right? To have this unit, first of all, reflected on television and to see that they’re able to lean in and lean on each other and triumph over any and all obstacles that come their way, just by virtue of the fact that they’re leaning into one another.
It speaks volumes to us and to audiences about our power and what we’re able to do as a united front, as two beautiful Black queer women, as parents, as professionals in our lines of work that we are involved in. I love it. I love all that it puts out into the world and the message that it sends.
Tracie: No, listen. It’s just such a gift. I’m just happy to be here. I think she pretty much covered it. We have such a wonderful opportunity here to tell a story that’s very unique and that I don’t think I’ve seen on any other show.
Audiences really, really relate to it, and they are very invested in our family. That’s such a blessing to me.
Aisha, we’ve seen Maddie and Chimney step in to help foster Mara during this time. Hen goes to Bobby during this episode to talk. The 118 shows up for Hen and Karen in the courtroom. Talk to me about the 118 and that family and its importance to Hen and her family.
Aisha: We have had such an awesome privilege to be able to do this show for as long as we have, given the climate of the industry and the world. We’ve been able to continue doing this show. Audiences continue to tune in and connect with us. It informs the work that we get to do and give back to them.
With that, it’s just the number of pairings you talked about: the 118, the Maddie and Chim, the Cap. There’s community at the center of it all. We are able to rely on one another when we need each other, which is a beautiful component to encapsulate and put into these characters and their journeys.
I was so grateful to see how that kind of Hail Mary worked out when we thought we were just about to lose Mara, and we were at the edge of ourselves in the ideas we could come up with and the efforts we could make to save the family.
In comes Chim and Maddie finding a way to still keep her in the family. It’s like the family we have forged off-screen; being able to do this show for as many years as we have translates to the family on screen.
That’s what you’re seeing. That when one person is down, the other person comes in, picks up the ball, and keeps it rolling.
It was so beautiful to be in this big courtroom full of people, but knowing that she has her people right there behind her. In the end, that’s what it’s all about, you know? Family.
Mara finally comes home at the end of the episode, which is a great moment, especially when they’re all back together at the house, and Maddie and Chimney are there. Talk to me about what you see for the Wilsons going forward.
What do you hope to see for them now that their family is back together, and they can hopefully start to put some of the Ortiz stuff and everything behind them?
Tracie: It makes them even more grateful to be together; they had to work so hard for it. I think that moving forward, they’re going to just really, really relish their family unit and really try to nurture these kids and create normalcy for them, particularly for Mara.
Denny has been so great over the years because he’s been there for all the foster kids and their trials and tribulations. But we’ve been trying to create a safe space for Mara and fight for her when nobody else would for so long.
I think they’re just really going to take this opportunity to be as strong a family unit as possible.
Going up against Ortiz was not easy at all. Hen and Karen are very compassionate, but this was extremely challenging.
How do you think they were able to process everything and get through this entire situation, especially Hen, given what happened with Kyle and his passing?
Aisha: Girl. Ortiz came for our neck.
Tracie: She did. She did. I had one little scene with her last season. I was like, “I feel like I’ve been cut in my side.”
Aisha: I mean, relentless. I was reading the pages. Sometimes, I would read the scenes and be like, “Guys. Does she have a heart inside there? What?” But, to her point, I did feel a real sense of guilt. I do have to look at this from her perspective. This woman is grieving.
They both had a valid position from their own point of view. But I think once Hen and Karen decided, “Listen. We’re going to go, and we’re just going to ask, and we’re going to beg.” There was a time when we decided we would beg her.
When we pull off all of our guard and anything else, and we beg her, and she still looks us straight in the eye, like, “Yeah. No.” She doesn’t even care that she’s punishing us, but she’s also punishing a little girl, an innocent little girl. I was like, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” She is relentless.
Tracie: I know.
Aisha: But it just added to the drama. Her being as vicious as she was just made the victory even that much sweeter.
Tracie: It’s a weird thing because where it still works is that they just…everybody’s coming from an emotional place at the end of the day. There’s empathy in there somewhere for, like, “Okay. This woman lost her son.”
A grieving mother and we’re mothers as well. I mean, there’s a little bit of that empathy in there for her. However, the fact that she could turn her grief and make it so destructive to us was, I think, disorienting for us for many, many episodes.
Like, “Wait. How is she doing this? She’s a mother. How does she have this much power? How is she still relentless in her pursuit in making us miserable?” But grief is really strong. Grief and power together are stronger, and we just bore the brunt of it for a long time. It all came to a head in this episode.
Eight seasons in, you guys have gotten to do a lot of different things within the Wilson family and a lot of different storylines. What’s something that you guys haven’t gotten to do with your characters that you’d like to?
Tracie: Uh-Oh.
Aisha: Musical.
Tracie: Oh, this keeps coming up.
Aisha: I mean, Whitney, I don’t know if you know, but we have one of the premier voices among us.
Tracie: Oh, stop it.
Aisha: Embedded within the lungs of Tracie Thoms. I just think that it’s a missed opportunity for us not to find and figure out some creative way to put that into the world. Because people love her. But maybe people also love her voice.
I’m just like, “Listen. Can we sing for joy that our family is back together, and can she lead it off?”
Tracie: You want to just burst into song? A Brand New Day from The Wiz?
The musical would be a great idea. It’d be a lot of fun.
Aisha: I think so, too.
***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***
You can watch 9-1-1 on Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC.
Watch 9-1-1 Online
