9-1-1's Aisha Hinds and Tracie Thoms on Representing Queer Black Women and the Struggles of Adoption

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for 9-1-1, Season 8 Episode 4, "No Place Like Home." Read at your own risk!]

Aisha Hinds and Tracie Thoms first met over 20 years ago in Los Angeles. A mutual acting friend, Gbenga Akinnagbe, was staying in town with Hinds, and the two had decided to invite Thoms over to hang out.

"I went to Aisha's apartment, and I was like, 'Who is this beautiful woman, and why does she have so much fashion sense just in her house?' She looked like she was going to an event, and she was just at home. I was like, 'I need to make better choices so I could be as fabulous as this woman,'" Thoms recalled with a laugh in a joint interview with Hinds. "And then we were just friends forever."

The long-standing nature of their friendship has lent itself to playing wives on 9-1-1, in which Hinds' paramedic-firefighter Henrietta Wilson and Thoms' rocket scientist Karen Wilson have endured one obstacle after another to keep their family together. In this week's episode of the ABC procedural drama, Hen and Karen's fight to reunite with their foster daughter, Mara (Askyler Bell), comes to a head.

At the top of the hour, Hen and Karen fail to get their foster license reinstated on the grounds that they were caught in public with Mara, who had been briefly taken in by family friends Maddie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Chimney (Kenneth Choi). Hen then decides to go after the woman she holds responsible for tearing her family apart: Councilwoman Ortiz (Veronica Falcón), who personally blames Hen for the death of her son, Kyle. (Kyle died in Season 7 after injuries sustained while driving drunk.)

That confrontation does not end well. Not only does Ortiz tell Hen that she will have to learn to live without Mara in the same way that she has to live without Kyle, but the slimy councilwoman also admits that she was responsible for re-installing Gerrard (Brian Thompson) as the captain of the 118 over Bobby (Peter Krause), who had second thoughts after resigning at the end of last season.

Hen uses that knowledge to her advantage and hatches a plan with Bobby, who manages to convince Gerrard that Ortiz will never put his best interests first. Wearing the body cameras that Ortiz mandated as part of a new pilot program to hold first-responders accountable, Gerrard gets the councilwoman to confess that she was responsible for separating Hen and Karen from Mara. For a little added flourish, Gerrard even convinces Ortiz to, under the guise of budget cuts, shutter Hen's firehouse. At the city council hearing to save the 118, Hen plays that incriminating video and kills two birds with one stone — she ends Ortiz's campaign to be the next mayor of Los Angeles before it even really started, and Mara gets to return to the only foster home she ever felt safe in.

On a joint call with TV Guide, Hinds and Thoms reflected on the evolution of Hen and Karen's relationship and their characters' years-long fight to retain their family unit, the origins of their real-life friendship — and the one storyline that Hinds has been campaigning to see on the show for years

One of the common critiques of 9-1-1 has been the way that the writers have chosen to rehash the same storyline for Hen and Karen year after year — all of their personal storylines always seem to come back down to their struggles to expand their family. What did you both make of the way that showrunner Tim Minear chose to wrap up this storyline?

Aisha Hinds: I thought it was really remarkable what he did. To your point, when you see people going through a struggle for so long, it just makes the victory of it all feel that much more validating and refreshing, and it feels like such a relief, so I'm grateful. Max, you've been with us from the beginning, so you know how long we've been fighting this battle to build out a family and fortify that family. So when you get to this point where you can actually embrace us as a whole, as a unit, and we've arrived at that mountaintop, there's something really, really incredible about that. I'm grateful for all of our audience members who have taken that journey with us, because it's not easy. Just talking about the reality of the process of building families, it's not an easy process, so it's not necessarily that we've been dragging out the storyline. It kind of gives you a microscopic sense of how hard it is, how difficult it is, and how long the journey can take. 

Tracie Thoms: My mom was a social worker and she worked in foster care, and it was relentless. One day, we came home and there was a little girl in our house, and we're like, "Who is this child?" She's like, "Her name is Debbie, and she is an emergency placement and she doesn't have a place to go tonight, so she's going to be with us." "OK, great." And this was just something that I grew up around, knowing that the process of foster children and adoption is very wrought with twists and turns, and it's never a straight line. It's often very, very difficult. So a lot of people have an idea about what it looks like, but I really commend our show for really delving into the process of foster care and how much you have to fight to try to keep these families together sometimes.

Our show really shows the tribulations of that, and I think we have real families all over the world who are really fighting for the Wilsons to have some peace and love and togetherness in their family. People come up to me all the time and they're like, "Are you going to get to keep Mara?" And they're invested! I'm like, "I don't know. I don't have the script yet!" [They both laugh.] I'm just really grateful that we have the opportunity to tell this story that I don't think I've seen ever, really, in [terms of] the depth that we go to. 

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Aisha, you were certainly given a lot to play in tonight's episode. There's Hen's initial hearing with Karen to get their foster license reinstated, a motion that was ultimately denied; Hen's tense private face-off with Ortiz; and then Hen facing off against Ortiz again in front of the rest of the city council to stop her from closing down the 118. How did you want to approach her arc in this episode? What do you think is going through her mind as she has to fight to reunite with both of her families?

Hinds: I think that was the key thing — she is working for two families at the same time, and two families that hold great significance for her. There's sort of this crossover component to it because it's not like one family is more important than the other. Both families nourish and feed her, and both families are important to her. There's no way she is able to forge the relationship she has with her work family without the support of her family at home. And there's no way that she's able to be present for her family at home without the support of her family at work. So it's almost like it's this larger family unit that she is carrying in her heart. I think that idea is the thing that swells Hen's heart, and that swole my heart as I was standing up there pleading to the judge in that one scene to reinstate the license, or when she has to come back again in the courthouse and really expose Councilwoman Ortiz. It's kind of like this is her final big Joker that she has to throw down and hope that it works so that she can have both her home family and her work family back together again, so it's wonderful that it all worked out, but there was so much risk on the table. 

Going forward, outside of dealing with adoption and custody issues again, what kinds of storylines would you like to see Hen and Karen go through?

Thoms: With the Wilson family, I think they're just looking for some togetherness and some normalcy, making sure the kids are doing well in school and making sure that Mara is feeling safe and loved and just doing normal family stuff, which would be lovely for the Wilsons to be able to do for once. 

Hinds: Yeah, spending birthdays and holidays — all that stuff that families do — and having a good time together. I'm definitely championing for Tracie Thoms to sing at some point in this show.

Thoms: Come on! [Laughs.] Aishaaa!

Hinds: [Laughs.] I think it should be well known that we have one of the premier voices of this generation as a part of our cast, locked inside the lungs of Tracie Thoms, so I think that it would be really kind of fun. Let's go on through the fun side of things. We've seen them go through so much trauma and drama, so how about we have just a fun time as a family? Maybe we extend it out to the larger family and see Tracie blow some notes. 

Thoms: Wow, wow, wow, Aisha. She's putting it out there. She's on a mission. She's on a campaign at this point.

Hinds: Listen, I need to make it happen. How do we leave this show in the world, have Tracie Thoms and not have her sing? These are my questions! It feels like a missed opportunity.

Thoms: Karen is a rocket scientist, OK? She's not a musical theater artist.

Hinds: But there was a life before that, OK? We need a "Karen Begins," right, Max? He knows that we've done all the other "Begins" episodes. We need a "Karen Begins." We need to see where she was. Was she in the nightclub? Was she a jazz singer? What was she doing while she was studying rocket science?

Thoms: Oh, so you've thought about this, I see this. [Laughs.] I'm just trying to take our family to Disneyland on the show, and you got [ideas]. Oh my god, that's hilarious. Hey, listen, I'm down for whatever. I just am so grateful to be on the show, and I think we have so much fun on our show, and our show is so much fun to watch. I watch our show like I'm just a regular fan. I'm yelling at the screen, and I'm like, "Oh my god, no! Land the plane, no! Athena, no! Bobby, no!" Because I don't get to be involved in any of the rescues, I'm on the edge of my seat and I don't really know everything that happens on the show. I know who's still on the show and who's not, generally speaking, but I'm still at the edge of my seat biting my nails because it's so heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time. So I just look forward to telling more stories like that, but I hope there's some joy with the Wilsons. I just hope we have a period of joy. 

One thing that Tim did last season — and that I, as a viewer, really enjoyed — was making Hen and Karen interact more with Maddie and Chimney, who were responsible for fostering Mara when she was taken away from Hen and Karen. Will we see more of that Buckley-Han unit in the episodes to come? You seem to have so much fun together on and off the screen.

Hinds: So much fun! We have so much fun working together as a family, and it really is awesome when we hear feedback from families that actually tune into the show [and are] watching it as a family unit. That's kind of a lost art, given the times that we live in where kids are on their devices and there's so much to watch that people don't have the same kind of viewing schedule as one another. So when we hear and when they tell us like, "Listen, I watched this with my kids," it's great that we can reflect back to them the family unit when we have play dates with Maddie, Chim, Jee-Yun, and our kids. I'm looking forward to more of it, and hopefully, there will be some more times that we can share together as a family. 

One thing that tends to get overlooked on 9-1-1 is the fact that Hen and Karen are the longest-lasting relationship on the show. All the other characters have even broken up or gotten into their current relationship during the run of the show. What kind of feedback have you gotten from other Black queer people about your portrayals of Hen and Karen's relationship and their struggles to expand their family? How much do you think about the representational aspect of what you do on the show, as far as normalizing those kinds of characters and relationships?

Hinds: I think about it often, and I'm reminded of it often, and it is the singular thing that informs the way that I approach the work. The fact that it impacts our audiences the way that it does, and particularly our Black viewers who are vocal when I see them out [in public]. They send messages, and they let me know the impact that it has and how much that representation means to them. So that single handedly gives me the desire to surrender and give myself over to these storylines that much more, knowing how important it is. And the fact that [the representation] flows so naturally — it doesn't feel like this big announcement. It just feels like a regular family living life and trying to overcome the obstacles that are presented to them. I think that the way that Karen and Hen are written, [the writers] do it in a way that feels very familiar for these families, in that we lean on each other, we forge through, we transcend, we overcome. This is what we do. 

Thoms: I take our role as representation very seriously, and I meet people all the time who are so grateful to see a family that looks like ours on TV because it's given them strength to forge and carve out these kinds of family units in their own lives and look forward to the possibilities that they have. They look at us, and they're like, "OK, I can have that as well." But what I do love about our show is that we very much normalize the fact that we are a queer couple. It doesn't come up. We don't talk about it. We don't have stories [about] a lot of struggles and coming out and being queer in the world. We just are. We love each other. We're together. We're a family. And I love that we're not "othered" on our show in a way that other shows may approach that material. 

Hinds: It doesn't feel like we're normalizing. It just feels normal. 

Thoms: Well, yeah, it's just normal. It just is, you know what I mean? So it's not like something that we talk about all the time, and I love that. I think people who struggle with that in their lives, people who struggle with accepting that about other people, are constantly confronted with the beautiful love that we have on-screen every week. They're confronted with their [prejudiced] ideas, and I love that about our show. I love that we make some people uncomfortable.

I think part of the reason your on-screen dynamic feels so real and lived-in is because you have known each other for over 20 years.

Thoms: I've been rooting for her and such a fan of hers [since we first met] because everything I see her do is so grounded and beautiful, and her work is so layered and specific, and to have the opportunity to work with her was such a gift. I was so excited about it. I auditioned to play her wife, and I told her, "I just came out of my audition to play your wife." And she said, "Oh, please, please, could you please be my wife?" I'm like, "Listen, I'm telling you, I already auditioned for it. I'm trying to be your wife, OK? I would like to be your wife! Can I be your wife?"

Hinds: It's so funny because I was a fan of Tracie for a while before we were even friends, and the roles were kind of reversed because she had moved out to California and she was doing a small show called Cold Case. [They both laugh.] I had a small guest star on the show, and I remember vividly how warm Tracie was and welcoming me and making me feel just comfortable in that space where she was. It was her show, and they were doing their thing, but I had followed Tracie.

I saw her when she did the movie Rent, and then I started to really learn about her vocal qualities, and that's why I became an advocate [to the 9-1-1 writers]: Why hasn't the family gathered around to watch the movie Rent at some point in one of these seasons as just a family affair? [Laughs.] But she's a tremendous actor — and musical theater actress as well. So I went to see her shows on Broadway and just have been following along.

So, true story, when she said she just came out of the audition to play my wife, I was like, "This is the heavens opening up. I get to play with someone that I admire, someone who's been my friend." So there was an instant kind of safety in the space for us to do the work necessary to tell the story for Hen and Karen. I'm just glad we've been able to do it for this many years. 

Thoms: Yes, it's such a gift to have somebody to play with. There's such an ease. It's already built in. Our friendship is in the DNA of our characters, so that's just a gift that we have, and we have so much trust for each other. We can just be brutally honest with each other at work when we're doing the work. It's like we have a shorthand when we come to work; we don't have to think about it. We don't have to be like, "OK, how are we going to do this?" We're just like, "Just say action. Let's go. Let's do this." I know if I get lost, I just look at Aisha, and Aisha will get me right back to where I need to be. 

9-1-1 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on ABC. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.