Sierra McClain Left '9-1-1: Lone Star' Because of Issues With Her Contract

The fifth season of 9-1-1: Lone Star will also be the show's final season, and there have already been some major shakeups. The Season 5 premiere saw the departure of Grace Ryder, a dispatcher who had been with the show through its first four seasons.

Following the news of actor Sierra McClain's departure from the show (and her character's departure as a result), many wanted to know why Sierra had left the series. Here's what we know about how the show lost one of its central characters.

Sierra McClain apparently left the show over "contract disputes" according to reporting from Deadline. According to the reporting, reps for various actors on the show approached Fox about renegotiating contracts for the show's regulars before Season 4. While most series regulars sign six-year deals, it's customary for those deals to be renegotiated on successful shows. Those initial efforts to renegotiate the deals were rebuffed, though, as Fox wanted to wait until after Season 4.

Renegotiations also didn't happen after the fourth season, though, leading many to believe (correctly) that the show's fifth season would also be its last. This all happened in the middle of the actor's strike, which put negotiations on hold for months. Instead of new contracts, the cast was offered a one-time bonus, and while many of the cast chose to take those bonuses to return for the fifth season, Sierra declined.

Even before the show was officially given one final season, Deadline reported that many members of the cast had already started auditioning for other projects. It seems that Sierra got the jump on the rest of the cast, though, and had to be written out in the first episode of the fifth season in a way that was divisive among fans who had grown to love her character.

Many fans of 9-1-1: Lone Star were unhappy with how quickly Grace left the show. In an interview with Screen Rant, showrunner Rashad Raisani said that he wasn't thrilled about it either.

"I think most people would say Judd and Grace are the heart and soul of Lone Star, and half of that is gone now. So there's no way that we could just dispatch of it or quickly write it off," he explained.

He added that he felt the writers had to "embrace that loss" and "share the pain that we felt behind the scenes in front of the cameras, as well, and make that the story, particularly, for Judd."

It seems clear, then, that no one was particularly satisfied with the way Grace's story came to an end.

Unfortunately, Hollywood is a business above all else, which means that story considerations are secondary to the money behind the operation. Lone Star fans might not get exactly what they want, but that's sometimes just how the cookie crumbles.