Tommy's cancer gets worse in “9-1-1: Lone Star” preview: 'It was very sad,' Gina Torres says (exclusive)

Tommy has given her share of bad medical news on 9-1-1: Lone Star, but now the EMT is facing an upsetting diagnosis of her own.

Earlier this season, Tommy (Gina Torres) was diagnosed with cancer. But — after the entire 126 firehouse and some Austin police officers threatened to quit their jobs if the city didn't find a way to fund her promising treatment — the medic looked like she was headed toward remission.

But in a season 5, episode 11 preview clip exclusive to Entertainment Weekly, Tommy learns that her doctor find her latest scans "concerning" — with her tumors actually growing in size.

Related: Tommy's 9-1-1: Lone Star cancer story was former star Sierra McClain's idea: 'It will affect everybody'

Tommy rationalizes that the tumors may just be "swelling" because of the treatment, which the doctor agrees can happen in "very rare cases." But "either way, I'm afraid that may not matter," the doctor tells her before the preview clip leaves Tommy questioning, "What does that mean?"

"It was exhausting," Torres tells EW of filming Tommy's latest cancer developments. "It was challenging. It was very sad, in some ways, because this is somebody that I have invested so much in — that I believe the audience has invested in as well. And so to see get another trial.... She wants to raise her children, she wants to do her job, and the fact that she can't is almost as — if not more — painful than the actual diagnosis. There is this feeling that she's not done and she doesn't know how to.... It's a hard field to fight when there's something so much bigger and you know what your chances are. Are you going to have your way, or is it going to be taken out of your hands?"

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Meanwhile, there's that asteroid that's headed straight for Austin — leaving the rest of the 126's lives in question as well.

"It all started with sort of how we felt as a show, which was, 'Wait, why is our world ending too soon?" co-showrunner Rashad Raisani says, referencing that the show will come to an end next week after five seasons. "As we were approaching these last episodes, that seemed to be a common theme for a lot of our characters in their own ways: Why is this cancer cutting my life short too soon? Why is Owen leaving too soon? It just seemed to be coming up over and over. And so we thought, 'Well, let's use an apocalyptic event that epitomizes the world ending too soon.' And what better to do that than an asteroid?"

9-1-1: Lone Star season 5, episode 11, “Impact” airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly