‘Fire Country’ Showrunner Promises Immediate Answers to Cliffhanger Questions in Season 3 Premiere
“We don’t mess around,” Tia Napolitano tells Parade, and reveals what she’s most excited about from the opener.
Fire Country Season 2 left off with Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) standing at the aisle with Diego (Rafael de la Fuente), not revealing whether she said “I do” or “I can’t.” Because even though she cares about Diego, she and Bode (Max Thieriot) are still in love with each other, and although they can’t say it, they can’t hide their feelings. The Season 3 premiere promises to answer the question of whether or not she marries Diego. It’s called “What the Bride Said,” after all. Fire Country showrunner Tia Napolitano knows fans have been waiting all summer for the resolution to the cliffhanger, and she’s not going to drag it out.
“In the finale last year, we wanted to have people like, ‘Oh my gosh, what happens next? I can’t wait.’ And we finally get to just deliver it,” she tells Parade. “We don’t mess around, we don’t play with time. We’re just giving straight information and really exciting stuff, a lot of red meat, bam, bam, bam, one after another.”
Sometimes Fire Country teases the audience, but that’s not the case in the premiere, she says. Fans are going to get to see a lot of big developments right away. “I’m pumped for them to absorb all the new information and all of the surprises,” she says.
Gabriela’s choice is a simple yes or no question to be answered, but the writers have to come up with an interesting journ ey to get to it. Napolitano’s process starts with a stroll through her TV memory bank.
“First, you think of every time you’ve ever seen a show cliffhang on a wedding, and then make sure you do it different,” she says with a laugh. The audience sees certain scenarios and assume they know where it’s going based on what they’ve seen before. So it’s the writers’ job to come up with something that defies expectations. “So then we started pitching,” she says. “That’s why there’s a whole writer’s room, not just me. And you just have one idea and best it, and then best it again and come up with something that makes everyone go, ‘Oh my God, we’ve never seen that before. Let’s do that.’”
In the Fire Country premiere’s case, that’s having the wedding get interrupted by a helicopter crash. “I forget the idea we had before that. And then one of our writers was like, ‘Well, don’t you think what the audience wants is for the action to literally collide physically with the character story?’” Napolitano recalls. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, that one. We’ll do that.’”
If there’s one thing Napolitano is most excited about in the season premiere, it’s one particular image that’s extremely Fire Country. “Gabriela covered in glass and blood in her wedding dress has been a visual I just latched onto,” Napolitano says. “I remember pitching it to Steph Arcila when we were scoring the finale. It was like, ‘I’m gonna have you bloody in a wedding dress.’ And so I’m super excited for that. Even just the visual really gets me excited.”
