‘Fire Country’ Boss Breaks Down Season 3 Premiere: What’s Next for Bode & Gabriela?
Considering how Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) is at her own wedding (she kept looking at her ex instead of the groom), it’s probably a good thing a helicopter crash interrupts it on Fire Country!
Gabriela has yet to say “I do” to Diego (Rafael de la Fuente) when everyone must leap into action to help the injured, among whom is Genevieve (Alix West Lefler), trapped with her maybe biological father Rick (Adam Aalderks) while Jake (Jordan Calloway) tries to get to them. Manny (Kevin Alejandro) gets a brief reprieve from jail when he’s caught up in the crash and helps out—with Luke (Michael Trucco) speaking up for him—but he’s not exactly happy about what’s going on with his daughter and Bode (Max Thieriot). In fact, he asks Sharon (Diane Farr) to keep the two apart. Uh-oh! But before anything can be resolved in the Bode-Gabriela-Diego love triangle—Diego is not stupid and sees how the two look at each other during the emergency—fire, of course, rears its head.
Below, executive producer Tia Napolitano teases what’s ahead after that explosive premiere.
It feels like Gabriela and Diego are done after that conversation at the end. What can you say about them? Are they done?
Tia Napolitano: You’ll have to tune in to find out. I think if they were to be done, it would be messy. They almost ended up sharing a life together. They were about to. It was so close. I think conversations need to be had. There’s just a ton of fallout from everything that went down in that premiere that’s going to trickle through the season for Gabriela and for Diego and for Bode.
Even if they are done, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Gabriela and Bode have an immediate future together because she was just going to get married and it feels like they almost need to be friends in a way they have never been before, right?
That’s right. It’s interesting. She was almost about to get married. I would assume nothing. I would assume nothing just because you didn’t see her walk down that aisle. There are a lot of steps between where they are and two people who are together romantically.
Then you have Manny wanting Sharon and Vince (Billy Burke) to keep Bode and Gabriela apart, which doesn’t bode well for any of the relationships for all those characters. But is Sharon going to listen? How much is she struggling with that decision?
I think the ask is very specific to keep Bode and Gabriela apart. Sharon has to weigh how much is she going to do that exactly and how much is she going to just look after them each and their individual needs and their needs as a potential couple. There’s a little bit of a gray area in fulfilling Manny’s request to a T or simply doing what she thinks is best for those two young people.
Do Sharon and Vince agree with him though?
You’ll have to tune in and find out. I think put three parents in a room with two of their kids and opinions are going to fly in every direction from kindergarten to apparently 30 years old.
Having Luke speak up in Manny’s defense seems like part of his redemption story that you’ve kind of teased.
I love Luke. Luke is one of my most favorite, most interesting characters because he gets a really bad rap, but I think he is a good guy and when Manny’s down and when it comes to, is he going to get the medical care he deserves before being taken away? Luke’s going to be on the right side of that issue and I love that moment for him. It allows you to keep him around as this character you sort of love to hate but also love.
It seems like the wheels are in motion too much to stop the path that Manny’s on right now with the arrest. Would you say that’s the case or is there the possibility of everything going away?
Oh, there are consequences. There are consequences. He’s been arrested. The police are there. There’s a bill to be paid for what Manny’s done.
How is he going to be handling that, especially when he’s now also worried about his daughter and Bode?
It’s really hard, especially since Manny’s the one who’s cuffed now and Bode’s free. We know that from last season. I think it’s going to be a big slice of humble pie for Manny.
Which relationship would you say has changed the most in Season 3 from what we saw in Season 2?
I’m going to say Bode and Gabriela. These two have only gazed at each other from afar or gotten together and they were breaking rules and all of a sudden, he’s no longer incarcerated. What does that mean for them?
It seems like Rick’s actually a good guy now. Jake seems kind of surprised by what he’s hearing and the way that he’s seeing him interact with Gen. So how much is Jake struggling with wanting to do what’s right for Gen and what he wants for himself?
It’s going to be a big struggle. And he’s relatively new to parenting. He hasn’t had a ton of practice at it and everybody knows being a parent is putting your kid first. But what about when it really hurts? Rick does reveal himself to be sort of a good guy on the show’s theme of redemption. That theme is allowed to remain true for anybody—even people we don’t like or didn’t necessarily in our past that have changed.
And Jake has seen how Bode has changed. So how can he look at someone else and say you can’t?
That’s right. It’s complicated.
What can you say about the paternity test? Is that something that’s going to be drawn out? Are we going to find out sooner rather than later?
We played a big paternity test last season with Genevieve and here it is again. We really want to deliver the information quickly, get those answers, and live in the fallout and the consequences of that rather than living in the question like we did last season.
What’s coming up for Vince and Sharon? It seems like they’re wrestling with what to do about Gabrielle and Bode, maybe the hierarchy at work…
They are definitely going to have feelings about Gabriela and Bode. Sharon has basically said, I’m going to get my job back. So we’ll see hierarchies at work shift for them. They are trying to refocus on themselves. They had a bit of a rocky go of it last season, so I think we want to see them refocus on their marriage and see that romance again. And now that Bode’s out, what’s next? He wants to be a firefighter. They have opinions about that. They have goals related to that and that’ll be part of their drive this season.
All the relationships in the Leone family are so good. That’s why I’m wondering, is there a family dinner coming up? That could be really explosive.
I love that. And now that Bode’s out, we get to do stuff like that. There was so much that we couldn’t do that’ll feel so fresh and so new and there’s a lightness that we get to play with Bode that I’m really looking forward to everybody seeing.
What’s Bode’s biggest struggle?
That’s a good question. Bode’s biggest struggle without any spoilers, my friend… I think his firefighter goals. It isn’t easy to get from the inmate firefighter program into actual Cal Fire. It’s hard and it’s something Bode really wants. And while Bode was incarcerated, we had people advocate for him, his parents, Manny. Bode gets to and has to advocate for himself now and get his own goals. And so it’s a good struggle, but he’s got a hill to climb with no promises at the top.
The logline for the second episode reveals that Bode receives a life-changing opportunity that could impact his future as a firefighter. What can you say about that and how he handles it?
It’s going to be very exciting and Bode’s going to be challenged in a whole new way.
We’re also going to be meeting Audrey [Leven Rambin] in that episode. What can you say about how we meet her and what her introduction means for Bode?
We meet Audrey in a surprising way. She has a history unlike a lot of the characters on our show. I think she and Bode will find a common ground and she’s fun. She’s really sassy. Leven Rambin’s amazing and it’s just another layer to the family that’s been fun to add on.
It seems like part two of the helicopter crash is coming in Episode 2 because of the way you ended the premiere at the Explosion. So who’s going to be in danger?
It’s a direct pickup. So we live in a lot of danger. There’s many people is the short answer.
You’ve had some great cliffhangers over the two seasons so far. Is there one coming up before the mid-season finale or is that going to be the major one?
The major one’s going to be the midseason finale, but we have a lot of little ones. We’ve gotten very cliffhanger-y. We really want to grab the audience and have everyone come back and we have so much story under our belt ongoing story that there are callbacks that the audience remembers and there’s new stuff that you’ve never seen on our show before and Bode’s out in the world. So we’ve got some cliffhangers, action cliffhangers. A lot to come back to every week.
How’s it going over at Three Rock for Eve (Jules Latimer)?
Good. I love Eve at Three Rock this year. Last year, she was learning and she was learning by being really hardcore and enforcing the rules and proving that she could be there and the guys could trust her. And this year, she’s got much more Manny swagger from Season 1 of like, these are her guys. They have inside jokes. She can rely on them. She doesn’t have to be a hardass in order for them to respect her—they respect her so she can really lean into the joy of the job and the comradery and she really gets to have fun with it in a way that’s really refreshing and nice to watch for that character.
