The hit CBS Drama Fire Country’s themes and plots have never been more relevant in today’s climate, and I have some big questions that need to be answered before the second half of season three premieres on Friday, January 31.
Fire Country is finally returning from its midseason hiatus later this week, on Friday, January 31. Episode eight, “Promise Me,” recently left fans with a huge cliffhanger, with protagonist Bode Leone’s life (Max Theiriot) and new Cal Fire recruit Audrey James (Leven Rambin) hanging in the balance, with them surrounded by zombie fires on all sides. But, before the show picks up again, I want to discuss some burning questions that still remain.
Will Bode and Gabriela finally get together?
Fire Country ended one love triangle in the season three premiere, as Diego (Rafael de la Fuente) and Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) broke up when Gabriela hesitated to say “I do” to Diego on their wedding day, only for the wedding to be interrupted by a helicopter crash. As the Station 42 crew rushed to help, Gabriela revealed that she still had feelings for her ex-boyfriend Bode, and broke up with Diego. However, Bode and Gabriela did not jump back into a relationship right away again: Gabriela is now in severe debt to pay for the wedding that never was and believes that her relationship with Bode is not healthy for either of them.
Season three also introduces a new character in Bode and Gabriela’s complicated dynamic. Audrey James is an inmate turned firefighter-in-training like Bode, and the two become close as they work together and eventually join Cal Fire. There are some sparks between them for sure, but neither have made any moves to act on their feelings–if there are any, because Bode is still in love with Gabriela.
I used to root for Bode and Gabriela, but after watching the events of season three play out, I do agree that the two of them are not healthy for each other. Gabriela broke into a con camp just to have one night with Bode; Bode escaped from prison just to meet her for the first time; Bode got himself sent back to prison because he did not believe he was good enough for Gabriela, and sacrificed his chance at freedom to take the fall for a friend, and of course, Gabriela walked away from a man she was planning on building a life with.
Bode and Gabriela are like matches and gasoline; every time they attempt to burn, they catch fire too quickly and burn bright, but it only lasts for a moment. In the first half of season three, Gabriela and Bode hooked up on a regular basis, but when Bode asked Gabriela if she was ready to commit, her answer was no, and he broke things off between them for good. While it seems that things are going good for Bode, they are moving in the opposite direction for Gabriela, which makes me wonder if the show will finally stop playing this game of push-and-pull and finally decide to push them together or separate them for good.
Will Gabriela pull herself together?
I am amazed by how drastically Gabriela’s life has changed over the course of the three seasons of Fire Country. At the start of the show, Gabriela is a retired Olympic diver with a committed boyfriend, Jake Crawford (Jordan Calloway), and decides to start a new career as a firefighter and a medic. After she broke up with Jake and got together with Bode, the two of them vowed to work on bettering themselves so that by the time Bode is freed from prison, the two can be together.
However, when Bode got sent back to prison at the end of season one, by season two, Gabriela had seemingly moved on, with a stable career in her belt and an engagement to her new beau, Diego. But when Bode returned, it was revealed that she still loved him, and her current feelings for him conflicted with her engagement to Diego; by the time the wedding rolled around, Gabriela was unable to commit to Diego (the “good guy” persona to Bode’s “bad boy” stereotype) and the two broke it off.
That was when things started to fall apart for her. Since she broke up with Diego, Gabriela has been on a steady downward spiral, with her becoming homeless and having to move into an Airstream, and having to pay for the wedding that never happened.
She is a sharp contrast to Bode, who’s life is finally getting to the point where he wants it to be. He went from being an inmate at Three Rock Con Camp to being released a year early and joining Cal Fire. He has made amends with his parents and is finally moving on from the death of his sister. While things seem to be looking up for Bode after he breaks things off with Gabriela, she is only getting worse.
Gabriela has taken to working long shifts and then drinking it off, doing dangerous solo cliff dives, and letting the trailer she lives in become filthy. But fans were stunned when she hooked up with her ex Jake in a steamy moment in the back of his truck. She even quit her job when she got angry with Jake for cautioning her about her behavior, and stormed off in the middle of a fire zone.
So Gabriela Perez has officially hit rock bottom. But unless the show plans for her to reach rock bottom after rock bottom, she can’t go anywhere but up, right?
Will Bode learn that Gabriela and Jake hooked up?
At the end of episode seven, “False Alarm,” it was truly a bad day for both Gabriela and Jake. Gabriela was tired of being berated by Sharon, Bode’s mother (Diane Farr) and stormed out from her home after Sharon tried to help her. Meanwhile, Jake learned that his adoptive daughter Geniveve (Alex West Lefler) had reconnected with her biological father and wanted to stay with him. Jake had previously lost Cara, Geniveve’s mother, and now lost his kid. After getting into an argument with Vince Leone (Billy Burke), both Gabriela and Jake ended up at the same bar. They ended up reminiscing about their old times, and got drunk together. That was when they decided to hook up.
When it was all over, Jake was ashamed by what he did, and said that he “slept on his integrity” when he hooked up with his ex. But his ex is also Bode’s ex, and it has been cleared that in the show, Jake and Gabriela would never have worked out, and they are better off as friends.
In episode eight, “Promise Me,” Jake told Gabriela that he wanted to tell Bode that he and Gabriela slept together in a drunken moment of vulnerability. Gabriela (who has become much colder and withdrawn) disagreed. She argued that she and Bode were over and that it was nobody’s business that two single and consenting friends who made a “human mistake” did together. But if Jake really feels that not telling Bode about what happened would violate their friendship, she would not stop him. In Gabriela’s eyes, she and Bode are not together, so it does not matter.
But this might really hurt Bode. Even though he has shown some interest in Audrey, it is clear that he still has feelings for Gabriela. He might be upset that his best friend hooked up with his ex. He might get over it, but while Jake and Bode consider each other to be brothers, their history has not always been this great. This might reignite some old pains between them, and might throw their relationship back a few steps.
One thing is for certain, though: Jake and Gabriela are not getting back together. While reigniting their romance briefly was shocking, both of them have made peace with their romantic past and consider each other to be better as friends. Showrunner Tia Napolitano confirmed that they “didn’t want to have Gabriela flip-flop and have feelings for Jake again. It really is just two single young people blowing off steam.
Fire Country season three’s second half returns on Friday, January 31, at 9/8 C on CBS and Paramount Plus.