6 hours Ago By Nellie Andreeva
SPOILER ALERT: The story includes details about the two-part Season 3 finale of CBS ‘ Fire Country , “A Change In the Wild” and “I’d Do It Again.” EXCLUSIVE : CBS’ Fire Country just delivered another suspenseful, emotional finale ending in a major cliffhanger. But its impact will go way beyond any previous season closers as Bode Leone (Max Thieriot) and Station 42 will be left reeling from the departures of two main characters next fall.
According to Deadline sources , Fire Country original cast members Stephanie Arcila , who plays firefighter and EMT Gabriela Perez, and Billy Burke, who plays Cal Fire battalion chief and Bode’s dad Vince Leone, will be leaving after three seasons. Related Stories 2025 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming CBS Renews ‘Tracker’, ‘Elsbeth’, ‘Fire Country’ And ‘NCIS’ Dramas Burke’s Vince is part of the finale’s life-and-death cliffhanger involving Vince, his wife, Cal Fire Division Chief Sharon (Diane Farr), and his father, retired battalion chief Walter Leone (Jeff Fahey) trapped in burning memory care building with the roof collapsing on them. Watch on Deadline In an interview with Deadline, Fire Country co-creators/executive producers Joan Rater and Tony Phelan and executive producer/showrunner Tia Napolitano spoke about Arcila’s exit as a series regular and shared their hope that she would return as a guest star so “the epic love story of Bode and Gabriela” can continue.
But they would not confirm Burke’s departure, opting to keep fans guessing whether it would be Sharon, Vince, Walter or Jake — who had given a two-week notice after accepting a new job — leaving the show. The trio explained in detail the decision to make the first casting changes on the series after three seasons, the way it was reached and handled and the ramifications for the remaining characters, especially Bode who was held back by his captain and friend Jake (Jordan Calloway) from rushing in to help his parents and grandfather. They addressed the resolution of Gabriela’s stalker storyline, which may create complications for ex-con-turned-firefighter Audrey (Leven Rambin), who shot Finn before Gabriela’s dad Manny (Kevin Alejandro) swooped in to keep him alive and was ready to cover for his daughter if she had pulled the trigger.
Separately, Manny decided to go for the 42 captain position that was being vacated by Jake. Napolitano and husband-and-wife Phelan and Rater — who all previously worked on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy — also discussed the future of Three Rock, whose crew of incarcerated firefighters, led by captain Eve (Jules Latimer) valiantly but unsuccessfully tried to save the camp from the raging wildfire that also caused the building collapse with the Leones in it. They trio also spoke about the big cliffhanger, the Leone family legacy and working on the firefighter drama during the L.
A. wildfires. DEADLINE: It’s been pretty bad week or so for California fire chiefs, coming off of what happened on ABC’s 9-1-1 .
Did you have any idea that they were doing something there too? PHELAN : No, no, no idea at all. RATER : But when you’re working on shows that have such danger and high stakes, it’s, I guess, to be expected that sh*t’s gonna happen. PHELAN : Joan and I, having come from Grey’s Anatomy , we’re used to killing people.
You always want to, on these shows, make sure that the threat is real, and also make sure that you are telling stories in an honest way, and that you’re finding the most exciting, creative way to tell the story. S haking up the cast : Why? And why now? DEADLINE: I cannot think of another show in recent memory that has had the same series regular cast in the pilot going to series and through three seasons. Same group, no additions, no departures.
Why did you keep the cast intact until now and why did you decide to shake this all up after Season 3? NAPOLITANO : Especially in the beginning, we felt like we had lightning in a bottle. It just was magic, the chemistry with this cast. Season 2 was obviously very short because of the strike, and at this time, Season 3, leaning into the authenticity of the real-life heroes that our characters are playing, people die, they leave.
That’s a reality, there’s danger in this sort of job, so we wanted to honor that and really up the stakes. Again, coming from a show like Grey’s Anatomy for years and years, that’s how it works with character-driven dramas. You want the opportunity for that door to open, for someone to walk out of it, or for someone to walk into it.
We’re really leaning into that aspect of the show as well as honoring the authenticity. DEADLINE: This time of year, especially, we focus a lot on budget cuts; CBS has done it on multiple shows picked up for next season. Was that a consideration at all for the cast change, keeping Fire Country ‘s costs in check to remain financially viable in the long run? RATER : It really just comes down to what’s the best creatively.
There’s a lot of stuff going on that we as producers juggle, but honestly, we are writers first and foremost and storytellers. And we struggle with these stories, we wrestle them to the ground, we consider them from six different angles. We don’t do anything lightly, we talk, we talk, we talk.
And then we just have to go with our gut about what makes the most compelling story, and we are really trying to write authentic stories that examine what these heroes deal with and go through. So that’s where we’re coming from at all times. PHELAN : Also, going into Season 4, you don’t want the audience to ever feel complacent, to feel like they know exactly what they’re gonna get, and it’s gonna be the same thing that they’ve gotten.
You want to create lean-In moments where the real stakes of what’s involved with what these heroes do is always there. So the audience never knows what’s coming next. A rcila’s Departure & Burke’s expected exit DEADLINE: The decision for Stephanie to leave, was it done earlier in the season? And when did you tell her about it? NAPOLITANO : It wasn’t decided earlier in the season.
It was during discussions about finding the end of the season . We spoke to Stephanie while we were shooting the finale. PHELAN : It was really a decision that came out of the dynamic between Bode and Gabriela; we felt like those two characters needed a reset.
We love Stephanie, and we are committed to saying that the Bode-Gabriela story does not end here, it goes on. We’re hoping that we can bring that character back, because we think that they have such great chemistry, and the audience is really invested in the two of them. But we felt, with everything that’s happening in the finale and moving on into the next season, that it was time for that character to discover what’s next for her.
DEADLINE: What about Billy? When he, Diane and Jeff were filming the finale and that fire scene, was any of them aware that that at least one of them would not continue? And when did you make a decision that it would be Billy? NAPOLITANO : We are not going to confirm who we’re losing. There will definitely be a devastating loss for everyone that remains in our family. No, shooting the finale, none of the actors knew.
DEADLINE: A few of the Fire Country series regulars, including, I believe, the two in that fire, had been asked to reduce their episodes for next season in a cost-saving measure. I heard they banded together, and ultimately their episodes were not reduced. Is the cast member departure in any way, shape or form, connected to that? RATER : No, it’s really coming out of us wanting to be exciting storytellers.
Ope n-ended finale with no goodbyes DEADLINE: How did you decide to leave the finale open-ended? I mentioned 9-1-1 , their character died onscreen. You went for a big cliffhanger with three people in danger. And as for Gabriela, the last time we saw her, she was looking at the fire in horror and no indication she may be leaving.
RATER: Tia had this beautiful image about how she wanted to end the season. Tia, can you talk about it, the lions roaring at each other? NAPOLITANO : I wanted this ferocity of Bode, just like a lion, primal, knowing three members of his family are inside that fire, knowing that he’s been resisting going in, and Jake, his captain, has been holding him back. It wasn’t quite blocked that way, but emotionally Jake, the ferocity of him protecting his friend.
They were best friends. They’ve gone through some stuff. They’re brothers, and these two young men rising in the ranks in the fire department in the season of legacy with those three lions inside just felt like, gosh.
The ferocity of Bode and Jake at the same time, and just going out on that energy felt very satisfying and very, as Tony was saying, you want to lean in. What happens in there? What’s the fallout for Bode? There’s going to be huge emotional ramifications. In the finale you see him — which we rarely see this side of Bode — fall to his knees, which just took my breath away when I saw the way that it was directed.
So that image has always been a mainstay of what the finale was going to be. RATER : I wanted to leave it like that without leaving a moment to settle. I remember on Grey’s , we would have these finales that we felt, “Oh my god.
How are we going to solve this next season? We have written ourselves into a corner.” But that’s where the best creative ideas come from. PHELAN : There are different ways you can do it.
You can have that kind of resolution, like they had on 9-1-1 , or you can go off on the question and have the audience holding onto the question throughout the hiatus. And I think, depending on how you’ve chosen to wrap things up, both are really valid choices. As Tia said, the theme of last season was legacy, and so this felt like the best way to have the audience really grappling with what that means for all the characters on the show.
DEADLINE: When you were breaking the season early on, did you already know that not everyone of the three Leones would walk out of that building? Or was that a development that came later? NAPOLITANO : We had talked about a number of different scenarios in the writers room early on, but the goal was always to end the season in a big way ...
that vision of lions roaring at each other. Deciding which characters that would impact was a creative decision made later in the process and we also wanted to maintain the authenticity that first responders have dangerous jobs with life-or-death stakes. The Edgewater community and Station 42 are about to be rocked.
DEADLINE: Did you discuss potentially not killing anyone off? Did you wrestle in the writers room with the different scenarios: should somebody die and who should that be? NAPOLITANO : Yeah, we get into it in that writers room. I think we imagined no exits, one exit, multiple exits, different exits, every which way we have to. What is the show like if we do this? What opportunities are there if we exit this person or keep this person.
We owe it to the audience and to the show to throw all the pieces in the air and see where they fall in Season 4. It is time for something a little fresh that’s still the same show everybody loves, but with a twist. DEADLINE : None of the characters whose lives are in danger had a chance to say goodbye or have a farewell scene.
Did that stem from the desire for authenticity — since deaths in real life are often unexpected and abrupt — and did you consider giving them proper goodbye? NAPOLITANO: This stems from authenticity. Time jump & possible cast additions DEADLINE: Will you do a time jump, or will we start right after what happened with the big fire? NAPOLITANO : The writers room starts in a week and a half, so I think we will play with time. I think the most important thing is, we’ve left huge cliffhangers, so we’re going to satisfy all of those cliffhangers and give everyone the information that they’re craving — we’re certainly never going to skip over any of that.
Will we play the time deeper into the episode? Perhaps, we’re still figuring out the most exciting premiere. DEADLINE: Are you going to be beefing up the cast in light of the departures? Will there be new additions for next season? RATER : We haven’t started in earnest talking about next season. And I think we’re going to have so much excellent, mind-blowing, really deep and incredible story for the people we have, so that’s what we’re going to be focusing on.
PHELAN : There’s a lot of loss in the finale: the loss of Three Rock and what’s happening to our cast, that putting the pieces back together is really what the beginning of Season 4 is going to be about. Finale’s im pact on Bode DEADLINE: Speaking of loss, even if you are not confirming who exactly dies, they are all Leones, so the impact on Bode will be profound. He already has struggled with addiction and the death of his sister.
How much more grief can one person take on before they break? How will he handle it? Could he relapse again? RATER : It’s a show about redemption and second chances and the strength these people have, and we lean into that. We believe it. We want to explore that.
We don’t want to torture Bode by any means but these guys are in a dangerous profession, and we can’t ignore that, and we didn’t want to. PHELAN : I think you are asking all of the questions that the audience is asking, which is, how much more can he take? And I’m sure those are going to be questions that he’s going to be grappling with all through next season. So we look forward to finding the new way to tell that story.
RATER : And by the way, there’s a lot of humor to be mined. Whatever happens next season, we also plan on having some joy and some light and some life and some humor, because that’s real too. Ga briela’s stalker exit arc & likely return DEADLINE: After being put through the ringer the last three seasons, Gabriela got to end her arc with a creepy stalker storyline.
How did that come about? And since there was a gun in the scene, and we know the rule that it has to fire, was there any discussion of her being shot and killed since Stephanie is leaving? RATER : Oh, I can’t remember, but I don’t think so. Although, you know a writers room, Nellie, everything is discussed, but I don’t think that was ever on the table. We love her too much.
I like the way you talk about this, Tia, that in the pilot, we make this promise that Gabriela and Bode are going to be very important to each other in their lives, and we stick by that. So our hope is, and our plan is to bring Gabriela back at some point in a really satisfying, beautiful way for the audience who I know cares as deeply about that relationship as we do. NAPOLITANO : It’s important to echo to what Tony said earlier, it isn’t goodbye.
So I wouldn’t say that her story is ending with a stalker story. We hope to see her back very soon, to give her a proper not goodbye, but see you later. In the epic love story of Bode and Gabriela, sometimes it’s very useful for a longing, to miss her, to miss them, to really crave seeing them on screen together, whatever they mean to each other.
It’s part of long-arc, character-driven storytelling. We love her, and we’re all excited to see her on screen again. PHELAN : We think of her in the same way that people loved George Clooney and Juliana Margulies on ER .
They are a big part of each other’s lives, and even though one of them might not be around all the time, their presence lives in the show. DEADLINE: You just gave fans an idea where you may be headed because we all know how Doug and Carol’s story ended. PHELAN : True.
DEADLINE: But Gabriela also is still part of the family because she and her father, Manny, are very close. She has a reason to pop in to visit him from time to time. RATER & PHELAN : That’s right.
Exactly. DEADLINE: What did you think of fans’ reaction to the stalker storyline? I think it was pretty divisive, no? NAPOLITANO : The one fun thing that I read was, once we started to tip into him being a little creepy, people are smart. They were like, “Oh, I think that he’s going to be creepy, he’s going to be a stalker, I knew he was too nice.
” That was really fun to watch the play by play and to see how surprised people were, and they seemed like they were really captivated by it. So I thought it was fun to read the fan reactions. DEADLINE: Will we ever see Gabriela in a healthy relationship? RAITER : ( laughs ) I hope so.
We love our characters like they’re our own family, and we want the best for them, so I hope so. Vi nce finding closure DEADLINE: Can you talk about the Vince-Walter storyline this season? You gave Vince really nice closure with his father as he finally accepted Walter’s diagnosis and reconciled with him in the episode with Jelly Roll. PHELAN : As we said, we really felt like legacy was a big part of this story from the beginning of the season on.
We told the story last season of Vince and Sharon coming to a point in their lives where they felt like they didn’t need to parent Bode as much anymore, and they had moved on. And then they get hit with, oh my God. Now Vince’s father is declining, and we need to deal with that.
So telling that story, and Vince’s complicated relationship with Walter, and Walter being a firefighter as well, and the legacy of the Leone family was really important to us. And the fact that Jeff Fahey and Billy Burke did such amazing work this season to really embody those characters and bring them to life and make us feel so much for how difficult it was for Vince. The prospect of losing his father before he could reconcile with him was a really important story for us to tell.
And the fact that we could get Jelly Roll into it and and have that be a part of that reconciliation was really big. RATER : And the legacy, also, of 42. From the writers’ point of view, we wanted to grow up the youngsters.
Jake, Bode, Eve, Gabriela, they started as the kids, and we really wanted them to begin to grow into themselves more. Jake is definitely chomping at the bit for more responsibility, to be next in line, and Bode is the heir apparent. So those themes were really important for us to play, too in terms of legacy and putting it squarely at Vince, how things are going to move forward.
Is Jake leaving 42? DEADLINE: You mentioned Jake. Knowing what I know, Jake’s two-week notice feels like a red herring. But I have to ask, Is Jake leaving 42; is Jordan leaving the show? NAPOLITANO : We definitely want our fans leaning in to the possibility that anybody could leave at any time.
He’s ambitious, he’s young, as far as he knows, there’s no promotion for him here at 42, and he gives two weeks. So anything’s possible. DEADLINE: I have it all figured out.
Jake takes over Vince’s battalion chief job, and Manny takes over Jake’s old job, which he was planning to apply for. RATER (laughs): You could come to the writers room and be a writer. DEADLINE: You said Jake was chomping at the bit and Bode was hair apparent.
Will there be some sort of competition between the two, maybe Manny too with leadership changes that might be coming to 42 next season? RATER : I don’t know if competition is the right word, but certainly there’s going to be a lot of figuring that out, and people are going to have feelings about it, for sure. PHELAN : I think that it does go back to what we were talking about before, which is a desire, when you get into Season 4 of any show, to look at the components of the show that you have and throw them up in the air and see how they’re going to come down. What people connect to are the characters, they’ve lived with the characters for three seasons, they’re invested in the characters.
And I think it’s part of our job as writers to find ways to keep things feeling fresh, like you’re not playing the same stories, you don’t have the same characters in the same scenes. RATER : You’re allowing your characters to grow the way we all do. The h eroic Leones DEADLINE: Talk about all the heroic moments you created for the Leones in the finale, first Bode and Walter evacuating the memory care building, then Vince and Sharon barging in to help and ultimately ending up with Walter.
NAPOLITANO : Seeing Bode and Walter in action, the joy, the pride on Walter’s face, the joy on Bode face. They’re having a little bit of fun even though they’re working. Jeff Fahey, when he smashes that window, he really smashed the window in the door.
He wanted to punch through it, he said, if I do it softly or with my elbow or with the tool, nobody’s gonna blink, but if I punch that goddamn window, people are gonna say, “Did you see what Jeff Fahey did last night on Fire Country ?” You just see that these Leones are all cut from the same cloth. Bode and Walter had gone in. Vince and Sharon aren’t fully equipped to go in that building, but they just look at each other like, we’re going in, right? Yep, we’re going in.
Four Leones in the building, no surprise there. So I think that was very heroic. PHELAN : The joy of the episode is the fact — and this ties into legacy as well — that three generations of that family finally got to do what we’ve been building for for all this time, and there might be costs in the fire because of that, but they were all doing what we feel like they were put on this earth to do.
DEADLINE: What about the tragic twist? Walter was so lucid and on his game, he saved so many lives by spotting the wind shift. But then at the end, his dementia symptoms came back, and that likely cost one of his loved one’s life. RAITER : Well, you just said it, it’s really complex.
NAPOLITANO : It was really important to us to give Walter a big hero moment, and he has many of them. Simply by calling it early, he saved so many lives, but he is sick, so that’s just balancing the reality of a horrible disease, and a man who was put on this earth to save people, letting him do that. Ma nny’s actions & Audrey’s future DEADLINE: Let’s briefly address Manny’s own heroic moment, the way he jumped into action and saved the day — and maybe Audrey’s freedom — my making the split-second decision to treat Finn, and how he was ready to go to prison for his daughter.
RATER : Yeah, he’s really one of our favorite characters. He’s got this sort of complex, but quiet, decent guy. wants to do the right thing with a lot of difficulties coming at him.
PHELAN : But he’s also like Bode, somebody who has some anger management issues and constantly has to look out for that. He understands what gets him into trouble, and sometimes he thinks it’s worth it, and sometimes he probably acts rashly in a way that he shouldn’t. But yeah, he is a character that we think is just so compelling.
And Kevin Alejandro is a an actor who brings a lot to that role. RATER : And I think the audience understands it’s always coming from a good place. He’s a good man.
DEADLINE: Speaking of Manny’s swift actions, he and Gabriela managed to stabilize Finn by covering his gunshot wound with plastic wrap. It worked somehow, and he was still living and breathing at the end of the finale. Finn doesn’t have a lot of fans, but his fate would have ramifications for Aubrey who shot him, so what can you tease about it? RATER : Sadly, that’s one of those that we don’t have the answers for you.
DEADLINE: What about Audrey? The charges against her, obviously, will depend on happens to Finn but there was also her budding romance with Bode even though you hinted that his end game could still be Gabriella. What can you say about Audrey’s as well as Bode-Audrey’s future and whether Leven would be promoted to series regular, because I think fans have connected to that character ? RATER : As as have the writers. We really love the actress and we love the character, and we don’t know.
PHELAN : She finds herself in a really interesting dilemma. We reveal that she’s the person who ended up shooting the stalker, but she’s also a convicted felon who has just now gotten her freedom. Finding out what’s going to happen to her and how Bode and she are going to negotiate that is the meat of early next season as well.
RATER : And also it goes to the authenticity. We talk a lot in the writers room about these incarcerated firefighters, and we talk about this second chance, but they have an added burden always, and the difficulty they have really turning things around. So we thought that story was cool in exploring that, and it’s a real challenge for us writers in Season 4 Th ree Rock’s fate, Eve’s growth & Cole’s Graduation DEADLINE: The Three Rock fire provided deeply emotional scenes as the inmate firefighters, led by Captain Eve, fought to save their home.
They too had gone through a lot, most recently the well contamination and Birch’s death. What will the fallout be, and will the camp be rebuilt? RATER : What we can say is, we don’t know, but part of the DNA of the show is the incarcerated firefighters. It’s so important to us to be telling their stories and stories of redemption.
So we are going to figure it out. PHELAN : But I think that Eve’s big arc in Season 4 is how to reconstitute it. What does it look like? What does she have control over versus what does she not have control over? Eve’s arc this season was about really stepping up in terms of her family, and taking ownership and agency being the leader of Three Rock, and I think in the end, when we saw them all fighting that fire, you felt that.
You felt like she was the leader of these guys. And then her commitment, it remains clear. So how is she gonna reconstitute it? That’s an exciting story.
I really loved finding out so much about that character this season, in terms of her family, in terms of her journey to becoming this kind of powerful, funny, compassionate woman that she is. So I look forward to finding more stories for her. NAPOLITANO : And just to go back to Three Rocks.
Given the recent LA fires, we are so honored to be a part of making a show where incarcerated firefighters are so important. Seeing the media attention that they got specifically during these fires, and seeing incarcerated firefighters featured all over social media, I feel like a lot of people were exposed to the reality of, these are real heroes every day, and then our show gets to tell stories about that is not something we’re going to let go, especially after the recent fires. It was so exciting to us, and so we continue to be very, very inspired by that area of the show.
DEADLINE: I want to thank you for not killing off Cole, the incarcerated firefighter who was on his last day. Was there a possibility for him to die? He came close a couple of times. RATER : We are not monsters! PHELAN : But we wanted everybody in the audience going, oh my god, they’re gonna kill him.
NAPOLITANO : We’ve had a graduation every finale. We had Bode, and now we had Cole. It’s a little piece of joy and reminders of the good of the program and the future and hope, redemption; a little piece of happiness instead of going the other way with Cole.
Art mirroring life during L.A. fires DEADLINE: You mentioned the L.
A. fires. There were scenes in the finale with the wildfire jumping rapidly in the strong winds that felt eerily similar to what we experienced in January.
How did the fires impact you, your writers room, your cast and crew? And has the experience influenced the way you crafted the finale and how you continue to tell these stories? RATER : How could it not impact us? And how we want to continue to tell the stories is truthfully, authentically and honoring these people. In fact, I got a story for you. One of our writers, David Gould, during hiatus has gone through the training to become a volunteer firefighter.
We’re all learning from the real-life firefighters every day and leaning into it, and so we just want to keep doing right by them. NAPOLITANO : Also, in making the finale, it felt emotional and horrible and too close, and it felt like an opportunity to again showcase incarcerated firefighters, showcase Watch Duty, all of these things that we became intimately familiar with. Seeing Jake’s girlfriend Violet watching it on the news, being scared for him.
Unfortunately, we had front-row seats to all of that, and it felt really authentic and really important, and an opportunity to at least mention things that could be helpful, could be comforting to people really going through that. RATER : We also considered it an honor to be able to reach so many homes and to offer — we’re writers, but it’s a fire show — real-life informative tips on how to prevent fires. We sprinkle those in when we can.
PHELAN : It was very disconcerting. I was on set in Vancouver when the fires happened, talking to Joan about the potential of our house burning down while I was there watching our fake firefighters fight fake fires. It was a little too close to home, but in those moments when reality and the stories that you’re telling on TV intersect with each other, it does make you appreciate again, what these people do to keep us safe, and how important that is, and how privileged we feel to be able to bring those stories to people.
I think that the show has done something to educate people about the fact that this inmate firefighter program exists in California, but then seeing the real guys actually doing the work outside of people’s homes, I think really brought it home in a new way. NAPOLITANO : Joan, you, KristieAnne Reed at JB TV, and I were all the phone, literally talking about the show, talking about work. And Joan just says, “You guys, I have to go.
I see fire out my window.” It was surreal. RATER : I’m on the phone, and then I look out and I’m like, “Oh, I got to evacuate.
I see fire.” TBD for Season 4 DEADLINE : Do you have a theme for Season 4 yet, or is that something you will get to in the writers room? NAPOLITANO : Not yet, we will. PHELAN : That is one of our first tasks every season we start is, what do we want this whole season to be about? DEADLINE: Is the Oxalta storyline now completed or could there be more? It felt a little too easy for me in the end; this was one very gullible, unqualified attorney falling in Sharon and Renée’s trap.
PHELAN : We don’t know. We haven’t started the writers room. DEADLINE: Is there a chance for Jared Padalecki to come back next season? RATER: We don’t know yet, it’s too early.
DEADLINE: How are you preparing for reactions from fans who love their Fire Country characters?What is your message to them about going to Season 4 without some of their favorite cast members? NAPOLITANO : Our job is to make the fans feel so that they have feelings at all, it’s kind of how it’s supposed to work. And it was a show born on family complications, family grief, how our characters support each other through hard times, through times of change. It’ll still be the show that everybody loves.
It’s just only gonna get more interesting..
