It’s become a well-worn trope in TV weddings; a heartsick man (or woman) is stuck in a pew while he watches the love of his life exchange vows with someone else.
But the only ‘I do’ viewers heard in the May 17 episode of Fire Country came from the mouth of Gabriela’s dad Manny (Kevin Alejandro). It wasn’t uttered by Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) or Diego (Rafael de la Fuente) at the altar.
Here, Thieriot addresses the cliffhanger and whether there’s still a chance that Bode and Gabriela will have a future in season 3.
DEADLINE Talk about the decision to end the season with the wedding cliffhanger. Obviously, there had to be a lot of viewers in the audience who wanted Bode to object, don’t you think?
MAX THIERIOT It was a big group decision and something I know that Tia Napolitano, our showrunner, was really excited about having. It is funny because you start trying to anticipate what the audience wants or expects. There’s also this feeling that while it would be satisfying, you also wouldn’t be fully satisfied because that’s the thing you just imagined was going to happen and then you’re left feeling almost too comfortable. You see Bode wanting so badly to say to her ‘no, don’t do it.’ The entire buildup, how he goes into the church … what’s fun about it is you see him finally being at peace with his decision, and his decision is, ‘I need to be a firefighter. I need to do something.’ But we’re also living it in a place where we don’t know if Gabriela and Diego ever said ‘I do.’
DEADLINE That’s right!
THIERIOT I was a big fan of the decision to leave it a bit vague. People are going to be upset either way, right? It’s like you’re pleased with the outcome if he breaks it up, but then you’re also left feeling like it’s just wrapped up and done. Conversely, you want so badly for them to be together that if she does say ‘I do’ to Diego, he’s gone. Leaving it vague, with everything where it’s at, the weight of the situation, was the strongest move.
DEADLINE Is Bode even the kind of guy who would have interrupted a wedding?
THIERIOT I think impulsively, yeah. But at this moment and even in the scenes with Gabriela’s mom at the gala, we see that he’s had a lot of growth this season as a character. We see him starting to try and rationalize things a little more. When he had that conversation, he says ‘the most important thing to me is her happiness.’ Ultimately he cares about her so much that he really wants the best for her. It’s a huge inner struggle for him emotionally. But I definitely think the old Bode would 100% charge right in and be like, ‘nope, not happening.’ And they’d hop in the car and drive away.
DEADLINE When you first launched the drama, did you have an idea of how long you wanted Bode to be in the prison release program and when it would be time to spring him?
THIERIOT That was always a big question that we had. There is so much to explore with him getting out and being back home and free with his family. But at the same time, the inmate firefighter program is such a key piece of the show, so the struggle was more about figuring out how do we continue this important element once he’s out. We went back and forth for a while. The beginning of the third season is a good place because we can watch everybody continue to grow.
DEADLINE What’s the situation in real life for the guys who are in this program? Do they have a hard time becoming real firefighters?
THIERIOT Yes, in a lot of city departments. It’s not very hard to go and get hired on by the Forest Service. There are a lot of former inmates who work as hotshots on the hand crews. There are opportunities. It just depends on what level and for which organization you’re working for.
DEADLINE Is it going to take Bode a little while before he achieves that goal in the new season?
THIERIOT Working for Cal Fire will be the biggest hurdle, but I think there are plenty of ways to have him fighting fire much sooner, which I think the audience will miss if we don’t have him doing something in the world.
DEADLINE Were you involved in those discussions to spinoff the show with Morena Baccarin?
THIERIOT I’ve been coming up with spinoffs in my head since before this series ever launched. We were always interested in exploring more of Edgewater and other jobs that are in the community.
DEADLINE We obviously got the firenado this season. Is there another big disaster that you hope to tackle in season three?
THIERIOT I hope to do more stuff with floods. Those are obviously pretty massive and I grew up in an area that was not far from the Russian River, which would flood at times. The fire departments are intimately involved in dealing with that. I think would be fun to do if we can figure out how to do it in a big scale. As a director, it is definitely something I’ve been wanting to do. I’ve thought through a lot of different ways that we can accomplish some of those scenes without it getting too crazy expensive, but still have it feel like a big scale.
DEADLINE They made you take your shirt off in the second to last episode. Any chance you can add a clause in your contract going forward that limits how many times you have to strip down on camera?
THIERIOT I can try, but I don’t think they’ll ever approve that clause. I could probably ask for a lot of other things before I got that one.
