Shawn Hatosy<\/a>) \u2014 a man Vince couldn\u2019t stand, according to Sharon.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n We spoke to Fire Country showrunner Tia Napolitano about Vince\u2019s death, saying goodbye to Gabriela for now, what Brett Richards has in store for 42, and more.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Jordan Calloway as Jake Crawford and Max Thieriot as Bode Leone on ‘Fire Country.’.<\/p>\n
Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS\u00a0<\/p>\n
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Talk to us about the decision to kill off Vince. How does this death move the story forward?\n<\/p>\n
TIA NAPOLITANO: Vince is so important to everyone on our show, it would make the biggest impact. We\u2019re in season 4, and we felt like it was time to take all the puzzle pieces, throw them up in the air, and make a fresh picture for everybody.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
The beginning of the series had such deep ties to the death of Riley. It felt like the death of Vince was a fresh wound all of our characters would experience together along with our audience. We didn\u2019t know Riley nearly as well as we\u2019ve come to know Vince over all these seasons. [The characters] have to learn how to rise from that blow, and it\u2019s what our show does best. It\u2019s how we met Bode. It\u2019s a fresh spin on our familiar themes of redemption or rising to the occasion.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
How do you see Sharon\u2019s emotional journey unfolding this season? Grieving Vince, worrying about Bode, and taking care of her Cal Fire family is a lot to balance.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
You see it in the premiere, for the first time, Sharon in her pajamas and retreating in her house over those weeks. We\u2019ve never seen that. We expect her to throw herself into work and instead she takes that grief to a very private place. Once she is back in uniform she has a huge job, a ton to worry about. As we get further out of grief, Bode will become less of a thing for her to worry about. He is really going to grow and come into his own and be the person who can give advice and wisdom to others. She\u2019s going to be very proud of her son.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Sharon\u2019s going to have to navigate the world as a single person, and I don\u2019t mean romantically. We\u2019ve seen her at work and home, always paired with Vince. She\u2019s going to have to learn how to stand on her own two feet. In addition, a stranger will come to town that will shake things up for Sharon and recontextualize both her past and her present.\n<\/p>\n
You mentioned Sharon being proud of Bode. In what ways will his grief manifest this season, and what role will his struggle with sobriety play in his emotional journey?\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019ll be a few challenges for him, one of them being his sobriety and addiction issues. We didn\u2019t show you pills for us to ignore them moving forward, but it\u2019ll be a struggle. We wanted to honor the fact that our lead struggles with addiction. In times of grief or struggle, those issues tend to come up and we\u2019ll root for Bode to fight his way through them.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Does Gabriela\u2019s exit and declaration signify a permanent departure, or could their be a chance she returns this season?\n<\/p>\n
I say the door is open for a Gabriella return, and for the potential of Bodiella in the future. She’s off to do great things. You know, we wrote her a happy ending. We had them say their feelings to one another on that bench in a way that I think is really sweet and really authentic. It feels like love was never their issue, as Bode says, and now is not their time, but the door’s open.\n<\/p>\n
What does Manny\u2019s story and world look like this season without Gabriela there?\n<\/p>\n
We really want to rise Manny up this season. He\u2019s got all these dad vibes and jokes without Gabriela to use them on. You\u2019ll see him try with Eve, Jake, and Bode. It\u2019s really endearing. Manny was a father figure for Bode in season 1 and we get those vibes back. He doesn\u2019t want to fill Vince\u2019s role at all, but in certain ways he must and he has all these dad vibes with no place to go. It\u2019s really cute.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Jules Latimer as Eve Edwards, Max Thieriot as Bode Leone, Jordan Calloway as Jake Crawford, Stephanie Arcila as Gabriela Perez, and Kevin Alejandro as Manny Perez on ‘Fire Country.’.<\/p>\n
Sergei Bachlakov\/CBS\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wanted to talk about Brett Richards. Why would Luke Leone bring him into Vince\u2019s firehouse?\n<\/p>\n
I don’t think Luke was privy because they all did not like each other in the academy. Luke didn\u2019t hand-pick Richards, he made a call to Cal Fire, and Cal Fire sent Richards because this is what this man does. You got to love Luke. He tries to help. He screws it all up.\n<\/p>\n
Would you describe Brett as an antagonist? What does him showing up at 42 mean for the team?\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
We won\u2019t know right away. He\u2019s set up as an antagonist. We will get to know more about the real, human inner workings of him, of why he does what he does, which is to go into fire stations that are in crisis and get them through it. His methods will not be well-received, especially right away by some people. In episode 2, you\u2019re just going \u201cWho is this guy? What does he want? Can I trust him? I like that actor.\u201d He\u2019ll slowly, over a couple of episodes, show us who he really is.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
Sharon makes it clear that Vince didn\u2019t like Brett. Will we learn more about their past?\n<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll learn more about what their beef was, but I would say there are other strangers who are going to come to town that\u2019ll shed a little more light on Vince, more than Richards. Brett is mostly about the present and the future.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\n<\/p>\n
Fire Country airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET\/PT on CBS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire Country showrunner Tia Napolitano explains how Vince Leone\u2019s death moves the show forward in season 4. Napolitano…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-233586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}