CBS’ Fire Country with its freshman finale delivered a harrowing mudslide, the disclosure of a Sharon/Luke secret, a highly anticipated parole decision, a secret child and… well, everything else but the kitchen sink.
Fire Country showrunner Tia Napolitano did tell TVLine readers that “by the end of the season, we turn everything on its head. It’s full circle from the pilot, and I think it will feel very satisfying but also incredibly unexpected.”
The finale, she previewed, revolves around “an event like you’ve never seen before on this show, and the culmination of all this character drama we’ve been building,” including “a new escalation in Bode’s journey…. It’s an incredibly satisfying way to end a roller coaster of a season.”
Let’s recap the highlights, after which you can grade the finale and Season 1 as a whole.
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DOWN AND ‘DIRTY’
Image Credit: CBS screenshot Picking up right where last week left off, Manny railed at Bode for his “dirty” drug test result. Bode of course argued that Sleeper had vowed revenge and thus somehow rigged the result, but Manny wasn’t hearing it. (Manny argued that Sleeper was now “behind bars,” but wasn’t he still at camp when they all peed…?) Manny asserted that the simplest answer is oftentimes the right one, and Bode truly tested positive.
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A HEATED HOOK-UP FLAMES OUT
Image Credit: CBS screenshot We then cut to Eve’s “morning after” a hook-up with a woman named Mel, which… was random! Any coziness was cut short when Mel realized that Eve works for Cal Fire. Mel abruptly dressed, said they can’t “do this” again, and exited stage left, without elaborating.
Later, when Eve is asked to lead Mel to safety after the first mudslide, Mel explains that she works with the state attorney’s office — and is in town to investigate Three Rock. (More on her, later….)
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OH, BABY!
Image Credit: CBS We then cut to Jake and Cara at Smokey’s, which… was random! When Jake mentions that Bode will be crashing with him after making parole, Cara has a conspicuous reaction. She claims it’s simply about her place being off-limits since she lives with her kid sister, and Bode now cramping the nascent love birds’ style by living at Jake’s place.
But later, Bode’s high school sweetheart shares that when she was 19, she slipped off to secretly have a baby, which her mother passed off as Cara’s newborn sister. And that secret daughter might — might! — be Bode’s. Soap-tastic!
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WHAT IS SHARON HIDING FROM VINCE?!
Image Credit: CBS When Luke shows up to attend Bode’s parole hearing/”Welcome Home” shindig, Vince learns that Sharon has secretly been keeping in touch with his brother — but why? And why the secrecy? Later, when Sharon collapses during mudslide clean-up and is taken to the hospital, she and Luke come clean, and it’s not at all what any of us were dreading to hear. Luke is simply a kidney donor match for her.
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BODE GIVES HIS PARENTS THE DOPE
Image Credit: Courtesy of CBS During the initial mudslide clean-up, Bode — after looping in a sympathetic Gabriela to his “dirty” drug test situation — makes sure to also tell his parents, before they hear from anyone else. “It’s not what you think,” he begins to explain, but Sharon refuses to listen to the former addict’s latest excuses. Vince is similarly disappointed, but a bit more than Sharon, he “needs” their son to be innocent.
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SURPRISE… AND SURPRISE!
Image Credit: CBS Ahead of her wedding to Freddy, Cookie arrives in town a day earlier than planned as a surprise, having rented a cabin to stay at with the baby and her BFF Eluisa. When the first mudslide hits, their cabin and those nearby are crushed, obliterated, swept away and/or entombed in mud. As Three Rock and Cal Fire tend to the mudslide scene, Freddy sees a wobbly Eluisa and realizes that Cookie and the baby are missing amid the mayhem.
Freddy and Bode search for and find the mom and child, have the tot whisked away to safety/the hospital for a look-see, and then get to extricating Cookie. When a second mudslide is triggered, the cons defy orders and lasso the three of them to a tree, and hope for the best. In the aftermath, Freddy and Cookie are quickly found, and after giving Gabriela a brief scare, a “missing” Bode emerges in the distance. Similarly, Eve and Jake, after helping two fathers find their son (who had been stowed safely-ish in a fridge), use the same appliance to shield themselves from the second mudslide.
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TO TELL THE TRUTH (OR, ‘TRUTH’)
Image Credit: CBS So, remember Mel from before? (And why exactly were people puzzling over what her name was short for…?) She hauls Bode in to say that she has been investigating drug activity at Three Rock, and all of the evidence — including the mysterious sack of cash that country music superstar/guest star Kane Brown handed off to Bode in the April 7/train crash episode — suggests that Bode is the drug-peddling kingpin at the prison camp!
What’s more, Bode’s role as said kingpin is what has been holding up BFF Freddy’s release, not any “backlog.” So, unless Bode cops to the drug dealing, Freddy himself won’t ever go free.
Faced with that impossible choice — and akin to what TVLine predicted a few weeks ago — Bode at his parole hearing scraps his prepared speech and instead “confesses” that he indeed relapsed. And as a result, as the season fades to black, we last see him removed from Three Rock and re-entering the prison system….
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This story originally appeared on TVLine
