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Fire Country
Monday, 25 November 2024 04:35 amSome part of my brain just keeps gnawing away at bits of Fire Country ideas, but I'm just collecting them all in the comments on this post.
Fire Country
Friday, 18 October 2024 12:30 amSeason 3 is here.
Not to sound like a broken record, but I'd still rather post-ship Bode and Gabriela. I was relieved that season 2 ended with Gabriela and Diego getting married, but -- Sike! Gabriela hesitated for a very long time when she got to the "I do" part of the wedding ceremony, and a helicopter crashed nearby, which included a damaged part coming through the church window and interrupting the wedding itself. The helicopter was doing one of those sky banners with a message to congratulate Diego and Gabriela, so there was an unsurprising but personally unwanted moment of him assuming that Bode was Diego. And Gabriela just went along with it. The only good thing about this is that Diego finally knows how Gabriela feels about Bode [since she tried to avoid ever talking about him in S2], and hopefully, he's going to end things and move on to someone else.
Otherwise: Manny was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car, which crashed from falling helicopter debris. I'm not sure if both officers were simply injured or if one was facing life-threatening injuries, but Sharon undid the handcuffs in order to get Manny's help with the scene. Which is a felony, other officers were pissed when they finally showed up, and all that. It's the sort of high-stakes moment that doesn't seem too surprising in a fictional tv show, but I also kinda feel ambivalent if this is just going to be an excuse to punish Manny further.
A guy we met at the end of S2 revealed that he's the other possible biological father of Gen [it's possible I've called her Jen in the past, but her full name is Genevieve]. Cara did admit that there were two possibilities, and S2 already established that Bode wasn't the one. So, odds are, Rick is it. Jake is a bit protective, which was exacerbated by Gen being trapped by debris in Smokey's, but I'm hoping things don't turn into an out-and-out fight. Rick said something along the lines of not wanting to replace Jake, but he probably does have visitation rights at the very least.
Minor quibble: Was there a continuity error between seasons? Season 2 shows the wedding happening in the middle of the day, but there was a sudden cut to darkness, like the middle of the night darkness, when a spot fire broke out from the aviation fuel of the helicopter. I can see how Smokey's - the main firefighter bar - being damaged could create a darker area for saving people trapped by debris, but being outside in the middle of the woods, I'd expect a little more sunlight still. Gabriela needed to write the time she put the tourniquet on a bystander's arm, and it was like 2. But it was dark enough that I could've believed it was 2 AM. (I mean, if something happened and it took a while to clear this all up, I could see a gradual sunset, maybe. But it seemed like a sudden switch for how little of a fire there was, so there wasn't even smoke blocking out the sun or anything.) In writing, I imagine my family and I would've barely noticed, but you know how night scenes and tv shows can be - it was super noticeable that we were now squinting to see characters who were visible in the "previously on..." segment.
There's this whole flashback to the helicopter night amidst one week later thing. Luke and Sharon were able to pull some strings and get Bode into this program for former prisoner firefighters to join Cal Fire. There's a part of me that feels like it's awfully convenient and didn't really let Bode have any tension about whether he'd be able to join the program on his own merits, which just sucked some narrative tension out of this plot line. (I must admit that I don't keep tabs on everything the actual Cal Fire does, but I am aware of some news stories in the last few years of returning citizens facing difficulties in joining Cal Fire when they finished their sentences. This hand-waving away of even the stated wait time for the Edgewater program feels like a deus ex machina.) There's also a part of me that's just relieved that we finally have something that isn't Gabriela for Bode to focus on.
However, the answer to him getting to skip Phase 1 and enter Phase 2 of this program was to do a hot-wash [post-mortem on a fire call], hence the flashbacks to the helicopter. Gabriela and him have temporarily decided to maintain a lie that Gil's medical alert necklace that he's allergic to some sort of medicine was blown off him in the blast instead of admitting that she didn't check until after giving him the medicine and treating him for the allergic reaction. Jake found the necklace in Bode's locker at the fire station at the very end of the episode, so the stress of maintaining the lie isn't going to be a multi-episode affair.
Otherwise: The owner of Smokey's can't afford to make repairs, so Sharon put in a bid on it in order to keep a cherished firefighter institution in Edgewater. Vince got a little too into their idea of maybe going on a vacation now that Bode wasn't taking up so much of their time and attention, and he bought a Streamer to fix up for a road trip. Manny was the facing the maximum of three years in prison [possibly without Fire Cal service], since the prosecutor was facing pressure from San Francisco [reference point for the Cal Fire higher ups] to take the event seriously, but Station 42 rallied around him and he's getting 12 months in Camp Three Rock. Far be it from me to not want to see Manny at the narratively local camp, but I do sometimes wonder why we can't see any other camp where prisoners can be stationed to assist Cal Fire. Seems a little odd to place Manny where he used to work, but I guess he's been removed from Three Rock long enough. Gabriela told Manny that she had returned her ring to Diego, and we didn't see him in this episode, so I imagine we're getting to the moving on part already.
Jake confronts Gabriela and Bode about the medical alert necklace, and they come clean on the lie. While there's still the potential for a bad outcome for both of them, Jake doesn't really make threats and decides that it's going to partially be up to what Gil thinks. I wouldn't say that Gil is happy about the mistake by any means, but he's mostly grateful for being alive and now getting the chance to take a less risky desk job with Cal Fire. Most of the episode is a certain test day for the cadets, which apparently anyone in Cal Fire can come watch. (It sounds weird to me, but I think that was the reason given for Walter, Vince's father and a retired firefighter, to show up.)
While you are supposed to be rooting for Bode here, it's really more of how Walter acts that's more attention holding. He's very cocky that Bode absolutely has to continue the Leone firefighting tradition and tells Bode that the dummy is almost always in the closet to mirror a child hiding there. When Audrey James and him get sent in, he does try to search room by room, but facing the prospect of failing the search, he tells her and they decide to skip to the closet. Jake does not like the cheating and calls it a three strike offense, so Bode is out of training for like a day. (When James admits her role in that decision, it's downgraded at least one strike so Bode goes on with training. While I can understand Jake's point of view here, I can't deny that him coming up with a three strike offense on the spot would pull out a 'that's not fair' from a lot of people.)
Walter drinks too much. He angrily yelled that if Vince had been a better parent, Bode would never have gone off to prison. (And Vince pointed out that he had never done the 'you know where I keep my belt', 'don't talk to Dad during dinner', abusive route that Walter did.) He possibly nodded off on the couch after putting the 'first day celebratory steak' for Bode on the stove, and Vince and Sharon come back to their kitchen on fire. There was enough there that I can understand why Walter's not a reoccurring character, but you can also see where elements of Bode follow through from Walter and some of these personal issues are a bit more like family issues.
Gabriela drives Bode somewhere and they have a talk about how they bring out each other's impulsiveness. She makes some addictive parallels, and even though Bode says that he's willing to wait in order to not feel like they're rushing straight into something, I think they were going for a bit more up in the air feeling. (It's slightly ruined by them getting together in the very next episode.) Personally, I thought it was a weird choice of location to have this type of conversation. Like, I can understand that Bode's probably not currently allowed to drive because that's not uncommon for returning citizens who have had driver's licenses lapse, but Gabriela drove him out to a random place and unless she had him walk somewhere, she was going to need to drive him back to wherever he needed to be.
There's a heat dome, I think. Similar to S.W.A.T.'s E4 this week, this is about extreme heat in California. Eve has to deal with one of Three Rock's inmates having heat exhaustion, and when Manny is allowed to assist in an elevator rescue, he starts to get heat exhaustion inside the elevator. Obviously, Manny and Gabriela get stuck in an intermittently powered elevator that falls each time it gets power. They're with a man and woman who have just gotten divorced, and that arguing is a foil for them getting along during this job. (Gabriela admits that she doesn't want their last conversation to be that argument about her leaving Diego, but she's not ready to take his calls from Three Rock.)
I'm not sure how much of a time jump we've had between episodes, but Bode is on his ride-along day at the very end of Phase 2. Jake is hard on him and really driving home the point that he needs Bode to not rush in, go rogue, or act solo. For Bode's part, he actually does follow instructions in this episode, but Vince has to remind Jake that having Bode stand off to the side isn't actually using a cadet as an asset. Once Bode passes Phase 2, Jake relaxes and admits that part of his issue that day was that he wasn't taking something at home with Gen very well. (Gen has been doing video chats with Rick, his wife Noelle, and her step-siblings, and she make a PowerPoint for her position of moving to them in Idaho where Noelle could oversee her homeschooling. It's supposedly just for the rest of the semester, but really, what are the odds that she's going to move to Idaho for one semester.)
Eve has been revealing a bit more about her family in this season. They have a ranch somewhere around Edgewater, and they are definitely in the group of people who are not fans of Cal Fire cutting back dead trees/vegetation that are fuel for fires on their land. We haven't really returned to the community level education where neighbors will help with that instead of calling Three Rock, but Sharon has touched base a few times on whether Eve will try to talk with her parents again. Supposedly, her father got heat stroke while finishing some sort of chores that she was supposed to be doing, and combined with the family not liking her being a firefighter, they haven't talked in several years. I don't know if we're eventually going to see Eve try to talk with them sometime this season, but I'm far more interested in that than Gabriela finding Bode to suddenly have sex in Vince's camper. (Suddenly, in that it was just the very last episode where she said they needed to not be together. And now she 'wants to be bad'.)
Did anyone forget that Sharon had a kidney transplant? Well, the cramps that she was experiencing during the worst of the heat (with an implication that others were possibly cramping, too) didn't stop. She looked up her symptoms, and she's concerned that she might be experiencing signs of transplant rejection. I ran into a recap that mentioned that she had this sort of teasing plot line before, but honestly, I don't remember that unless it was very brief, blink and you miss it. To me, Sharon has been written as if her transplant surgery unlocked a totally normal post-surgery life where there's not even a mention of follow up or anything different about her life. (And I can understand that people doing just fine after a transplant may not want some sort of horror story of everything going wrong, but like, she doesn't even mention taking an anti-rejection pill in passing. There's no follow up with a kidney doctor to do labs. There's not really anything.)
Smokey's has its grand re-opening, which isn't very grand. Some friends of Diego took down the flyers and try to start a fight with Bode (because Diego has officially left town), which is interrupted by Camden Casey. [He's played by Jared Padalecki, so some on the internet have suddenly heard of the show.] I don't pretend to know or care about why it's so brave of Camden that he's wearing a Dodgers shirt in Edgewater, but I'm kinda meh on the sudden karate-like fight of Camden. Sure, he clearly won the fight, but it also feels a bit extra. A plane from LA needs to make an emergency landing near Edgewater, which breaks up the re-opening (and Eve trying to meet with her brother Elijah).
It turns out that Camden is the trainer for Phase 3, and he's giving off 'trial by fire' vibes by instantly putting Bode on the very top of the plane to try to put out the cockpit fire. Things work out okay, but Jake, Vince, and Sharon are all thrown off by the cadets not being eased into firefighting. I'm not sure if everyone's worried about Bode doing something stupid or if it's truly a break from the usual training procedure in a way that may be unsafe later. Camden tells Bode that he lost all nine members of his crew on a fire earlier in the year, and he blames it on following protocol (in that, if he had gone with his gut against protocol, he would have saved them all). This seems like a very dangerous mindset to bring to training cadets, especially when Bode had to have his rule-breaking impulses addressed in Phase 2, so I can't say I'm enthusiastic about this introduction to Camden. He went from fiddling with a coin [possibly an AA coin] to drinking, and he outright said that he sometimes wishes that he had died with his crew, so I don't know if we're going to get a firefighter PTSD plot with him or what's going to go on.
The title of this episode is a reference to Edgewater needing to provide emergency shelter to the 175 or so passengers, who can't get bussed to their destination until at least the following day. The fire station has to try to organize luggage, Gabriela hits a point of stress and yells at a passenger, and Vince is worried about offering so much free food and drinks at Smokey's. I think the writers needed Vince and Sharon to argue about something, but I find it hard to totally discount Vince worrying about the cost of giving away so much food and drink when Smokey's literally hadn't been re-opened for a full day. As much as Gabriela yelling was part of her 'she's isolating and spiraling' thing, I also kinda wish someone could have told her that the passenger was so worried about his bag because he was carrying something (old film) that was a fire risk. Mr Vape Guy also just got stuck being the fall guy -- don't vape inside the fire station, the smoldering match when he tried to smoke in the luggage area lit the bag containing the old film, he obviously had no idea that Gabriela's been staying in the Airstream and scared her.
Other: Manny helped with some sort of demonstration for some inmates at Three Rock who are expecting to get out and take care of babies, and he got to have a sort of talk with Gabriela after everyone found out she's been staying in the Airstream. (Of the 'I know where you get keeping your problems to yourself' variety, and he wanted her to reach out to someone, even if it wasn't him, instead of isolating.) However, she texted Bode while he was at Smokey's, which was not an environment where he was glued to his phone. I'm a little worried the writers might try some sort of Audrey and Bode thing, but she's supposedly got a long-distance boyfriend and Bode really loves Gabriela, so hopefully there won't be a huge thing of out Bode missing Gabriela's text due to Audrey singing with Vince. I'm mostly getting the impression that Eve's family is the 'I won't talk first for decades' sort [only six years so far], but she meets up with Elijah again and he says that she has to talk to their parents before she can meet her niece.
However long ago, a fire wiped out the local population of bald eagles, so everyone's absolutely glued to the nest webcam for this year's two eggs. (People have randomly come up with paired names for them, including Vince referencing 'Sam and Dean'.) The eggs successfully hatch, but Station 42 and Camp Three Rock need to help to keep a fire from sweeping through that patch of forest. They also have to try to maintain a certain distance from the nest tree, which is mostly a way to bring Francine back. (Eve's ex-girlfriend who was busy writing a dissertation on bald eagle something or other when they were dating about six years.) Good news: A water drop saves the day, and Francine puts the baby eaglets back in the nest. Eve and her also sort of make up (that is, address Eve ghosting her back then and feeling like Francine was just another person who hated her going into firefighting).
Not so good news: Camden is super obvious about trying to lead Bode to a 'distraction free' Phase 3 life in a way that, in my opinion, sets off all sorts of isolating high control group pings. Honestly, telling a returning citizen that his parents, friends, and sorta-girlfriend are just distractions keeping him from being the best firefighter he can be comes across as the opposite of helpful. Thankfully, Bode's instincts to help kick in and he doesn't just follow Camden when Camden wants to pull the cadets out (thinking it was a waste of time, but also kinda not liking Vince making decisions). Despite Camden praising certain 'go with your gut and fuck the rules' moments, he's probably going to be upset about defying his orders in the next episode. I did appreciate Vince pointing out that Camden might not be handling the loss of his crew very well (which apparently included his younger brother), though I also can't say I'm surprised that Camden shut that emotional discussion down (along the lines of: I'm here to be a trainer, not for therapy).
Also: Gabriela was jealous of Audrey showing up at Smokey's to see the nest cam with Jake, Eve, and Bode. In a 'why did she sit next to Bode' and 'why is he cat-sitting for her' sort of way that's more personally annoying than anything. Gabriela keeps saying that she maybe will want to have a committed relationship with Bode at some vague point in the future, and he finally said that a 'maybe' feels like a 'no' in their talk at the end. The very end of the episode was her downing what seemed like a lot of tequila at Smokey's and nodding to Camden at the bar. (Some of my family's worried that there's going to be a 'did she sleep with Camden' moment in the morning. I'm still tired of this 'will they, won't they' plot with Bode and Gabriela, and if this is a definite no, I want Gabriela to not run back to Bode when she 'wants to be bad' again.)
Audrey spent most of this episode shadowing Sharon [at the fire station, coordinating things instead of in the field], and I can't say that I blame her for the blow up about Sharon also doing a 'trial by fire' moment instead of providing instruction. (Audrey had watched her turn on several fans and complain about the A/C being broken while she was freezing, pointed out the ongoing physical symptoms fitting with perimenopause, and Sharon promptly shut down the 'I'm trying to be a friendly mentor' angle.) For what it's worth, this didn't lead to any mistakes for people out in the field, and Sharon did apologize later. [Last episode included an at-home call from her doctor to confirm that her tests for her kidney were normal, but she didn't mention this perimenopause suggestion to Vince in this episode. She was mostly upset that the doctor had brought up the physical side effects of anxiety, and she felt like she was being brushed off as imagining things. Unless the writers want an on-screen discussion, she could just see someone to figure out HRT, and this subplot may fade away.]
Casey does this whole thing with Bode not needing to work his last day of training because he disobeyed a direct order, and as of the pass list posted mid-shift(-ish), Bode didn't pass. However, Bode insists on finishing out his last shift, and in the course of finding out a false alarm at a store was actually a robbery, Bode gets to say his piece about his attachments to family and friends not being a detriment. (Casey also has a heat of the moment slip where he calls Bode his dead brother's name, so Bode gets a last remark about Casey being hypocritical.) It wasn't a surprise that Casey presented diplomas to the passing class in the end that included Bode (and Casey will be going home with some processing of his brother's death in the future).
Also: It seemed like the writers started from the final scene that they wanted (Jake and Gabriela getting very drunk, trash talking Sharon and Vince, and hooking up in Jake's truck) and suddenly made characters say or do things unexpectedly in order to get to that point. Vince hasn't put his foot in his mouth so many times in one episode before, let alone about parenting advice for Gen, and Sharon has more been the sort to get into an argument than physically go through someone's things (as in physically going through the Airstream where Gabriela is living for any clues about her continued downward spiral, which now includes binge drinking on nights off and seemingly dangerous cliff diving). It also seems a little unwise to do all this at Smokey's, which Sharon and Vince now own this season, but they thankfully don't wander in during important trash talking scenes.
I dunno, I'm just not into each episode finding a new way to dig Gabriela even further down. For all that they've given her dialogue about her 'knowing addiction' and addictive tendencies running in the family, I don't know where the lowest point is going to be. Are we going to keep going until she's drunk on shift? Are we going to go cold turkey with a pregnancy reveal (possibly even with her not knowing if Jake is the father)? Is she going to change her mind after finding out that Audrey and Bode had a kinda-sorta date (after finding out that Audrey's boyfriend broke up with her earlier in this episode)? For all that Gabriela threw a dramatic wrench in her life plans in order to be with Bode, it comes across like that was all for nothing. It feels like we're hitting some of the plot points that the writers maybe wanted to actually hit in S2 but couldn't due to the shortened season length, and it just seems... A bit unexpected.
Also also: My family absolutely called Gen not wanting to come back if she went off to Rick in Idaho. As a character Jake couldn't see that foreshadowing coming, but it was not a surprise. We've been getting hints that Jake maybe wants to date again, and he apparently got put back together with Gabriela for the night. However, being asked to mail Gen's things (and worrying that he's been a horrible parent) is definitely the sort of thing that we were expecting Jake to actually try to get advice on from, I dunno, Vince. So, unless Jake feels differently in the morning after sobering up and/or the writers decide to repair that sudden miscommunication, he's kinda just holding that parenting Gen stress in. Which hasn't gone well in the past.
Bode and Audrey's first shift at Station 42 involves a fire which is starting up from the smoldering underground zombie fire of [in-universe] a fire from several months ago. They're supposed to be going door to door and telling people on a certain street to evacuate while cutting brush, or something that should be theoretically easy. However, Bode is easily led around by his heartstrings and promises some random guy that they'll definitely save his house after he gives a very moving story for why his house is so sentimentally important to him. This leads to Bode ignoring Audrey's voiced concerns about needing to leave as they lose the fight to keep the roof from catching on fire, and he ignores directions from Sharon to tackle a different above ground fire related to this zombie fire. The big mid-season finale ends with Bode and Audrey realizing that they waited too late and need to jump in a swimming pool to avoid the fire surrounding them, which seems melodramatically expected and a bit much.
Jake regrets the drunken hook-up with Gabriela and feels like he should share what happened with Bode. On the one hand, I can kinda see why Gabriela doesn't think it's Bode's business (since they're no longer dating), but on the other hand, I can't say that I totally blame Jake for this awkward conversation. He's been trying to rebuild his friendship with Bode post-incarceration, Bode has spent a lot of narrative time being clingy with Gabriela, and it feels like the sort of thing that Jake shouldn't let fester or spring on Bode at some other time. He also didn't seem to realize until Gabriela brought it up that they actually weren't dating anymore. He doesn't actually have time to reveal anything before the episode ended, and it's possible he may change his mind later.
Eve's family is less than pleased that this zombie fire has brought CalFire to their ranch. Initially it seems like she makes some progress with her dad, and I think he agreed to Three Rock cutting line. But at a certain point in Eve ignoring Vince's radio calls to help with a horse giving birth, Vince comes in and has to be the bearer of bad news that cutting line isn't enough. He has the authority to call for a back-burn, and I'm pretty sure we've seen countless decisions like this go off without a hitch before, but you know, it wouldn't be the mid-season finale without the wind shifting, embers from the back-burn landing on a barn, and Eve's father dramatically announcing that if they lose that barn, Eve's as good as dead to him. I guess family tension is better than romantic/sexual relationship drama, but I'm also a little over the extreme impression of the father.
Also: Gabriela realizes that one of the cars on this road for evacuation isn't moving because they ran out of gas and seem to be living out of said car. She goes to the car that parked in front of a fire hydrant, which has already had its windows busted out due to said parking location, and she siphons almost the whole tank of gas for the mother and child. It seems like it was just something to get to the big argument Jake and Gabriela get into that leads to her saying that she's done, stripping out of her fire clothes, and just walking off (and very quickly realizing that she's walked into the fire). That segment ends with Manny hearing that she's lost and seeming like he's going to run off to her (in a way that would look like an escape by a prisoner), and I really hope he doesn't. Sure, someone has to find her, but I don't want Manny to get into trouble over this; he's got a parole hearing coming up and shouldn't have anything until now that's a strike against him.
(While I can understand that Jake was trying to make a point that she's not the only person in Station 42 with issues, I must admit that I winced at his part of the argument where he trotted out that he watched Cara die and lost the love of his life. Trying to figure out who has it worst isn't going to get us anywhere here. However, someone apparently had to tell Gabriela that siphoning gas out of a gas tank while clearly dressed as a firefighter isn't okay. She's been spiraling downwards for months now, and she broke a law while clearly in uniform; her feeling shitty about her life will not save her from the car owner pressing charges (though plot armor might). Like, she didn't even try getting a volunteer to give up a gallon or siphoning a small enough amount that it wasn't noticed.
And now she's stormed off, stupidly, into a fucking fire. If this isn't her bottom and a point where she can try to spiral upwards, I don't know what else it will take for Gabriela this season. Is she going to have to do something that kills someone on shift? What?)
❄️ Winter Break ❄️
As a continuation of E8, it mostly just wrapped things up. Manny found Gabriela, who had twisted her ankle or something. She got to get all sorts of pent up emotions out, though she did apologize for trying to blame absolutely everything on Manny after being rescued. Eve saved her family's ranch, and her father let the firefighters take the horses to rescue Gabriela, Manny, Vince, and Sharon. Since Vince and Sharon found Manny alright, he wasn't going to be punished for his little step away, and Gabriela was going to use her mandatory time off for physical recovery to start that whole spiralling up effort.
All that pool stuff: Bode and Audrey live. Audrey was taken to the hospital for, I think, pulmonary edema. Bode took her flowers and had an awkward elevator ride with Gabriela when she found out the flowers weren't for her. However, it's hopefully clear that Bode and Gabriela are over-over, and we'll have to live with Audrey and Bode getting together.
The final moment in the episode was Vince's father showing up for Bode's graduation, which was a week earlier in-universe.
Most of this episode is a fishing trip. The Leone family stopped going after Bode was arrested, Bode thinks Nono/Papa Leone/Walter is lonely and needs some family time, and Jake wants to get advice from Luke about how to carefully tell Bode about breaking the bro code. (After the trip, he just goes for a straightforward admission, and Bode is disappointed but not ruined by this revelation. They're fine.) Uncle Luke is actually going to do something about fire training in Japan, so his character might not be around a lot going forward.
The big question that everyone's trying to deal with is whether Walter needs to see a doctor and, like, actually tested for memory issues. As someone who doesn't live locally to Edgewater, we haven't seen a ton of him. He has also plausibly been able to hide the one possible memory slip we saw with his drinking. So, the sudden and irrefutable memory issue we saw on the fishing trip may have seemed to come out of nowhere for some viewers, but it was enough for Bode to tell Sharon. Walter went on a walk around 4:30 AM, and in the midst of everyone trying to save the guy trapped in the car that Walter accidentally found, he seemed confused about where he was and asked Bode about it. (After the trip, Walter actually had a conversation with Sharon and Bode and admitted that he was worried. He specifically asked to see a doctor, but he didn't want to scare Luke or Vince by telling them just yet.)
Gabriela is back to work, and she's trying to be optimistic about Manny getting early parole. Things are alright enough with her that she kinda realizes that she doesn't have 'do XYZ just for fun' hobbies, so we may or may not see that come up in future episodes. Manny is torn between needing to follow the letter of the law, as it were, or helping people. For all that Bode got plot armor in the first two seasons in order to help, it seems a bit much for Sharon to come across this strict with Manny, but I'm not a writer here.
Unfortunately, we did get to see a downside to Bode working with his family. Vince did not like that Bode was waiting for a call from the neurologist, and he was snippy in a way that I'm sure was worse for anyone who was not part of the Leone family on call (Jake got a little, Bode got a lot). Working through helping Lord Percival was a way for Vince to realize that he was trying to not face a scary possibility, and he seemed to have made enough peace by the time the neurologist called to let them know that Walter was showing early signs of dementia.
The title and 'Lord Percival'... Okay, so Eve took Francine to a seemingly small but local ren faire. Between a fire breather, improperly stored fireworks, and a dragon flame thrower, there were some issues that brought in Cal Fire and forced Eve to help out on her day off. I thought Eve had briefly talked about this at some point in the past with Jake, which is why his comment about whether wizards doing spells were part of this seemed to annoy her. However, Francine made her not talking about going to ren faires into this big thing that was repeating old habits about secrecy in a way that, to me, seemed like the writers maybe wanted to talk about something else but had already written everyone being okay with Eve being gay. (I also wished Bode hadn't called Lord Percival delusional. Douglas didn't want to break character, and that's not the same as a delusion. It was also portrayed as a sad, pitiable thing that Douglas needed to fix, but Eve's allowed to have her big speech about feeling safe and decompressing within ren faire spaces?)
Some of the problem may be that I know people who go to fan conventions, ren faires, and I think one or two of the spinning/yarn inclined have also done the Society for Creative Anachronism. So, it doesn't seem like this really big secret to mention going. As someone who's closeted, I also feel like the focus on secrecy and Francine not wanting to date Eve if she's not going to be open about the ren faire feels like it's penalizing separation of selves. Sure, Eve tells Jake and Francine hears her sticking up for ren faires, and Eve and Francine kiss. But, quite frankly, Eve is not obligated to tell anyone she works with what she likes to do in her free time. Secrecy is not a bad thing.
Eve gets permission from Sharon to have a unification sort of day at the fire station. Most of the men at Three Rock are young and have young-ish children, and this is sort of a group visitation event. The inmates are brought in, the children are bused in, and there's a crafts station for coloring (or making a picture frame for the photos taken during the visit). There are also snacks and space to utilise station resources - like a punching bag for the kid who's upset that his father was taken to the infirmary, so he can't see him. Gabriela helps Eve and connects to the upset kid about her experience with growing up with Manny in prison. (Manny sort of helps throughout the day, but as an old enough inmate that his daughter is also an adult, he's not the focus of this pilot program of dad/kid visiting.)
Eve unexpectedly gets to help Logan with his anxiety around telling his dad that he has a crush on Mason (I think that was him name; it was more important that he's a hockey fan), and Cole handles it without any issues. Initially, Logan seems to be the oldest kid there as a young teen, and his disruptive choices (opening a water rescue boat in the storage room and taking the keys to turn the fire truck on) are chalked up to being a teen at an event really aimed at younger children. However, he's upset with not feeling like he really gets to talk to his dad enough to feel like they know each other, and he's anxious about revealing his crush. (Unlike last week's episode, this is not presented as if Logan must come out or he's doing something bad if he keeps a secret. He wants to be able to tell his dad about his crush on Mason and get fatherly advice - don't lie if you don't know anything about hockey, for starters - which comes across as less moralizing secrecy.
Audrey's washer in her apartment building isn't usable at the moment, and Sharon doesn't like her using the washing machines for work things in the fire station for personal clothing, so Sharon sends Audrey over to her house. This also aligns with Vince getting a chance to not feel quite so much like a babysitter for his dad. (Sharon had admonished him for bringing a pan of mac-and-cheese to the station for the unification program, and Vince just didn't like jumping to 'we can't leave your dad alone for more than a second'.) Walter mistakes Audrey for Riley, presumably coming home from a dorm to do laundry, but he realises that he did not hug his granddaughter and apologizes. (Vince gets to overhear this exchange without needing to have to step in himself, which may alter his reluctance around anticipating his father to have memory issues.) Audrey takes the misidentification in stride and talks to Walter about the Leone family pictures, which includes her hearing more about Riley. They actually get along pretty well, which includes playing poker later in the day. (One of the pictures was of Walter showing Bode and Riley how to play, which inspires Audrey to get a family photo at the end of the episode. The photos had all stopped after Riley's death and Bode's incarceration.)
Bode and Jake go off on an overtime assignment to tag some trees for removal or monitoring in Trinity National Forest. (Shasta-Trinity National Forest is a bit of a drive in-universe. I think Jake says that it's eight hours, possibly round trip.) They get three trees done, put out an unattended campfire, and go off to rescue a camper trapped under rocks from a landslide. They do eventually get Rafael out from under the rocks, and Jake runs off to find enough signal to call for help. However, Rafael is a pediatrician and has enough medical knowledge that he's clearly announcing to Bode that he's not going to make it from various injuries (they were announced to Jake and Bode while getting dug out). He asks Bode to look at the miracle of the stars with him, which sounds dissatisfying here but fit in with the philosophical bent he took (with Jake and Bode while talking to remain conscious). I'm pretty confident it's the first time Bode has experienced a death on shift and in person like this, and my family's not thrilled with the previews for next week suggesting that some random person may suggest drugs to help him cope with that experience. Bode got into prison and Three Rock from getting messed up on drugs after Riley's death, and we really don't want to get him back into that. Didn't his probation officer suggest he find meetings to attend or group therapy? Shouldn't there be, perhaps, one or two coping mechanisms that are not drugs to choose from by this point?
Also: Bode and Audrey say that they're going to talk about the kiss at the end of the ren faire. They clearly like each other, but as can be seen above, they don't really get to reunite until after Rafael dies. Bode's quiet, and it's not clear if he'll isolate or continue on with Audrey just yet. Jake and Bode talk a bit on the drive to Shasta-Trinity, and Jake is kinda not sure about getting back into dating. Rafael wants him to pass on a message to his fiancée about not holding herself back from finding another person to love, and as much as it must be difficult for Jake when he's possibly still holding on to not being able to save Cara, he gets Gabriela to translate for him in a phone call at the end of the episode with her. (Rafael was taking a short holiday to process losing one of his child patients on this camping trip. He's from Argentina, so there's probably not going to be immediate family around to visibly grieve around anyone.)
A county baseball rivalry between two high schools in the area brings up the current coach of the one team, who was possibly on Bode's team back in high school. He has an old injury that requires pills, and his idea of thanking Bode for helping one of the current team members get out of a culvert (he tried to hide there) was to give Bode a few of his spare pills. The knee injury Bode got trying to rescue Rafael was acting up, but Bode didn't immediately get rid of the little baggie. (He hasn't been shown taking them, but it can't be good if he's found with them at some point.)
Also: Violet is introduced, and Jake agrees to go on a date with her. Uncle Luke has his last shift in the US, and he gets some time to talk to Bode (as him and the coach initially almost got into a fight). However, his passing comment that Gabriela still knows Bode very well will come up in the next episode. Birch is suddenly the foucus at Three Rock, and he's trying to remain sober (involves not wanting to go back to prison to access the infirmary) while getting over something. I think someone said something about a cold going around the camp, but there's this whole thing with the prison officer needing to drug test him and sign off on OTC meds within camp, and the P.O. can't call for a bus to transport him to the infirmary until the morning anyways. Birch goes from sleeping in his bunk all day to, later that night, his fingers are blue and he stops breathing, right in front of everyone.
The title of the episode comes from a welfare check on a hoarder. A hot iron falls onto something, which starts a fire, and the lady is presented as unable to move on from the grief of her ex-husband leaving her by trying to insist she's protecting his things for when he comes back. It was mostly a way to hammer in on not having different firefighters get held back from something in their past: Audrey reveals some of her baggage to Bode, and Gabriela moves from worrying that she still loves Bode (inspired by Luke's comment) to realizing that she just wanted closure to their relationship that wasn't motivated by her being stuck in her downward spiral. (She does admit that she was in the wrong, and they have finally put things to rest. Bode is clearly moving on with Audrey, and a bystander named Finn flirts with Gabriela enough that it's clear that she's not still hung up on Bode.)
Bode's bit about not being held back by his baggage was him talking about feeling a sense of control over holding the baggie of pills and deciding not to take any. It sounded very nice and encouraging in the show, but my family's still not enthusiastic about this decision. The locker at the station can be searched (and has, in the past), and Bode is very likely not supposed to have drugs that he doesn't have a verifiable prescription for. He's supposed to be an addict in recovery, and there just doesn't seem to be a positive about him keeping this little baggie around. (The previews for next week seem to show his parole officer showing up, so who knows what will happen around this.)
Eve and Manny try to convince Birch's sister to ask for an autopsy. Birch's death was ruled as having to do with heart issues from his years of alcoholism, which no one could totally rule out as maybe contributing, but the people who were there at Three Rock when Birch died in front of everyone just don't believe that was the main cause. However, someone met with the sister after her visit with Eve, and she said that she legally couldn't tell Eve anything but that she had been the one to ask for no autopsy and the cremation. (Eve had initially found out about the cremation and heard that even the Department of Corrections was caught off guard by the fast cremation, so she was surprised that the sister had asked for it.) Something seems to be getting covered up, but the ending moment was focused on Manny since he was sick and exhibiting the same signs as Birch.
The episode opened with Javi, a home health nurse, being verbally dressed down by Walter, who did not want to be told that it was time for him to go to bed. He has gone through four or five other nurses, and he definitely did not like a 27 year old trying to treat him like he had a bedtime. Javi took it in stride, but he did talk to Vince about finding a stash of pills (the 2 PM medication) that Walter has been hiding instead of taking. Javi had some brochures for memory care facilities because he wanted Sharon and Vince to have some time to choose one, but Sharon and Vince both didn't think it was time to consider that route yet. They also were very shocked at how expensive it would be, so Sharon may have to reconsider her plan of travelling in the Airstream in the summer. At the very least, she's not going to continue with some repairs/upgrades to it; I probably didn't note this earlier, but part of Gabriela getting better after her breakdown involved her moving in with Eve, so the Airstream's been empty for a bit. Javi only comes by three days a week, so Vince takes Walter to the fire station so Sharon can make sure he takes his medication on time (and he's not entirely alone all day).
Obviously, with all of this talk about whether Walter needs more care than Sharon and Vince can provide in-home, Walter goes missing. It was probably around the time that he needed his medication, and Sharon couldn't find him. Someone in the station saw Sharon's car leave a bit ago, and cue the urgency over finding Walter. Now, a Silver Alert was issued, but the way the show depicted the search seemed a bit underwhelming. Like, it was more that Bode and Audrey had time to talk in the car ride to wherever instead of actually searching for Walter. They supposedly found Sharon's car off the road in a slight ditch, but no one was called to start a foot search at that location. The scenes switched to night-time levels of dark, and still, there was just a vague driving around tactic. (Edgewater seems to have a lot of backroads where people just drive amongst trees for a while. Considering where I live, I'm aware this seems nitpicky to point out, but it just seemed like having Bode and Audrey drive back into town didn't make sense if Walter was truly lost out there. You should get some of those firefighters searching for Walter to spread out from that car, and call any 'neighbors' within a certain distance of that car.)
To the seeming surprise of everyone, Walter is found at Vince and Sharon's home. He apparently walked himself home? There was no mention of anyone finding him walking, and he didn't seem to remember how he got home after 'going on a call' to [Somewhere]. (We weren't given any clues that he somehow misinterpreted an actual call at the fire station, so he was going [Somewhere] based on a memory.) Vince lies about taking Sharon's car in order to de-escalate Walter being upset that he was being accused of stealing her car, and Vince installs an alarm system so Sharon will get a text if someone opens the front door. Ultimately, the point isn't how Walter actually got home, but it's an unavoidable sign that Vince and Sharon have to actually consider a memory care facility as a real possibility now.
It's not that my family wanted things to end badly for Walter here, but we just found it very hard to believe that no one seemed to check the house, and it seemed like quite a few hours passed before someone found Walter at home (going from around 2 PM to after nightfall). Sure, the narrative seemed to need to accomplish other things and just have the urgency of the search, but it wound up coming across like a scattered, ineffectual search by a bunch of people who supposedly should be who you ask for help for searching for someone. I dunno; some of it may be that issuing a Silver Alert sounds like you ought to check something obvious, like if the person is at your home, before the alert can be issued. Some of it may be that some of my relatives have had to help other relatives [before I was born] with memory issues, and there's generally an expectation that you have checked common places before getting others involved in a search.
Note: Separate to all this, I did find out that each state has a different system of alerting to this type of situation. Some have Silver Alerts (age minimums range from 55 to 65, and a condition that affects memory), some have Senior Alerts, some use a state specific name with similar criteria to a Silver or Senior Alert (including at least one Golden Alert), and some have some type of Missing Adult Alert (which doesn't have to be strictly limited by age or a memory condition).
Manny is rushed to the hospital, and one of the kidney tests catches the long, official name for something commonly found in pesticides. While Eve has called for an environmental audit to figure out how Manny (and presumably Birch) got pesticide poisoning, the rest of Three Rock starts to come down with the same symptoms. Eve calls for a work stoppage and is waiting for adequate medical help to get there when she realizes that she's fine because she has a water cooler in her office (she eats the same food, so this can't be food based). Pesticide has somehow gotten into their water. Eve gets Sharon to help with a county look-up in determining what's around the source of their water, and it turns out to be Oxalta - in-universe, the largest (and richest) company in California making pesticides. Near the end, a lawyer from Oxalta shows up to Station 42 with something that sounds like a gag-order for Sharon, which is probably what scared Birch's sister into not asking for the autopsy.
There's a rain storm, so everyone isn't called to one fire in this episode. Vince and Sharon have to take Walter to the station while they wait for the road to Buena Vista, the memory care facility chosen, to no longer be flooded out. Audrey and Gabriela help with passing out sand bags; Finn shows up for some more flirting and asks Gabriela out to dinner near the end. Walter gets to talk to two surfers who're waiting for the roads to clear out before going to the hospital, which is mostly a way for him to realize he was being stubborn this morning. (Due to not currently remembering his agreement to go to Buena Vista, he blew up in a fight with Vince about how his son couldn't wait to send him there.) The title of the episode comes from Jake and Bode being sent to a historic lighthouse; one part of the old stairs has collapsed, so they need to help get a batch of tourists down the ladder. The lighthouse keeper has heard of two ships in distress that are struggling without their GPS in the storm, and he wants to actually light the beacon. (One ship is helped before the ancient wiring causes a small fire. Bode helps to light a small fire before the Fresnel lens - yeah, it's a name, so the "fruh-nell" we heard is not the actual spelling - which helps the second ship.)
The very end has [Parole] Officer Carlson show up to Bode's apartment with the mention of 'associating with known criminals'. It's been a bit in-universe between these last two episodes, and Bode has said that's he's picked up a side job. (It's possibly to help his parents pay for Buena Vista, but that wasn't explicitly confirmed.) Due to him briefly working a construction job with someone who had a record in the past, my family's not sure if he went back to them. Audrey was worried about how vague he was about this job, since he's technically a firefighter and a bartender at Smokey's. If this isn't what prompted Officer Carlson to show up, it seems like he's awfully late to mention Bode going back to visit Three Rock or working with Audrey (after months in-universe).
Otherwise, Violet and Jake are doing okay. Violet gets to worry that wearing one of Jake's Cal Fire t-shirts and sharing her news of getting hired at a place she was sure wouldn't want someone quite so new to law would scare Jake off with assuming they're together-together. Jake gets to worry that his mention of having a roommate "for future reference" was rushing into them having a future. They're both ultimately okay with the speed of their relationship, and Jake finds out that she was hired by the law section of Oxalta. (He hasn't heard of what Eve or Sharon have experienced, so it was just a happy moment in Smokey's with congratulating Violet.)
🏀 March Madness Break 🏀
The thing with Bode's parole officer is related to him working with Wes. (Reminder: Sharon and her half-sister, Sheriff Mickey Fox, share a father who's in the illegal weed business.) Bode's conflicted about it (considering how well paid Wes' workers are and how his daughters won't accept monetary assistance otherwise), but he ultimately quits in an effort to not violate his parole. There's this whole thing with someone attempting to kill Wes, which involves a CGI rattlesnake getting its head cut off with a shovel and Wes wanting to avoid the ER for antivenin. It turns out that Wes yelling about leaving his land and money to Mickey's daughter because Mickey can't stop him from doing that [while she can stop him from seeing his granddaughter while she's in rehab] didn't endear the stalwart worker who was expecting to take over the business to Wes. A fire was involved, but I guess it didn't devastate the business. (After finding out about the Oxalta settlement, Bode angrily gives Wes' money to his mother and aunt since it's supposedly 'dirtier' than the deal that Sharon made with Oxalta.)
Given Violet's current professional position, Eve isn't exactly getting along with her all that great. Violet even lets slip a detail that Eve really only intended to talk to Jake about at breakfast [Camp Three Rock's water holding tank has a crack], but Sharon brings the details on how the DOC followed proper procedure to get the water tested [they only needed to rush to fix this crack if the test results showed something to be concerned about, which means they have proof that the current toxicity is a result of Oxalta]. Violet also orchestrates a way for Eve to look at her phone and see that Oxalta has run into this issue in a housing development where more people died or got sick. Sharon ultimately wins in this settlement process, so Oxalta will cover the cost of fixing things. In the mean time, the inmates have to be sent back to prison or redistributed to other camps. Somehow, Sharon negotiates Manny getting out? I dunno if we were supposed to be keeping track of when he was up for parole or how this happened in-universe; however, Manny had to sign an NDA and can't try to bring any suits of his own against Oxalta.
This episode will air tonight, 11 April 2025.
S3E1: The Bride Said
Not to sound like a broken record, but I'd still rather post-ship Bode and Gabriela. I was relieved that season 2 ended with Gabriela and Diego getting married, but -- Sike! Gabriela hesitated for a very long time when she got to the "I do" part of the wedding ceremony, and a helicopter crashed nearby, which included a damaged part coming through the church window and interrupting the wedding itself. The helicopter was doing one of those sky banners with a message to congratulate Diego and Gabriela, so there was an unsurprising but personally unwanted moment of him assuming that Bode was Diego. And Gabriela just went along with it. The only good thing about this is that Diego finally knows how Gabriela feels about Bode [since she tried to avoid ever talking about him in S2], and hopefully, he's going to end things and move on to someone else.
Otherwise: Manny was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car, which crashed from falling helicopter debris. I'm not sure if both officers were simply injured or if one was facing life-threatening injuries, but Sharon undid the handcuffs in order to get Manny's help with the scene. Which is a felony, other officers were pissed when they finally showed up, and all that. It's the sort of high-stakes moment that doesn't seem too surprising in a fictional tv show, but I also kinda feel ambivalent if this is just going to be an excuse to punish Manny further.
A guy we met at the end of S2 revealed that he's the other possible biological father of Gen [it's possible I've called her Jen in the past, but her full name is Genevieve]. Cara did admit that there were two possibilities, and S2 already established that Bode wasn't the one. So, odds are, Rick is it. Jake is a bit protective, which was exacerbated by Gen being trapped by debris in Smokey's, but I'm hoping things don't turn into an out-and-out fight. Rick said something along the lines of not wanting to replace Jake, but he probably does have visitation rights at the very least.
Minor quibble: Was there a continuity error between seasons? Season 2 shows the wedding happening in the middle of the day, but there was a sudden cut to darkness, like the middle of the night darkness, when a spot fire broke out from the aviation fuel of the helicopter. I can see how Smokey's - the main firefighter bar - being damaged could create a darker area for saving people trapped by debris, but being outside in the middle of the woods, I'd expect a little more sunlight still. Gabriela needed to write the time she put the tourniquet on a bystander's arm, and it was like 2. But it was dark enough that I could've believed it was 2 AM. (I mean, if something happened and it took a while to clear this all up, I could see a gradual sunset, maybe. But it seemed like a sudden switch for how little of a fire there was, so there wasn't even smoke blocking out the sun or anything.) In writing, I imagine my family and I would've barely noticed, but you know how night scenes and tv shows can be - it was super noticeable that we were now squinting to see characters who were visible in the "previously on..." segment.
S3E2: Firing Squad
There's this whole flashback to the helicopter night amidst one week later thing. Luke and Sharon were able to pull some strings and get Bode into this program for former prisoner firefighters to join Cal Fire. There's a part of me that feels like it's awfully convenient and didn't really let Bode have any tension about whether he'd be able to join the program on his own merits, which just sucked some narrative tension out of this plot line. (I must admit that I don't keep tabs on everything the actual Cal Fire does, but I am aware of some news stories in the last few years of returning citizens facing difficulties in joining Cal Fire when they finished their sentences. This hand-waving away of even the stated wait time for the Edgewater program feels like a deus ex machina.) There's also a part of me that's just relieved that we finally have something that isn't Gabriela for Bode to focus on.
However, the answer to him getting to skip Phase 1 and enter Phase 2 of this program was to do a hot-wash [post-mortem on a fire call], hence the flashbacks to the helicopter. Gabriela and him have temporarily decided to maintain a lie that Gil's medical alert necklace that he's allergic to some sort of medicine was blown off him in the blast instead of admitting that she didn't check until after giving him the medicine and treating him for the allergic reaction. Jake found the necklace in Bode's locker at the fire station at the very end of the episode, so the stress of maintaining the lie isn't going to be a multi-episode affair.
Otherwise: The owner of Smokey's can't afford to make repairs, so Sharon put in a bid on it in order to keep a cherished firefighter institution in Edgewater. Vince got a little too into their idea of maybe going on a vacation now that Bode wasn't taking up so much of their time and attention, and he bought a Streamer to fix up for a road trip. Manny was the facing the maximum of three years in prison [possibly without Fire Cal service], since the prosecutor was facing pressure from San Francisco [reference point for the Cal Fire higher ups] to take the event seriously, but Station 42 rallied around him and he's getting 12 months in Camp Three Rock. Far be it from me to not want to see Manny at the narratively local camp, but I do sometimes wonder why we can't see any other camp where prisoners can be stationed to assist Cal Fire. Seems a little odd to place Manny where he used to work, but I guess he's been removed from Three Rock long enough. Gabriela told Manny that she had returned her ring to Diego, and we didn't see him in this episode, so I imagine we're getting to the moving on part already.
S3E3: Welcome to the Cult
Jake confronts Gabriela and Bode about the medical alert necklace, and they come clean on the lie. While there's still the potential for a bad outcome for both of them, Jake doesn't really make threats and decides that it's going to partially be up to what Gil thinks. I wouldn't say that Gil is happy about the mistake by any means, but he's mostly grateful for being alive and now getting the chance to take a less risky desk job with Cal Fire. Most of the episode is a certain test day for the cadets, which apparently anyone in Cal Fire can come watch. (It sounds weird to me, but I think that was the reason given for Walter, Vince's father and a retired firefighter, to show up.)
While you are supposed to be rooting for Bode here, it's really more of how Walter acts that's more attention holding. He's very cocky that Bode absolutely has to continue the Leone firefighting tradition and tells Bode that the dummy is almost always in the closet to mirror a child hiding there. When Audrey James and him get sent in, he does try to search room by room, but facing the prospect of failing the search, he tells her and they decide to skip to the closet. Jake does not like the cheating and calls it a three strike offense, so Bode is out of training for like a day. (When James admits her role in that decision, it's downgraded at least one strike so Bode goes on with training. While I can understand Jake's point of view here, I can't deny that him coming up with a three strike offense on the spot would pull out a 'that's not fair' from a lot of people.)
Walter drinks too much. He angrily yelled that if Vince had been a better parent, Bode would never have gone off to prison. (And Vince pointed out that he had never done the 'you know where I keep my belt', 'don't talk to Dad during dinner', abusive route that Walter did.) He possibly nodded off on the couch after putting the 'first day celebratory steak' for Bode on the stove, and Vince and Sharon come back to their kitchen on fire. There was enough there that I can understand why Walter's not a reoccurring character, but you can also see where elements of Bode follow through from Walter and some of these personal issues are a bit more like family issues.
Gabriela drives Bode somewhere and they have a talk about how they bring out each other's impulsiveness. She makes some addictive parallels, and even though Bode says that he's willing to wait in order to not feel like they're rushing straight into something, I think they were going for a bit more up in the air feeling. (It's slightly ruined by them getting together in the very next episode.) Personally, I thought it was a weird choice of location to have this type of conversation. Like, I can understand that Bode's probably not currently allowed to drive because that's not uncommon for returning citizens who have had driver's licenses lapse, but Gabriela drove him out to a random place and unless she had him walk somewhere, she was going to need to drive him back to wherever he needed to be.
S3E4: Keep Your Cool
There's a heat dome, I think. Similar to S.W.A.T.'s E4 this week, this is about extreme heat in California. Eve has to deal with one of Three Rock's inmates having heat exhaustion, and when Manny is allowed to assist in an elevator rescue, he starts to get heat exhaustion inside the elevator. Obviously, Manny and Gabriela get stuck in an intermittently powered elevator that falls each time it gets power. They're with a man and woman who have just gotten divorced, and that arguing is a foil for them getting along during this job. (Gabriela admits that she doesn't want their last conversation to be that argument about her leaving Diego, but she's not ready to take his calls from Three Rock.)
I'm not sure how much of a time jump we've had between episodes, but Bode is on his ride-along day at the very end of Phase 2. Jake is hard on him and really driving home the point that he needs Bode to not rush in, go rogue, or act solo. For Bode's part, he actually does follow instructions in this episode, but Vince has to remind Jake that having Bode stand off to the side isn't actually using a cadet as an asset. Once Bode passes Phase 2, Jake relaxes and admits that part of his issue that day was that he wasn't taking something at home with Gen very well. (Gen has been doing video chats with Rick, his wife Noelle, and her step-siblings, and she make a PowerPoint for her position of moving to them in Idaho where Noelle could oversee her homeschooling. It's supposedly just for the rest of the semester, but really, what are the odds that she's going to move to Idaho for one semester.)
Eve has been revealing a bit more about her family in this season. They have a ranch somewhere around Edgewater, and they are definitely in the group of people who are not fans of Cal Fire cutting back dead trees/vegetation that are fuel for fires on their land. We haven't really returned to the community level education where neighbors will help with that instead of calling Three Rock, but Sharon has touched base a few times on whether Eve will try to talk with her parents again. Supposedly, her father got heat stroke while finishing some sort of chores that she was supposed to be doing, and combined with the family not liking her being a firefighter, they haven't talked in several years. I don't know if we're eventually going to see Eve try to talk with them sometime this season, but I'm far more interested in that than Gabriela finding Bode to suddenly have sex in Vince's camper. (Suddenly, in that it was just the very last episode where she said they needed to not be together. And now she 'wants to be bad'.)
Did anyone forget that Sharon had a kidney transplant? Well, the cramps that she was experiencing during the worst of the heat (with an implication that others were possibly cramping, too) didn't stop. She looked up her symptoms, and she's concerned that she might be experiencing signs of transplant rejection. I ran into a recap that mentioned that she had this sort of teasing plot line before, but honestly, I don't remember that unless it was very brief, blink and you miss it. To me, Sharon has been written as if her transplant surgery unlocked a totally normal post-surgery life where there's not even a mention of follow up or anything different about her life. (And I can understand that people doing just fine after a transplant may not want some sort of horror story of everything going wrong, but like, she doesn't even mention taking an anti-rejection pill in passing. There's no follow up with a kidney doctor to do labs. There's not really anything.)
S3E5: Edgewater's About To Get Real Cozy
Smokey's has its grand re-opening, which isn't very grand. Some friends of Diego took down the flyers and try to start a fight with Bode (because Diego has officially left town), which is interrupted by Camden Casey. [He's played by Jared Padalecki, so some on the internet have suddenly heard of the show.] I don't pretend to know or care about why it's so brave of Camden that he's wearing a Dodgers shirt in Edgewater, but I'm kinda meh on the sudden karate-like fight of Camden. Sure, he clearly won the fight, but it also feels a bit extra. A plane from LA needs to make an emergency landing near Edgewater, which breaks up the re-opening (and Eve trying to meet with her brother Elijah).
It turns out that Camden is the trainer for Phase 3, and he's giving off 'trial by fire' vibes by instantly putting Bode on the very top of the plane to try to put out the cockpit fire. Things work out okay, but Jake, Vince, and Sharon are all thrown off by the cadets not being eased into firefighting. I'm not sure if everyone's worried about Bode doing something stupid or if it's truly a break from the usual training procedure in a way that may be unsafe later. Camden tells Bode that he lost all nine members of his crew on a fire earlier in the year, and he blames it on following protocol (in that, if he had gone with his gut against protocol, he would have saved them all). This seems like a very dangerous mindset to bring to training cadets, especially when Bode had to have his rule-breaking impulses addressed in Phase 2, so I can't say I'm enthusiastic about this introduction to Camden. He went from fiddling with a coin [possibly an AA coin] to drinking, and he outright said that he sometimes wishes that he had died with his crew, so I don't know if we're going to get a firefighter PTSD plot with him or what's going to go on.
The title of this episode is a reference to Edgewater needing to provide emergency shelter to the 175 or so passengers, who can't get bussed to their destination until at least the following day. The fire station has to try to organize luggage, Gabriela hits a point of stress and yells at a passenger, and Vince is worried about offering so much free food and drinks at Smokey's. I think the writers needed Vince and Sharon to argue about something, but I find it hard to totally discount Vince worrying about the cost of giving away so much food and drink when Smokey's literally hadn't been re-opened for a full day. As much as Gabriela yelling was part of her 'she's isolating and spiraling' thing, I also kinda wish someone could have told her that the passenger was so worried about his bag because he was carrying something (old film) that was a fire risk. Mr Vape Guy also just got stuck being the fall guy -- don't vape inside the fire station, the smoldering match when he tried to smoke in the luggage area lit the bag containing the old film, he obviously had no idea that Gabriela's been staying in the Airstream and scared her.
Other: Manny helped with some sort of demonstration for some inmates at Three Rock who are expecting to get out and take care of babies, and he got to have a sort of talk with Gabriela after everyone found out she's been staying in the Airstream. (Of the 'I know where you get keeping your problems to yourself' variety, and he wanted her to reach out to someone, even if it wasn't him, instead of isolating.) However, she texted Bode while he was at Smokey's, which was not an environment where he was glued to his phone. I'm a little worried the writers might try some sort of Audrey and Bode thing, but she's supposedly got a long-distance boyfriend and Bode really loves Gabriela, so hopefully there won't be a huge thing of out Bode missing Gabriela's text due to Audrey singing with Vince. I'm mostly getting the impression that Eve's family is the 'I won't talk first for decades' sort [only six years so far], but she meets up with Elijah again and he says that she has to talk to their parents before she can meet her niece.
S3E6: Not Without My Birds
However long ago, a fire wiped out the local population of bald eagles, so everyone's absolutely glued to the nest webcam for this year's two eggs. (People have randomly come up with paired names for them, including Vince referencing 'Sam and Dean'.) The eggs successfully hatch, but Station 42 and Camp Three Rock need to help to keep a fire from sweeping through that patch of forest. They also have to try to maintain a certain distance from the nest tree, which is mostly a way to bring Francine back. (Eve's ex-girlfriend who was busy writing a dissertation on bald eagle something or other when they were dating about six years.) Good news: A water drop saves the day, and Francine puts the baby eaglets back in the nest. Eve and her also sort of make up (that is, address Eve ghosting her back then and feeling like Francine was just another person who hated her going into firefighting).
Not so good news: Camden is super obvious about trying to lead Bode to a 'distraction free' Phase 3 life in a way that, in my opinion, sets off all sorts of isolating high control group pings. Honestly, telling a returning citizen that his parents, friends, and sorta-girlfriend are just distractions keeping him from being the best firefighter he can be comes across as the opposite of helpful. Thankfully, Bode's instincts to help kick in and he doesn't just follow Camden when Camden wants to pull the cadets out (thinking it was a waste of time, but also kinda not liking Vince making decisions). Despite Camden praising certain 'go with your gut and fuck the rules' moments, he's probably going to be upset about defying his orders in the next episode. I did appreciate Vince pointing out that Camden might not be handling the loss of his crew very well (which apparently included his younger brother), though I also can't say I'm surprised that Camden shut that emotional discussion down (along the lines of: I'm here to be a trainer, not for therapy).
Also: Gabriela was jealous of Audrey showing up at Smokey's to see the nest cam with Jake, Eve, and Bode. In a 'why did she sit next to Bode' and 'why is he cat-sitting for her' sort of way that's more personally annoying than anything. Gabriela keeps saying that she maybe will want to have a committed relationship with Bode at some vague point in the future, and he finally said that a 'maybe' feels like a 'no' in their talk at the end. The very end of the episode was her downing what seemed like a lot of tequila at Smokey's and nodding to Camden at the bar. (Some of my family's worried that there's going to be a 'did she sleep with Camden' moment in the morning. I'm still tired of this 'will they, won't they' plot with Bode and Gabriela, and if this is a definite no, I want Gabriela to not run back to Bode when she 'wants to be bad' again.)
Audrey spent most of this episode shadowing Sharon [at the fire station, coordinating things instead of in the field], and I can't say that I blame her for the blow up about Sharon also doing a 'trial by fire' moment instead of providing instruction. (Audrey had watched her turn on several fans and complain about the A/C being broken while she was freezing, pointed out the ongoing physical symptoms fitting with perimenopause, and Sharon promptly shut down the 'I'm trying to be a friendly mentor' angle.) For what it's worth, this didn't lead to any mistakes for people out in the field, and Sharon did apologize later. [Last episode included an at-home call from her doctor to confirm that her tests for her kidney were normal, but she didn't mention this perimenopause suggestion to Vince in this episode. She was mostly upset that the doctor had brought up the physical side effects of anxiety, and she felt like she was being brushed off as imagining things. Unless the writers want an on-screen discussion, she could just see someone to figure out HRT, and this subplot may fade away.]
S3E7: False Alarm
Casey does this whole thing with Bode not needing to work his last day of training because he disobeyed a direct order, and as of the pass list posted mid-shift(-ish), Bode didn't pass. However, Bode insists on finishing out his last shift, and in the course of finding out a false alarm at a store was actually a robbery, Bode gets to say his piece about his attachments to family and friends not being a detriment. (Casey also has a heat of the moment slip where he calls Bode his dead brother's name, so Bode gets a last remark about Casey being hypocritical.) It wasn't a surprise that Casey presented diplomas to the passing class in the end that included Bode (and Casey will be going home with some processing of his brother's death in the future).
Also: It seemed like the writers started from the final scene that they wanted (Jake and Gabriela getting very drunk, trash talking Sharon and Vince, and hooking up in Jake's truck) and suddenly made characters say or do things unexpectedly in order to get to that point. Vince hasn't put his foot in his mouth so many times in one episode before, let alone about parenting advice for Gen, and Sharon has more been the sort to get into an argument than physically go through someone's things (as in physically going through the Airstream where Gabriela is living for any clues about her continued downward spiral, which now includes binge drinking on nights off and seemingly dangerous cliff diving). It also seems a little unwise to do all this at Smokey's, which Sharon and Vince now own this season, but they thankfully don't wander in during important trash talking scenes.
I dunno, I'm just not into each episode finding a new way to dig Gabriela even further down. For all that they've given her dialogue about her 'knowing addiction' and addictive tendencies running in the family, I don't know where the lowest point is going to be. Are we going to keep going until she's drunk on shift? Are we going to go cold turkey with a pregnancy reveal (possibly even with her not knowing if Jake is the father)? Is she going to change her mind after finding out that Audrey and Bode had a kinda-sorta date (after finding out that Audrey's boyfriend broke up with her earlier in this episode)? For all that Gabriela threw a dramatic wrench in her life plans in order to be with Bode, it comes across like that was all for nothing. It feels like we're hitting some of the plot points that the writers maybe wanted to actually hit in S2 but couldn't due to the shortened season length, and it just seems... A bit unexpected.
Also also: My family absolutely called Gen not wanting to come back if she went off to Rick in Idaho. As a character Jake couldn't see that foreshadowing coming, but it was not a surprise. We've been getting hints that Jake maybe wants to date again, and he apparently got put back together with Gabriela for the night. However, being asked to mail Gen's things (and worrying that he's been a horrible parent) is definitely the sort of thing that we were expecting Jake to actually try to get advice on from, I dunno, Vince. So, unless Jake feels differently in the morning after sobering up and/or the writers decide to repair that sudden miscommunication, he's kinda just holding that parenting Gen stress in. Which hasn't gone well in the past.
S3E8: Promise Me
Bode and Audrey's first shift at Station 42 involves a fire which is starting up from the smoldering underground zombie fire of [in-universe] a fire from several months ago. They're supposed to be going door to door and telling people on a certain street to evacuate while cutting brush, or something that should be theoretically easy. However, Bode is easily led around by his heartstrings and promises some random guy that they'll definitely save his house after he gives a very moving story for why his house is so sentimentally important to him. This leads to Bode ignoring Audrey's voiced concerns about needing to leave as they lose the fight to keep the roof from catching on fire, and he ignores directions from Sharon to tackle a different above ground fire related to this zombie fire. The big mid-season finale ends with Bode and Audrey realizing that they waited too late and need to jump in a swimming pool to avoid the fire surrounding them, which seems melodramatically expected and a bit much.
Jake regrets the drunken hook-up with Gabriela and feels like he should share what happened with Bode. On the one hand, I can kinda see why Gabriela doesn't think it's Bode's business (since they're no longer dating), but on the other hand, I can't say that I totally blame Jake for this awkward conversation. He's been trying to rebuild his friendship with Bode post-incarceration, Bode has spent a lot of narrative time being clingy with Gabriela, and it feels like the sort of thing that Jake shouldn't let fester or spring on Bode at some other time. He also didn't seem to realize until Gabriela brought it up that they actually weren't dating anymore. He doesn't actually have time to reveal anything before the episode ended, and it's possible he may change his mind later.
Eve's family is less than pleased that this zombie fire has brought CalFire to their ranch. Initially it seems like she makes some progress with her dad, and I think he agreed to Three Rock cutting line. But at a certain point in Eve ignoring Vince's radio calls to help with a horse giving birth, Vince comes in and has to be the bearer of bad news that cutting line isn't enough. He has the authority to call for a back-burn, and I'm pretty sure we've seen countless decisions like this go off without a hitch before, but you know, it wouldn't be the mid-season finale without the wind shifting, embers from the back-burn landing on a barn, and Eve's father dramatically announcing that if they lose that barn, Eve's as good as dead to him. I guess family tension is better than romantic/sexual relationship drama, but I'm also a little over the extreme impression of the father.
Also: Gabriela realizes that one of the cars on this road for evacuation isn't moving because they ran out of gas and seem to be living out of said car. She goes to the car that parked in front of a fire hydrant, which has already had its windows busted out due to said parking location, and she siphons almost the whole tank of gas for the mother and child. It seems like it was just something to get to the big argument Jake and Gabriela get into that leads to her saying that she's done, stripping out of her fire clothes, and just walking off (and very quickly realizing that she's walked into the fire). That segment ends with Manny hearing that she's lost and seeming like he's going to run off to her (in a way that would look like an escape by a prisoner), and I really hope he doesn't. Sure, someone has to find her, but I don't want Manny to get into trouble over this; he's got a parole hearing coming up and shouldn't have anything until now that's a strike against him.
(While I can understand that Jake was trying to make a point that she's not the only person in Station 42 with issues, I must admit that I winced at his part of the argument where he trotted out that he watched Cara die and lost the love of his life. Trying to figure out who has it worst isn't going to get us anywhere here. However, someone apparently had to tell Gabriela that siphoning gas out of a gas tank while clearly dressed as a firefighter isn't okay. She's been spiraling downwards for months now, and she broke a law while clearly in uniform; her feeling shitty about her life will not save her from the car owner pressing charges (though plot armor might). Like, she didn't even try getting a volunteer to give up a gallon or siphoning a small enough amount that it wasn't noticed.
And now she's stormed off, stupidly, into a fucking fire. If this isn't her bottom and a point where she can try to spiral upwards, I don't know what else it will take for Gabriela this season. Is she going to have to do something that kills someone on shift? What?)
❄️ Winter Break ❄️
S3E9: Coming in Hot
As a continuation of E8, it mostly just wrapped things up. Manny found Gabriela, who had twisted her ankle or something. She got to get all sorts of pent up emotions out, though she did apologize for trying to blame absolutely everything on Manny after being rescued. Eve saved her family's ranch, and her father let the firefighters take the horses to rescue Gabriela, Manny, Vince, and Sharon. Since Vince and Sharon found Manny alright, he wasn't going to be punished for his little step away, and Gabriela was going to use her mandatory time off for physical recovery to start that whole spiralling up effort.
All that pool stuff: Bode and Audrey live. Audrey was taken to the hospital for, I think, pulmonary edema. Bode took her flowers and had an awkward elevator ride with Gabriela when she found out the flowers weren't for her. However, it's hopefully clear that Bode and Gabriela are over-over, and we'll have to live with Audrey and Bode getting together.
The final moment in the episode was Vince's father showing up for Bode's graduation, which was a week earlier in-universe.
S3E10: The Leone Way
Most of this episode is a fishing trip. The Leone family stopped going after Bode was arrested, Bode thinks Nono/Papa Leone/Walter is lonely and needs some family time, and Jake wants to get advice from Luke about how to carefully tell Bode about breaking the bro code. (After the trip, he just goes for a straightforward admission, and Bode is disappointed but not ruined by this revelation. They're fine.) Uncle Luke is actually going to do something about fire training in Japan, so his character might not be around a lot going forward.
The big question that everyone's trying to deal with is whether Walter needs to see a doctor and, like, actually tested for memory issues. As someone who doesn't live locally to Edgewater, we haven't seen a ton of him. He has also plausibly been able to hide the one possible memory slip we saw with his drinking. So, the sudden and irrefutable memory issue we saw on the fishing trip may have seemed to come out of nowhere for some viewers, but it was enough for Bode to tell Sharon. Walter went on a walk around 4:30 AM, and in the midst of everyone trying to save the guy trapped in the car that Walter accidentally found, he seemed confused about where he was and asked Bode about it. (After the trip, Walter actually had a conversation with Sharon and Bode and admitted that he was worried. He specifically asked to see a doctor, but he didn't want to scare Luke or Vince by telling them just yet.)
S3E11: Fare Thee Well
Gabriela is back to work, and she's trying to be optimistic about Manny getting early parole. Things are alright enough with her that she kinda realizes that she doesn't have 'do XYZ just for fun' hobbies, so we may or may not see that come up in future episodes. Manny is torn between needing to follow the letter of the law, as it were, or helping people. For all that Bode got plot armor in the first two seasons in order to help, it seems a bit much for Sharon to come across this strict with Manny, but I'm not a writer here.
Unfortunately, we did get to see a downside to Bode working with his family. Vince did not like that Bode was waiting for a call from the neurologist, and he was snippy in a way that I'm sure was worse for anyone who was not part of the Leone family on call (Jake got a little, Bode got a lot). Working through helping Lord Percival was a way for Vince to realize that he was trying to not face a scary possibility, and he seemed to have made enough peace by the time the neurologist called to let them know that Walter was showing early signs of dementia.
The title and 'Lord Percival'... Okay, so Eve took Francine to a seemingly small but local ren faire. Between a fire breather, improperly stored fireworks, and a dragon flame thrower, there were some issues that brought in Cal Fire and forced Eve to help out on her day off. I thought Eve had briefly talked about this at some point in the past with Jake, which is why his comment about whether wizards doing spells were part of this seemed to annoy her. However, Francine made her not talking about going to ren faires into this big thing that was repeating old habits about secrecy in a way that, to me, seemed like the writers maybe wanted to talk about something else but had already written everyone being okay with Eve being gay. (I also wished Bode hadn't called Lord Percival delusional. Douglas didn't want to break character, and that's not the same as a delusion. It was also portrayed as a sad, pitiable thing that Douglas needed to fix, but Eve's allowed to have her big speech about feeling safe and decompressing within ren faire spaces?)
Some of the problem may be that I know people who go to fan conventions, ren faires, and I think one or two of the spinning/yarn inclined have also done the Society for Creative Anachronism. So, it doesn't seem like this really big secret to mention going. As someone who's closeted, I also feel like the focus on secrecy and Francine not wanting to date Eve if she's not going to be open about the ren faire feels like it's penalizing separation of selves. Sure, Eve tells Jake and Francine hears her sticking up for ren faires, and Eve and Francine kiss. But, quite frankly, Eve is not obligated to tell anyone she works with what she likes to do in her free time. Secrecy is not a bad thing.
S3E12: I'm The One Who Just Goes Away
Eve gets permission from Sharon to have a unification sort of day at the fire station. Most of the men at Three Rock are young and have young-ish children, and this is sort of a group visitation event. The inmates are brought in, the children are bused in, and there's a crafts station for coloring (or making a picture frame for the photos taken during the visit). There are also snacks and space to utilise station resources - like a punching bag for the kid who's upset that his father was taken to the infirmary, so he can't see him. Gabriela helps Eve and connects to the upset kid about her experience with growing up with Manny in prison. (Manny sort of helps throughout the day, but as an old enough inmate that his daughter is also an adult, he's not the focus of this pilot program of dad/kid visiting.)
Eve unexpectedly gets to help Logan with his anxiety around telling his dad that he has a crush on Mason (I think that was him name; it was more important that he's a hockey fan), and Cole handles it without any issues. Initially, Logan seems to be the oldest kid there as a young teen, and his disruptive choices (opening a water rescue boat in the storage room and taking the keys to turn the fire truck on) are chalked up to being a teen at an event really aimed at younger children. However, he's upset with not feeling like he really gets to talk to his dad enough to feel like they know each other, and he's anxious about revealing his crush. (Unlike last week's episode, this is not presented as if Logan must come out or he's doing something bad if he keeps a secret. He wants to be able to tell his dad about his crush on Mason and get fatherly advice - don't lie if you don't know anything about hockey, for starters - which comes across as less moralizing secrecy.
Audrey's washer in her apartment building isn't usable at the moment, and Sharon doesn't like her using the washing machines for work things in the fire station for personal clothing, so Sharon sends Audrey over to her house. This also aligns with Vince getting a chance to not feel quite so much like a babysitter for his dad. (Sharon had admonished him for bringing a pan of mac-and-cheese to the station for the unification program, and Vince just didn't like jumping to 'we can't leave your dad alone for more than a second'.) Walter mistakes Audrey for Riley, presumably coming home from a dorm to do laundry, but he realises that he did not hug his granddaughter and apologizes. (Vince gets to overhear this exchange without needing to have to step in himself, which may alter his reluctance around anticipating his father to have memory issues.) Audrey takes the misidentification in stride and talks to Walter about the Leone family pictures, which includes her hearing more about Riley. They actually get along pretty well, which includes playing poker later in the day. (One of the pictures was of Walter showing Bode and Riley how to play, which inspires Audrey to get a family photo at the end of the episode. The photos had all stopped after Riley's death and Bode's incarceration.)
Bode and Jake go off on an overtime assignment to tag some trees for removal or monitoring in Trinity National Forest. (Shasta-Trinity National Forest is a bit of a drive in-universe. I think Jake says that it's eight hours, possibly round trip.) They get three trees done, put out an unattended campfire, and go off to rescue a camper trapped under rocks from a landslide. They do eventually get Rafael out from under the rocks, and Jake runs off to find enough signal to call for help. However, Rafael is a pediatrician and has enough medical knowledge that he's clearly announcing to Bode that he's not going to make it from various injuries (they were announced to Jake and Bode while getting dug out). He asks Bode to look at the miracle of the stars with him, which sounds dissatisfying here but fit in with the philosophical bent he took (with Jake and Bode while talking to remain conscious). I'm pretty confident it's the first time Bode has experienced a death on shift and in person like this, and my family's not thrilled with the previews for next week suggesting that some random person may suggest drugs to help him cope with that experience. Bode got into prison and Three Rock from getting messed up on drugs after Riley's death, and we really don't want to get him back into that. Didn't his probation officer suggest he find meetings to attend or group therapy? Shouldn't there be, perhaps, one or two coping mechanisms that are not drugs to choose from by this point?
Also: Bode and Audrey say that they're going to talk about the kiss at the end of the ren faire. They clearly like each other, but as can be seen above, they don't really get to reunite until after Rafael dies. Bode's quiet, and it's not clear if he'll isolate or continue on with Audrey just yet. Jake and Bode talk a bit on the drive to Shasta-Trinity, and Jake is kinda not sure about getting back into dating. Rafael wants him to pass on a message to his fiancée about not holding herself back from finding another person to love, and as much as it must be difficult for Jake when he's possibly still holding on to not being able to save Cara, he gets Gabriela to translate for him in a phone call at the end of the episode with her. (Rafael was taking a short holiday to process losing one of his child patients on this camping trip. He's from Argentina, so there's probably not going to be immediate family around to visibly grieve around anyone.)
S3E13: My Team
A county baseball rivalry between two high schools in the area brings up the current coach of the one team, who was possibly on Bode's team back in high school. He has an old injury that requires pills, and his idea of thanking Bode for helping one of the current team members get out of a culvert (he tried to hide there) was to give Bode a few of his spare pills. The knee injury Bode got trying to rescue Rafael was acting up, but Bode didn't immediately get rid of the little baggie. (He hasn't been shown taking them, but it can't be good if he's found with them at some point.)
Also: Violet is introduced, and Jake agrees to go on a date with her. Uncle Luke has his last shift in the US, and he gets some time to talk to Bode (as him and the coach initially almost got into a fight). However, his passing comment that Gabriela still knows Bode very well will come up in the next episode. Birch is suddenly the foucus at Three Rock, and he's trying to remain sober (involves not wanting to go back to prison to access the infirmary) while getting over something. I think someone said something about a cold going around the camp, but there's this whole thing with the prison officer needing to drug test him and sign off on OTC meds within camp, and the P.O. can't call for a bus to transport him to the infirmary until the morning anyways. Birch goes from sleeping in his bunk all day to, later that night, his fingers are blue and he stops breathing, right in front of everyone.
S3E14: Death Trap
The title of the episode comes from a welfare check on a hoarder. A hot iron falls onto something, which starts a fire, and the lady is presented as unable to move on from the grief of her ex-husband leaving her by trying to insist she's protecting his things for when he comes back. It was mostly a way to hammer in on not having different firefighters get held back from something in their past: Audrey reveals some of her baggage to Bode, and Gabriela moves from worrying that she still loves Bode (inspired by Luke's comment) to realizing that she just wanted closure to their relationship that wasn't motivated by her being stuck in her downward spiral. (She does admit that she was in the wrong, and they have finally put things to rest. Bode is clearly moving on with Audrey, and a bystander named Finn flirts with Gabriela enough that it's clear that she's not still hung up on Bode.)
Bode's bit about not being held back by his baggage was him talking about feeling a sense of control over holding the baggie of pills and deciding not to take any. It sounded very nice and encouraging in the show, but my family's still not enthusiastic about this decision. The locker at the station can be searched (and has, in the past), and Bode is very likely not supposed to have drugs that he doesn't have a verifiable prescription for. He's supposed to be an addict in recovery, and there just doesn't seem to be a positive about him keeping this little baggie around. (The previews for next week seem to show his parole officer showing up, so who knows what will happen around this.)
Eve and Manny try to convince Birch's sister to ask for an autopsy. Birch's death was ruled as having to do with heart issues from his years of alcoholism, which no one could totally rule out as maybe contributing, but the people who were there at Three Rock when Birch died in front of everyone just don't believe that was the main cause. However, someone met with the sister after her visit with Eve, and she said that she legally couldn't tell Eve anything but that she had been the one to ask for no autopsy and the cremation. (Eve had initially found out about the cremation and heard that even the Department of Corrections was caught off guard by the fast cremation, so she was surprised that the sister had asked for it.) Something seems to be getting covered up, but the ending moment was focused on Manny since he was sick and exhibiting the same signs as Birch.
The episode opened with Javi, a home health nurse, being verbally dressed down by Walter, who did not want to be told that it was time for him to go to bed. He has gone through four or five other nurses, and he definitely did not like a 27 year old trying to treat him like he had a bedtime. Javi took it in stride, but he did talk to Vince about finding a stash of pills (the 2 PM medication) that Walter has been hiding instead of taking. Javi had some brochures for memory care facilities because he wanted Sharon and Vince to have some time to choose one, but Sharon and Vince both didn't think it was time to consider that route yet. They also were very shocked at how expensive it would be, so Sharon may have to reconsider her plan of travelling in the Airstream in the summer. At the very least, she's not going to continue with some repairs/upgrades to it; I probably didn't note this earlier, but part of Gabriela getting better after her breakdown involved her moving in with Eve, so the Airstream's been empty for a bit. Javi only comes by three days a week, so Vince takes Walter to the fire station so Sharon can make sure he takes his medication on time (and he's not entirely alone all day).
Obviously, with all of this talk about whether Walter needs more care than Sharon and Vince can provide in-home, Walter goes missing. It was probably around the time that he needed his medication, and Sharon couldn't find him. Someone in the station saw Sharon's car leave a bit ago, and cue the urgency over finding Walter. Now, a Silver Alert was issued, but the way the show depicted the search seemed a bit underwhelming. Like, it was more that Bode and Audrey had time to talk in the car ride to wherever instead of actually searching for Walter. They supposedly found Sharon's car off the road in a slight ditch, but no one was called to start a foot search at that location. The scenes switched to night-time levels of dark, and still, there was just a vague driving around tactic. (Edgewater seems to have a lot of backroads where people just drive amongst trees for a while. Considering where I live, I'm aware this seems nitpicky to point out, but it just seemed like having Bode and Audrey drive back into town didn't make sense if Walter was truly lost out there. You should get some of those firefighters searching for Walter to spread out from that car, and call any 'neighbors' within a certain distance of that car.)
To the seeming surprise of everyone, Walter is found at Vince and Sharon's home. He apparently walked himself home? There was no mention of anyone finding him walking, and he didn't seem to remember how he got home after 'going on a call' to [Somewhere]. (We weren't given any clues that he somehow misinterpreted an actual call at the fire station, so he was going [Somewhere] based on a memory.) Vince lies about taking Sharon's car in order to de-escalate Walter being upset that he was being accused of stealing her car, and Vince installs an alarm system so Sharon will get a text if someone opens the front door. Ultimately, the point isn't how Walter actually got home, but it's an unavoidable sign that Vince and Sharon have to actually consider a memory care facility as a real possibility now.
It's not that my family wanted things to end badly for Walter here, but we just found it very hard to believe that no one seemed to check the house, and it seemed like quite a few hours passed before someone found Walter at home (going from around 2 PM to after nightfall). Sure, the narrative seemed to need to accomplish other things and just have the urgency of the search, but it wound up coming across like a scattered, ineffectual search by a bunch of people who supposedly should be who you ask for help for searching for someone. I dunno; some of it may be that issuing a Silver Alert sounds like you ought to check something obvious, like if the person is at your home, before the alert can be issued. Some of it may be that some of my relatives have had to help other relatives [before I was born] with memory issues, and there's generally an expectation that you have checked common places before getting others involved in a search.
Note: Separate to all this, I did find out that each state has a different system of alerting to this type of situation. Some have Silver Alerts (age minimums range from 55 to 65, and a condition that affects memory), some have Senior Alerts, some use a state specific name with similar criteria to a Silver or Senior Alert (including at least one Golden Alert), and some have some type of Missing Adult Alert (which doesn't have to be strictly limited by age or a memory condition).
S3E15: One Last Time
Manny is rushed to the hospital, and one of the kidney tests catches the long, official name for something commonly found in pesticides. While Eve has called for an environmental audit to figure out how Manny (and presumably Birch) got pesticide poisoning, the rest of Three Rock starts to come down with the same symptoms. Eve calls for a work stoppage and is waiting for adequate medical help to get there when she realizes that she's fine because she has a water cooler in her office (she eats the same food, so this can't be food based). Pesticide has somehow gotten into their water. Eve gets Sharon to help with a county look-up in determining what's around the source of their water, and it turns out to be Oxalta - in-universe, the largest (and richest) company in California making pesticides. Near the end, a lawyer from Oxalta shows up to Station 42 with something that sounds like a gag-order for Sharon, which is probably what scared Birch's sister into not asking for the autopsy.
There's a rain storm, so everyone isn't called to one fire in this episode. Vince and Sharon have to take Walter to the station while they wait for the road to Buena Vista, the memory care facility chosen, to no longer be flooded out. Audrey and Gabriela help with passing out sand bags; Finn shows up for some more flirting and asks Gabriela out to dinner near the end. Walter gets to talk to two surfers who're waiting for the roads to clear out before going to the hospital, which is mostly a way for him to realize he was being stubborn this morning. (Due to not currently remembering his agreement to go to Buena Vista, he blew up in a fight with Vince about how his son couldn't wait to send him there.) The title of the episode comes from Jake and Bode being sent to a historic lighthouse; one part of the old stairs has collapsed, so they need to help get a batch of tourists down the ladder. The lighthouse keeper has heard of two ships in distress that are struggling without their GPS in the storm, and he wants to actually light the beacon. (One ship is helped before the ancient wiring causes a small fire. Bode helps to light a small fire before the Fresnel lens - yeah, it's a name, so the "fruh-nell" we heard is not the actual spelling - which helps the second ship.)
The very end has [Parole] Officer Carlson show up to Bode's apartment with the mention of 'associating with known criminals'. It's been a bit in-universe between these last two episodes, and Bode has said that's he's picked up a side job. (It's possibly to help his parents pay for Buena Vista, but that wasn't explicitly confirmed.) Due to him briefly working a construction job with someone who had a record in the past, my family's not sure if he went back to them. Audrey was worried about how vague he was about this job, since he's technically a firefighter and a bartender at Smokey's. If this isn't what prompted Officer Carlson to show up, it seems like he's awfully late to mention Bode going back to visit Three Rock or working with Audrey (after months in-universe).
Otherwise, Violet and Jake are doing okay. Violet gets to worry that wearing one of Jake's Cal Fire t-shirts and sharing her news of getting hired at a place she was sure wouldn't want someone quite so new to law would scare Jake off with assuming they're together-together. Jake gets to worry that his mention of having a roommate "for future reference" was rushing into them having a future. They're both ultimately okay with the speed of their relationship, and Jake finds out that she was hired by the law section of Oxalta. (He hasn't heard of what Eve or Sharon have experienced, so it was just a happy moment in Smokey's with congratulating Violet.)
🏀 March Madness Break 🏀
S3E16: Dirty Money
The thing with Bode's parole officer is related to him working with Wes. (Reminder: Sharon and her half-sister, Sheriff Mickey Fox, share a father who's in the illegal weed business.) Bode's conflicted about it (considering how well paid Wes' workers are and how his daughters won't accept monetary assistance otherwise), but he ultimately quits in an effort to not violate his parole. There's this whole thing with someone attempting to kill Wes, which involves a CGI rattlesnake getting its head cut off with a shovel and Wes wanting to avoid the ER for antivenin. It turns out that Wes yelling about leaving his land and money to Mickey's daughter because Mickey can't stop him from doing that [while she can stop him from seeing his granddaughter while she's in rehab] didn't endear the stalwart worker who was expecting to take over the business to Wes. A fire was involved, but I guess it didn't devastate the business. (After finding out about the Oxalta settlement, Bode angrily gives Wes' money to his mother and aunt since it's supposedly 'dirtier' than the deal that Sharon made with Oxalta.)
Given Violet's current professional position, Eve isn't exactly getting along with her all that great. Violet even lets slip a detail that Eve really only intended to talk to Jake about at breakfast [Camp Three Rock's water holding tank has a crack], but Sharon brings the details on how the DOC followed proper procedure to get the water tested [they only needed to rush to fix this crack if the test results showed something to be concerned about, which means they have proof that the current toxicity is a result of Oxalta]. Violet also orchestrates a way for Eve to look at her phone and see that Oxalta has run into this issue in a housing development where more people died or got sick. Sharon ultimately wins in this settlement process, so Oxalta will cover the cost of fixing things. In the mean time, the inmates have to be sent back to prison or redistributed to other camps. Somehow, Sharon negotiates Manny getting out? I dunno if we were supposed to be keeping track of when he was up for parole or how this happened in-universe; however, Manny had to sign an NDA and can't try to bring any suits of his own against Oxalta.
S317: Fire and Ice
This episode will air tonight, 11 April 2025.
Fire Country
Saturday, 17 February 2024 05:00 pmI'm going back and trying to re-find comments I made in the tv_talk community about some shows.
My family watched season one of Fire Country before I had a DW account. This picks up with talking about season two, which was the truncated one affected by the writer+actor strikes.
S2E1
Around S2E4
S2E9
S2E10
My family watched season one of Fire Country before I had a DW account. This picks up with talking about season two, which was the truncated one affected by the writer+actor strikes.
Here:
I'm still not a fan of a twist in the S1 finale, but this episode does make it clear that this season won't be focused on slogging through the minutiae of undoing that twist since there are two time jumps. (Angst fuel for anyone who likes filling in time jumps via fanworks, I suppose.)
For anyone who wants less vague-to-avoid-spoilers details: The S1 finale was focused on Bode going before the parole board in an effort to be granted parole and released to his mother and father. Basically corrupt prosecutor stuff happened, and the only way that Freddie [Bode's friend in Camp Three Rock] would get his parole granted would be if Bode took the fall for introducing the drugs to the camp that someone else did. There was this whole thing with doctored urine results, and Bode was really set up to look like he'd relapsed and shot his whole season of any possible growth out of the water. So, S2E1 opened with him still plunged into this angsty, annoying 'I'm now evil incarnate' mindset where everyone would be better off without him.
I'm still not a fan of a twist in the S1 finale, but this episode does make it clear that this season won't be focused on slogging through the minutiae of undoing that twist since there are two time jumps. (Angst fuel for anyone who likes filling in time jumps via fanworks, I suppose.)
For anyone who wants less vague-to-avoid-spoilers details: The S1 finale was focused on Bode going before the parole board in an effort to be granted parole and released to his mother and father. Basically corrupt prosecutor stuff happened, and the only way that Freddie [Bode's friend in Camp Three Rock] would get his parole granted would be if Bode took the fall for introducing the drugs to the camp that someone else did. There was this whole thing with doctored urine results, and Bode was really set up to look like he'd relapsed and shot his whole season of any possible growth out of the water. So, S2E1 opened with him still plunged into this angsty, annoying 'I'm now evil incarnate' mindset where everyone would be better off without him.
Here:
The narrative is really trying to get two characters back together, but I think I'm at a point of postshipping them. I'm not interested in another 'will A chose B or C' type of plot line; we spent part of season one doing that.
Also: I'm not sure exactly where, but I did comment somewhere before the end [below] that I was thrown off by Sharon basically having an 'everything is fine' depiction of life post-kidney transplant. I didn't want her to face serious complications, but like, she didn't even have a throwaway line about needing to take her anti-rejection meds or something.
The narrative is really trying to get two characters back together, but I think I'm at a point of postshipping them. I'm not interested in another 'will A chose B or C' type of plot line; we spent part of season one doing that.
Also: I'm not sure exactly where, but I did comment somewhere before the end [below] that I was thrown off by Sharon basically having an 'everything is fine' depiction of life post-kidney transplant. I didn't want her to face serious complications, but like, she didn't even have a throwaway line about needing to take her anti-rejection meds or something.
Here:
While Fire Country did bring up the sentence shortening credit [for lifesaving acts of heroism] early enough that it doesn't fully feel like some sort of deus ex machina tactic, I can't help but wonder if having this short season for S2 interfered with the writers wanting Bode to finish his sentence at Camp Three Rock a little slower. Him being nominated for this credit really feels like a way to have him suddenly out for the last episode instead of feeling like we really saw this coming. (No one else in camp has been nominated for this credit before, and it wasn't like Bode got nominated a few episodes ago and just found out his case made it through the paperwork and stuff. He found out he was nominated, passed all the way through, and will be released shortly in, like, one sentence.)
While Fire Country did bring up the sentence shortening credit [for lifesaving acts of heroism] early enough that it doesn't fully feel like some sort of deus ex machina tactic, I can't help but wonder if having this short season for S2 interfered with the writers wanting Bode to finish his sentence at Camp Three Rock a little slower. Him being nominated for this credit really feels like a way to have him suddenly out for the last episode instead of feeling like we really saw this coming. (No one else in camp has been nominated for this credit before, and it wasn't like Bode got nominated a few episodes ago and just found out his case made it through the paperwork and stuff. He found out he was nominated, passed all the way through, and will be released shortly in, like, one sentence.)
Here:
Gabriela married Diego in the season finale, and I really hope the narrative will move on from Bode/Gabriela. It spent, like, nine out of the ten episodes in this short season with some amount of trying to at least nudge (if not push) them back together, and I've reached a point of post-shipping them. I don't care if someone new has to be introduced for Bode, but it feels like there's so much that we could be covering if the narrative would stop focusing on that ship.
While Three Rock turned out to say goodbye to Bode as he was officially released as a parolee, it kind of felt flat when Bode was only ever shown positively interacting with one other inmate there this season. Did he actually have any acquaintances or friends there? [Someone having a sorta friendly conversation in an episode where he gets a terminal diagnosis and panic-runs away from camp isn't what I mean.] I can understand why we're not seeing fully fleshed out stories for all 10-15 other men, but with this season including a brief arc to save Three Rock from being closed, it just seemed like we could've seen more about inmates other than Bode.
Sharon just magically is completely fine in a post-organ transplant life, and while I wouldn't want to see complications just to spice things up, it's like there's absolutely nothing about adjusting to having gotten a transplant. Considering that this season introduced a work injury to Vince [electrocution] that led to heart issues, there could've been something about Sharon understanding why he was clinging to being able to work so much. S1 showed her already being treated for kidney issues, so we didn't really find out if she had a phase of being in denial. I dunno, it just feels like we definitely had a short season that didn't actually address certain things.
Gabriela married Diego in the season finale, and I really hope the narrative will move on from Bode/Gabriela. It spent, like, nine out of the ten episodes in this short season with some amount of trying to at least nudge (if not push) them back together, and I've reached a point of post-shipping them. I don't care if someone new has to be introduced for Bode, but it feels like there's so much that we could be covering if the narrative would stop focusing on that ship.
While Three Rock turned out to say goodbye to Bode as he was officially released as a parolee, it kind of felt flat when Bode was only ever shown positively interacting with one other inmate there this season. Did he actually have any acquaintances or friends there? [Someone having a sorta friendly conversation in an episode where he gets a terminal diagnosis and panic-runs away from camp isn't what I mean.] I can understand why we're not seeing fully fleshed out stories for all 10-15 other men, but with this season including a brief arc to save Three Rock from being closed, it just seemed like we could've seen more about inmates other than Bode.
Sharon just magically is completely fine in a post-organ transplant life, and while I wouldn't want to see complications just to spice things up, it's like there's absolutely nothing about adjusting to having gotten a transplant. Considering that this season introduced a work injury to Vince [electrocution] that led to heart issues, there could've been something about Sharon understanding why he was clinging to being able to work so much. S1 showed her already being treated for kidney issues, so we didn't really find out if she had a phase of being in denial. I dunno, it just feels like we definitely had a short season that didn't actually address certain things.
