Spoilers for Fire Country’s Season 3 premiere are ahead! If you aren’t caught up, you can stream the series (including the newest episode) with a Paramount+ subscription.
Well, Fire Country certainly came back to the 2024 TV schedule with a literal and figurative bang. Rafael de la Fuente’s Diego didn’t hear the “I do” he was expecting from Stephanie Arcila’s Gabriela, then he confronted her about that and her feelings for Max Thieriot’s Bode. Not to mention, he did that as they were all trying to save a pilot after a helicopter crash. So, now the stage is set for a dramatic Season 3, especially when it comes to this love triangle, and Arcila and Thieriot broke down how their characters were feeling as all this went down with CinemaBlend.
Stephanie Arcila Told Me How Gabriela Was Feeling As Her Fiancé Confronted Her About Her Relationship With Bode
When I interviewed Stephanie Arcila about Gabriela and everything she went through in this episode, she noted that her character is very emotionally vulnerable at the moment. She has conflicting feelings, she didn’t say “I do” at her wedding, and it was interrupted by a helicopter crash. So, when Diego confronted her and said he was hurt by her feelings for Bode, it was like twisting a knife into a festering wound. To that point, the actress told me:
As Gabriela, I think it was also one of her hardest moments, only because that's been her life, right? People tell her they're going to do something, and then they don't. Her abandonment issues with her mom, her dad, people tell her they're going to be there, and then they're not. Bode told her he was going to be there, and then he took the rap for someone else and left. You know what I mean? There's a pattern of her continuously being abandoned or feeling abandoned to a certain extent. So for her to feel that she's causing that to someone was really hard.
As we learned last season, Gabriela’s mom abandoned her, and Manny’s legal troubles have caused issues in the past. She clearly doesn’t want to hurt anyone, however, Diego got caught in the crossfire of her conflicting feelings for Bode.
So, as Arcila told CinemaBlend, at this point, her character is going through some painful – but necessary – growth:
I think she's in a point of her life where she feels what she wants, but she doesn't know which direction her life should be going in. And I think she's getting to a moment in her life where she feels like she's drowning and lost, and through that she has to work a lot of things out within herself that nobody else can help her except herself.
While Gabriela's journey ahead will be tough as she takes in Diego’s words and reflects on her relationship with both him and Bode, Arcila told me that in life, everything “always ends up working out in your best interest.” So, hopefully, her character will be able to take on that mentality as she wades through this tough situation.
Since Bode Had To Watch This All Go Down, Max Thieriot Explained What It Was Like Witnessing Such An Intense Conversation
Now, as for Max Thieriot’s character, he was both the subject of the conversation between the fiancés and a bystander during it. While Bode didn’t intervene at Gabriela’s wedding, they obviously still have feelings for each other, and that comes to a head when the two of them wind up on a job with Diego.
So, when de la Fuente’s character brought up the romantic drama, Bode didn’t know what to do, as the show's star and co-creator told me:
He's kind of – I don’t know about blown away – but sort of just taken back by all of it, right? I think it's like, a lot of this is really shocking news to hear. I think that, you know, he felt like he knew where Gabriela stood at this point. And so, I think to hear her fiance say all these things sort of sends him spinning a little bit in his head. Like, ‘Whoa, wait a second. I don't know how to take any of this information at this point.’
Thieriot went on to reiterate that Bode just felt “awkward” in the moment. He didn’t know what to do as the woman he has feelings for discussed said feelings with her partner…while he was standing right there and they were trying to save a life. In summary, the actor said:
It was, I think, an awkward moment for him. It was awkward for me.
Filming that scene was also a lot to handle. However, Thieriot noted that his co-stars killed it, specifically Rafael de la Fuente, because he managed to address the situation in a way that wasn’t really “rude” it simply demonstrated that he was “a little bit broken in the moment."
Before Season 3 began, showrunner Tia Napolitano teased that Bode and Gabriela would have a “new level of attraction and complication” this season, and that was certainly made evident through this big moment in the premiere. Now, it’ll be interesting (and intense) to see how this conversation between Gabriela and Diego impacts the love triangle.
Arcila and Thieriot made it abundantly clear that their characters were both emotional about everything that went down. Now, as new episodes air on CBS every Friday at 9:00 p.m. ET, I can’t wait to see how they continue to work through their feelings.
