Spoilers for Fire Country Season 3, Episode 9 are ahead! If you haven’t seen it yet, stream it with a Paramount+ subscription. Then, catch new episodes every Friday on CBS at 9 p.m. ET.
To put it lightly, things have been rocky between Manny and Gabriela throughout the entire first half of Fire Country’s third season. Between Gabriela’s wedding exploding and Manny going back to Three Rock, they’ve both been on the verge of a breaking point, and they finally hit it in Episode 9 as Stephanie Arcila’s character blew up on her dad. However, it was a “necessary” moment, according to Manny actor Kevin Alejandro, as he told me why he thought it was vital that his daughter called out his character.
In honor of Fire Country’s mid-season premiere on the 2025 TV schedule, I spoke to Kevin Alejandro – who both stars in and directed Episode 9 – about Manny and Gabriela’s relationship. They’ve been on the fritz all season, especially after her break up with Diego, and this installment showed the impact of all the tension that’s built over the first eight episodes. So, Arcila’s character passionately called out her father for how he handled her wedding, and while it was tough to hear, it was necessary, as the Manny actor told me:
You know, I think we all need that in our lives, a lot of times. We need to be called out because, we're so blinded by the cause and effect of everything and how it, you know – especially when there's so much going on in the world, you get blinded sometimes. And so I think it was a necessary moment for the two, definitely an eye-opening [moment.]
What Alejandro is referencing here is the passionate way Gabriela proclaimed that “nothing about where I’m at right now is OK,” after they found safe shelter while trapped in a big wildfire. Manny was clearly confused by this blow-up and wasn't quite sure why his daughter wasn’t relieved in this moment, because they were safe from the fire engulfing them.
That’s not her issue though. This scene serves as a major breaking point for her, and she let out all her feelings that have been pent up since her wedding gone wrong. To that point, Alejandro told me the thought process Manny went through while Gabriela lamented:
If you remember the way he reacted, he was like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about? I don't understand what you're saying.’ And until she had to go deeper and show her raw emotion, [he] was like, ‘Oh, shoot. I had no idea that I was affecting you that way.’
Considering the longstanding abandonment trauma Gabriela has because of her parents, it 100% makes sense that she called her dad out for his actions, as he didn’t support her really at all when her wedding fell apart. He needed to hear that, because, as Alejandro said, Manny didn’t know that his daughter was so deeply impacted by his actions and reactions.
While a hard pill to swallow for everyone involved here – including the viewers – this conversation was vital for Manny and Gabriela, and I was hoping it’d happen in the mid-season premiere. And thank goodness it did, because now, that she got everything off their chest, it puts them in a position to move forward and heal.
Overall, this visceral and emotional call-out served as a wonderful turning point for Manny and Gabriela, because they finally communicated about everything that went wrong in the first half of the season. Now, I’m hopeful that as they take the next steps forward toward truly healing, this father-daughter duo can find a way to support one another fully.
Their love is so deep, and it’s always lovely to see them on screen, however, this rough patch needed to happen so they could address all their past trauma.
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