MAJOR spoilers for Fire Country Season 2, Episode 5 are ahead. If you are not caught up, you can stream the episode with a Paramount+ subscription.
Tragedy struck Edgewater after a firenado overtook the town and Bode, Cara and Diego ended up in an ambulance crash. With the entire Fire Country cast in danger, they didn’t all make it out of the episode, and sadly Cara, Bode’s ex, Jake’s girlfriend and Gen’s mom, died after getting injured in the crash. It was a truly sad moment, and Sabina Gadecki, who plays the ER nurse, opened up to CinemaBlend about how she learned about her character’s fate and how she handled the news.
While Sabina Gadecki told me that it was not easy to find out about Cara’s fate, she made it abundantly clear that she was grateful for her character’s arc and the fact that she found out about it right as Season 2 started filming. Speaking about the conversation she had with showrunner Tia Napolitano about Cara, the actress told me:
Honestly, thank God I found out in December when we were shooting the first episode. Tia, the showrunner, scheduled a meeting with me, and it was truly where my heart went first. Because you just sort of feel when you're recurring on a show, a drama, you just sort of always know your days are numbered.
I can’t imagine getting a call like that. It seems like a very intimidating conversation to have. Plus, while Gadecki had a hunch this sad news was coming, she told me there was a small part of her that hoped this meeting would be better news, explaining:
And you know, I'm 10 on the call sheet. You've got eight series regulars. You're just like, ‘Okay, when characters die, really, it's such a pivotal storytelling moment for the show.’ And it's a drama, and you just know it's about to happen, and you hope not. You're just like, ‘Okay, maybe, this call is Tia calling me, and I'm going to be a series regular.’ But like I, you know, they already have such an established cast. I didn't really think that, but I was like ‘Maybe there's that chance.’
Continuing to break down what she and Napolitano talked about, Gadecki told me that the showrunner laid out Cara’s arc for the first five episodes of the season. That, of course, included her romance with Jake, her trying to figure out if Bode is Gen’s dad, and if she trusted him to be around her daughter. The actress explained that she was told Cara would get “a really beautiful story arc,” and she did. However, saying goodbye to a character you love is difficult, as she said:
It doesn't not hurt. Of course, it hurts. You know, you fall in love with this character. If you're doing your work as an actor you just really take the character on. I've been playing Cara for a year and a half now. And I love her, and I think she's really relatable. I think she's made some mistakes, because she's just a kid growing up, like we all are. Right? And yeah, so it was, it hurts. It can't not if I'm being honest.
Max Thieriot and Jordan Calloway were also saddened by Cara’s death, and they both told me they’d miss Sabina Gadecki greatly. Candidly, the actress explained that she was “thankful” for the arc she got in Season 2, and it reassured her that she wasn’t being written off because of her performance:
But I do feel really thankful. Like you immediately think like, if you're not going to be in a show, you're like, ‘Is it performance-based? Did people not like people not like my performance?’ But then you read episodes four and five, and I'm like so heavily in the episode. I'm like, ‘Okay, good. It can't be performance-based because if it was performance-based they wouldn't have. You know, I wouldn't be so written in heavily here.’ So that allowed my anxiety to rest. And if there's a way to say goodbye, I feel happy and grateful for this.
Cara truly got a wonderful story. While it’s tragic that she’s gone, I’m positive her legacy will live on. Moving forward, Jake and Bode will likely be taking care of Gen, and through the three of them, I’m positive we’ll still be able to feel the presence and impact of Sabina Gadecki’s character.
For the actress, she ultimately hopes that her character’s story will have an impact on viewers, and I know it had one on me. Sweetly reflecting on her time on Fire Country and her character’s fate, Gadecki said:
I hope it's memorable. I hope it connects with people's hearts. I hope for good things, and I hope it resonates with people.
It was “memorable,” and I think her passing will ripple through Fire Country moving forward, especially now that it’s been picked up for Season 3 by CBS and it feels like Bode and Gen’s relationship is only going to grow.
To go back and see Sabina Gadecki as Cara in Fire Country, you can stream the episodes that have already aired on the 2024 TV schedule on Paramount+. To see how her character’s death impacts the series moving forward, you can catch new episodes every Friday at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.
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