Fire Country Season 3 is set to make its comeback on the 2025 TV schedule next week, and I couldn’t be more excited! The mid-season finale left us on a massive cliffhanger that involved Bode being stuck in a pool surrounded by fire, Eve in a tough situation with her dad, and both Gabriela and Manny abandoning their posts. So, there’s a lot to address in this upcoming episode, and Stephanie Arcila told me that what we’re going to see is “so intensely beautiful.” And that, my Fire Country fans, has given me a theory about what might happen in this upcoming episode.
Stephanie Arcila Opens Up About Working With Kevin Alejandro On The Mid-Season Premiere
I had the chance to interview Stephanie Arcila about Episode 7 of Season 3, and we mostly talked about the shocking development of Gabriela hooking up with Jake. However, I also knew she had worked closely with her on-screen dad and director Kevin Alejandro on the mid-season premiere. So, I asked her what fans should get excited about. In response, she said:
So I know we're going on a little holiday vacation, right? So there's going to be a little bit of a break, but I urge people to stick around, because the pickup from the mid-season finale, directed by Kevin Alejandro, is so intensely beautiful and shocking that I think it's, it's going to be worth the wait. And audiences are going to be happy. They're going to get something.
Now, at the time, I hadn’t seen the mid-season finale, I just knew the Manny actor was directing the following episode and Arcila had shadowed him. So, I figured she’d have some fun insight into what’s to come. Well, I was right, and now I think we’re really in for something special.
Arcila went on to tell me that her co-star and director puts his whole heart into what he does, and we’ll get to see that in the upcoming episode, as she said:
It was really nice seeing all the hard work that he puts in and the heart, there is so much heart that he puts into his episodes, and everyone is going to feel it. I really look up to him, and I admire him a lot. And I think just watching and being beside him, behind the camera, and then in front of the camera – and this is a huge episode, also for Manny and Gabriela, so it's going to shock a lot of audiences – but I think just Kevin is one hell of an actor, one hell of a director, writer.
She then explained that Alejandro wears all his proverbial hats “well,” and he does his work with his “heart on his sleeve,” so I think we’re in for something massive and emotional. And I think it will have almost everything to do with Manny and Gabriela.
I Think We’re About To See A Major Development In Gabriela And Manny’s Relationship
I’m hopeful that Fire Country’s mid-season premiere will address Bode and Audrey’s relationship as well as Manny and Gabriela’s. Specifically, I think Arcila’s comments speak directly to what we’re going to get from the father-daughter duo too.
She teased that what we’ll see is “intensely beautiful and shocking,” and my guess is she’s referring to a reconciliation between Manny and Gabs. Ever since Kevin Alejandro’s character went back to Three Rock, his daughter has turned a cold shoulder to him, and to put it lightly, between her breakup with Bode and this, she’s going through it. So, I think in this new episode, we’ll finally see these two address the tension and hopefully heal.
However, first, they have to literally save each other from the fire. But if there’s one thing Fire Country has mastered, it’s the art of mixing emotional stories with big action, and I think we’re going to get just that by way of a major turning point for Manny and Gabriela.
To find out if that indeed happens, you can catch the newest episode of Fire Country on Friday, January 31 on CBS at 9 p.m. ET or you can stream it the next day with a Paramount+ subscription.
