When Fire Country ended its second season, fans had finally gotten what they had wanted all along — Bode’s freedom.
Bode is out of prison, but does that mean he is out of the fire, too? For two seasons, we have seen Bode as a member of the North California Fire Department. But that’s because he was at the Three Rock Prison Conservation Camp.
Since Bode’s affiliation with the fire department was contingent on his status as a prisoner of the California Justice Department, will he still be a firefighter as a civilian?
Bode was Born to Go Into the Fire
It’s an odd world to picture — Bode Leone out of prison and working as a construction worker instead of fighting fires alongside his family and friends.
But that’s exactly where we left him at the end of a too-short busy second season. With a legacy like Bode’s, there is zero shock that his narcissistic hero complex leads him into life-threatening situations.
Even when he’s not there in an official capacity.
When we first met Bode in his freshman season, he was new to the fire camp but not to the area. We quickly learned Bode was an Edgewater local who had the misfortune of getting placed with the fire department run by his estranged family and friends.
It didn’t take long for us to see that Bode is a full-blown natural at firefighting.
It really must be genetic — Chief Vince (dad), former Division Chief Sharon (mom), and current Division Chief Luke (uncle), not to mention a retired firefighting grandfather.
But it’s not just his family who’s involved in the dangerous profession. Ironically, his two childhood best friends — Jake and Eve — are also members of the same fire station he has to work with closely.
Especially when there’s so much history among the trio — much of it dark and heavy.
Bode’s Past Remains His Future
It’s not lost on this viewer that Bode’s best friend Jake — and often accessory to Bode’s impulsive hero antics — dated two very important women in Bode’s life pre-prison.
Both wound up dead.
The death of Bode’s sister — Jake’s high school girlfriend — resulted in Bode’s prison sentence. And his subsequent sobriety from a pill addiction.
An addiction he replaced with the thrill of adrenaline from playing hero.
Once Bode and Jake repaired their relationship in the first season, we saw a beautiful friendship evolve. Without Jake and Eve, Bode’s personal growth could have been very different.
But the writers seem to have it out for the Boke bromance because, in Fire Country Season 2, Jake gets engaged to Bode’s ex-girlfriend, who has a teenage daughter.
With an unknown absentee father.
Duh, duh, duh.
Jake used Bode’s potential fatherhood news as a way to manipulate him into not becoming a killer.
So, we spent the majority of the second season immersed in the drama of Bode’s baby daddy drama, with an extra layer of tension from Jake, the uncle turned stepdad.
Bode made major changes to his persona to grow into a more mature man ready to take on his responsibilities.
Only to learn his possible daughter isn’t his. Okay. Bummer.
But maybe not, because here comes more Jade bro-daddy drama. Cara dies and uses her last moments to request that Bode and his family raise her daughter.
So Bode might be playing Dad anyway. But while he’s locked up, Bode’s parents get guardianship. And Daddy Jake is back to playing Uncle to a teenager who wants to make her own choice about her future.
She wants to live with Jake as her dad instead of Bode. So now Bode is in the uncle role and Jake is fathering the orphaned Gene.
Yeah, we stayed a little lost, too, with the Jerry Springer Maury love triangle drama.
It took a while for Bode and Jake to get on the same page about Gene’s future. Not that we blame either of them. Maybe they could co-parent since they both seem to have a crappy run with relationships.
All of Bode’s Relationships are Complicated
Now that we’re on the topic of failed relationships, let’s discuss Bode’s dislike of taking his work home with him.
It started with a budding romantic interest with a female firefighting inmate, Rebecca, who was responsible for helping Bode’s first-season inmate best friend, Freddy, get out of prison early.
Before a relationship could really get underway, Rebecca died on a dangerous fire call. That’s three females who loved Bode dead.
And then he met firefighter Gabriela Perez.
Bode spent the rest of the first season ensnared in the drama of an almost relationship with the daughter of his prison camp fire captain. Things looked promising until Bode threw jet fuel on a match to ruin any chance of a future because he thought he was returning to prison.
In one of the year’s worst series premieres, FC writers proved that the torment of Bode returning to prison would be an abandoned storyline.
He got out after the unrealistic rescue of the man he planned to kill. Then we were back with Bode in prison camp firefighter mode with a massive superiority complex and a new boss complication.
Bode’s main flaw, along with his hero syndrome, is his lack of respect for authority, which goes as deep as his entitlement.
His best friend is his boss, his former boss is his mentor and father of his ex-girlfriend (and possibly a re-offending convict who ends up as an inmate in the camp in the third season), and his ex-girlfriend, who he still wants, is marrying another guy.
We say “marrying” instead of “married” because we saw the wedding in progress. But we never witnessed the couple exchanging vows, so there’s still the possibility that the marriage never happened.
Or will it happen? Perhaps with a new groom this time.
One who’s now out of jail and that gaudy orange jumpsuit. And now we’re current to the conundrums left behind by the second season finale.
Although Bode is finally free, his recent maturity spurt means he’s limiting the damage of his messy societal re-entry by pretending to be happy for his ex-girlfriend to marry her paramedic partner.
A paramedic Bode has had to work with before. Diego witnessed Cara’s deathbed plea for Bode to be the guardian of her child during a horrendous ambulance wreck.
If Bode plans to find a way back onto CFD, they’ll probably interact in the future. After all, they’re both in emergency services.
We have to wonder what their working ‘ship will be like post-wedding.
Will Bode Find His Way Back to Fighting Fires?
But the biggest question of the upcoming season is how Bode will get back to fighting fires instead of working in construction with the possible actual father of Cara’s kid.
What’s next for Bode if he can’t find his way onto a fire squad, given his less-than-stellar criminal record?
There is zero belief that he will stop playing hero, even if he’s not affiliated with a government organization.
It will be interesting to see if Fire Country plans to travel to other parts of California more, perhaps for another campaign fire or for Bode to attend official fire training.
We know he’ll meet SoCal surfer maverick firefighter Camden (Jared Padalecki), who will set up the third series, Fire Country: Surfside.
It will eventually make up the Fire Country trio universe, along with Sheriff Country, starring Morena Baccarin.
Jump into our comments section and let us know what you think of the utter chaos that is the life of the heroically sexy Bode Donovan Leone and his ragtag crew of NorCal firefighters.
Are you excited to see Bode live life outside the confines of prison?
Or do you think we should have seen him stay locked up for a while longer to make us more invested in the Three Rock Fire Camp?
It nearly closed in the second season, thanks to Bode’s uncle Luke. His selfish actions affected not only the prisoners at the camp but also their fearless leader.
This fan is more excited to see Manny’s future after he was escorted from his child’s wedding in handcuffs. I’m ready to pitch in with his lawyer’s costs because Luke totally deserved that swift punch in the face.
And more. Be sure to tune in to the Fire Country Season 3 premiere on October 18 to join our favorite California firefighters in the aftermath of a cluttered short season.
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