Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Fire Country Season 4, Episode 5.It is the dawn of the Manny (Kevin Alejandro) era at Station 42 on Fire Country as the former Three Rock captain officially takes over Vince’s (Billy Burke) Battalion Chief position. Richards (Shawn Hatosy) gave Manny the job because he wanted to keep the job in the family, but when Manny starts changing things like the coffee in the break room and getting involved in scene incidents, it starts to go wrong. It’s not the crew that has an issue with Manny making some changes though. It’s Sharon (

 

Diane Farr) who’s struggling the most with a new man, even one that she adores, standing in her late husband’s shoes.

Of course, Sharon isn’t just worried about Manny taking Vince’s job. She’s also stressing about how to tell Bode (Max Thieriot) that Cal Fire believes the Zabel Ridge disaster was the result of arson. Bode has been a loose cannon lately, so she’s right to worry that he’s going to blow a gasket when he finds out there’s a specific person to blame for the destruction and Vince’s death. This is

Fire Country, though, so of course, there’s more than one fire to put out. Thanks to some wise words from Sheriff Country’s Wes (W. Earl Brown), Bode loops Sharon in on his own secrets, and it seems that we have a tumultuous family reunion ahead of us. On the bright side, there’s a real light at the end of the tunnel for Three Rock, and Eve (

Jules Latimer) finds a way to bring some whimsy to the station. We have to remember to laugh in these trying times.

Manny’s First Day Puts Him in Opposition to Sharon

If anyone knows that there is no replacing Vince Leone, it is Manny Perez. So he’s not trying, but approaching Battalion Chief from his own perspective immediately puts Sharon on the defensive. It starts with Manny changing the coffee in the station break room to a Venezuelan roast instead of “Leone Muck.” I love Sharon, but it sounds like Manny might be onto something here? Let’s not ask people to run into burning buildings caffeinated with something with “muck” in the name, even if it is a joke. The bickering between the two continues when Manny chooses his own route to get to the fire at the local drive-in theater. Sharon gets back at him by taking over the scene and micromanaging his crew before Manny can even assess the situation.

These are the two adults on the show, so you think they’d just take a step aside and squash the beef like Manny and Jake did last week. But nope! Manny takes matters into his own hands and goes into the fire to save the owner of the theater instead of delegating to one of the junior firefighters. I guess no one wanted to remind him that the previous Battalion Chief insisting on going into a scene is how the job became open in the first place. It is like absolutely no one listened to Richards

when he was trying to drill safety and procedure into this crew of stubborn bulls.

Manny makes it out of the building with the owner of the theater. He and Sharon get to work out their differences while directing the volunteer crew of movie-goers to put out spot fires. Sharon’s stepfather, Wes, who was at the drive-in for a show, manages to put his two cents in to help Sharon realize she’s bulldozing and make Manny remember that Sharon is not someone you want to piss off. Wes is a character, but he does give out really good advice to the Fox and Leone families. The fire is put out.

Manny and Sharon share a beer at the station, figure out a way to compromise, and cheers to handling a tough incident. The kids are going to be alright, fam.

Bode Shockingly Makes the Right Call With the Note

I know, I know! I’m as stunned by the subhead as you are. We are giving Bode a break this week, though. He starts the episode by breaking into Sharon’s house to investigate the note from Vince’s guitar case and he manages to find a P.O. Box key. He thinks it may be the clue to what Vince was hiding before he died — Bode is on team “Vince did not have an affair,” which is objectively the correct team — but Jake (

Jordan Calloway) and Eve think it’s time to loop in Sharon. I am shocked Bode didn’t get whiplash because they said they didn’t want to tell Sharon when they gave Bode the note. He’s following their lead by trying to find answers before dropping a bomb on Sharon.

Wes intervenes when he and Bode run into each other at the drive-in. Bode is stressed because Jake is insisting on telling Sharon, but Bode wants answers first. Wes gives him direct advice about handling someone resorting to blackmail, which is to go on the offense

, but take your team with you. That includes Sharon, who Wes insists will not be destroyed by a piece of paper (See? He’s so good), and Jake because true friends tell you what you need to hear instead of what you want to hear. I agree, Wes, but I just need Jake to be more consistent with the advice.

 

Anyway, Bode does come clean to Sharon at the end of the episode. She tells him about the potential arson in the Zabel Ridge fire, and he takes the news calmly (for now). He then hands her the note from Vince’s guitar case. She’s shocked by it, but not for the reason Bode fears. She immediately recognizes the handwriting and the signature. It’s not Renee (

Constance Zimmer), but Sharon’s mother, who will be played by Christine Lahti later in the season. It looks like a family reunion is coming to Edgewater, but it does not sound like a happy time for Sharon or Bode. These two can’t catch a break.

Eve Finds a Solution to the Three Rock Problem in ‘Fire Country’

It isn’t all bleak news in this week’s episode. Eve is stashing chickens for her girlfriend at Station 42, which brings some much-needed comic relief to the episode. Parmesan and Bridget are little troublemakers, but they bring joy during an otherwise stressful episode of

Fire Country. They also bring great ideas. Eve gets approval from the city council to rebuild Three Rock, but she needs to make it a self-sustainable camp and potentially turn a profit to secure the full investment of Edgewater. The drive-in fire reveals that she needs to consider multiple revenue streams, and the chickens provide the how-to. If the prisoners raise their own chickens and crops, they can feed themselves and sell the extras for profit.

She can build a camp that not only allows prisoners to get on-the-ground firefighter training, but will also give them farm and business-owning experience. And the profits can be fed back into the camp for better facilities and development programs.

We are now a quarter of the way into the season, and it is still going to take a minute before the new Three Rock is up and running, but this sounds like a promising new beginning for the program. We need to have some hope somewhere, and it’s good that Eve is making her way through the Sacramento bureaucracy to get Three Rock back up and running.