Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Fire Country Season 4, Episode 8.Three Rock is finally back on Fire Country — but not how we or Eve (Jules Latimer

) imagined it would be. No one is more excited about Three Rock being up and running than Manny (Kevin Alejandro), though, and that leads to its own problems in the penultimate episode before the winter finale. What this week’s episode proves is that we are gearing up for some fireworks (maybe literally) in the final episode of 2025. There’s whipping the new Three Rock recruits into shape, and Bode (

 

Max Thieriot) has a lead on who started the Zabel Ridge Fire that can’t be ignored. He’s actually going to get kudos for how he handles that revelation, proving there is always time for a little holiday season miracle.

Three Rock Is Back, But Younger

Have I mentioned that Manny is super stressed about the upcoming fire season? Fire Country wants you to know that Manny is really stressed about the upcoming fire season. Eve’s plan for reopening Three Rock was to get her original crew back, or at least another set of adult inmates. That would take several more weeks, if not months, according to Sacramento, and that is time Manny doesn’t have if they want to save all of Northern California from being burned up.

He pushes Eve to accept a crew of juvenile inmates, and the high school maturity is evident from the moment they step off the bus and into camp. The boys are fighting. They can’t communicate or follow simple instructions. There’s a lot of foundational work that needs to be done before they can be trusted working a fire.

That is obvious to everyone but Manny. He pulls rank and calls Eve’s fledgling crew to cut line in the episode’s major forest fire. He expects these neon-green recruits to cut half a mile of line at a breakneck pace, but they’ve never done it before. They’re not following the correct safety protocols. They’re fighting, and not only do they not get the field clear, but they cut a hose in the scuffle.

Manny pushes them and Eve so hard that she snaps and yells, “These are not my guys,” which is the exact opposite of what the kids needed to hear to help them gel together as a crew.

So, Eve will start the winter finale being further back than when she started with this crew and getting them to come together. She has to prove they can trust her before she can actually start working with them, and that is an uphill battle after what she said at the scene. At least Manny is back in her corner after admitting they didn’t communicate well that day (I