The Fire Country season 4 midseason finale is getting closer to arresting the person responsible for Vince’s death.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive first look at the Friday, December 19, episode of the hit CBS series, Sharon (Diane Farr) visits Bode (Max Thieriot) to tell him that Landon (Josh McDermitt) is being questioned for his involvement in the fire that caused Vince’s (Billy Burke) death.
“They have to do their due diligence,” Bode tells Sharon about Landon’s behavior toward stepson Tyler (Conor Sherry). “He’s volatile.”
Sharon urges Bode not to worry as they prepare for justice to play out. Season 3, which wrapped up earlier this year, ended on a cliffhanger with Vince and Sharon’s lives left in the balance. News broke hours after the finale aired in April that budget cuts led to Burke, 58, and Stephanie Arcila‘s exits. (Burke has yet to address his departure.)
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“I had no idea ever. But at the same time, I know that this is the nature of the industry that I’m in, and I have accepted the flow of release and acceptance throughout my journey and knowing that when one door closes, another one always opens,” Arcila, 35, exclusively told Us in April. “We have this beautiful eternal door of revolving desires in what we love in life. I believe that if we put resistance towards that, sometimes it stops us from fulfilling other things that we love.”
Showrunner Tia Napolitano, meanwhile, defended the decision.
“It’s a fire show. Anyone can go at any time,” she told Us in October. “But in terms of losing people, we’re also adding some really fun guest cast. It’s a revolving door of people from Sharon’s past and new faces that are exciting to bring conflict and secrets and twists and turns.”
Napolitano teased how the show will have to balance “really spicing it up” while still walking a “fine line” of paying tribute to the loss.
“What we’ve done is really thread the needle of honoring — especially Vince — because Gabriella is gone, but she’s gone to a happy and successful life. She’s still out there. But we really walk this line of honoring Vince while also finding hope rather quickly,” she noted. “Looking forward, the theme of the season is rising from the ashes and recovery.”
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Napolitano continued: “How do you recover from something like this? And we’re really going to see everybody rise to the occasion, in celebration of Vince, of his life and in honoring the sacrifice that he made.”
Farr, 56, also spoke to Us about adjusting to the new normal, explaining in November, “I found out over the summer. None of us knew what was happening. Billy, Jeff and I went into the fire and we didn’t have any more information.”
The hardest exit for Farr to deal with was Burke, who played her onscreen husband.
“It was very clear that the producers or writers were going to make some kind of change. It was Billy who told us all. He told the cast in a group note saying that he wasn’t coming back — it was pretty devastating,” she recalled. “Everyone was sad and I felt like I was coming back in with only half my character because they’re so tied.”
Fire Country airs on CBS Fridays at 9 p.m. ET. New episodes will be streaming the next day on Paramount+.
