Episode 12 of “Fire Country” is mostly about self-discovery. As Station 42 and Three Rock face their next mission, many of them come face to face with their truths and realize that they need to accept them in order to move ahead in life. As tough as it might be, every cloud has a silver lining. The episode shows the two teams working together to achieve something worthwhile alongside saving lives.
Spoilers Ahead
A New Mission
Three Rock is on a training hike in the forest. Freddy speaks to Bode about Gabriela, trying to convince him to talk to her. This is when they all notice a plane (light aircraft) crash nearby. The team rushes to the location and finds the pilot, the only person inside the plane, hanging from a tree, thanks to his chute. Manny decides to get the person’s vitals checked (Rohan, a Three Rock inmate, is a doctor) before bringing him down. He sends Freddy and Bode to the wreckage. If there’s fire, it needs to be put out before it starts spreading. The pilot is finally lowered to safety. Bode and Freddy find the wreckage, but before they can access it, it goes up in flames, spreading fire on all sides and embers in the air.
At Station 42, Vince Leone introduces probie Collin O’Reilly to the team, including Sharon, who has been cleared for work. He is the son of deceased Cal Fire legend Kirk O’Reilly. Later, as Eve, Gabriela, and Jake are talking about Collin, a car halts outside. A woman rushes in, saying that her water broke while she was driving, and she is going to have a baby anytime now. She needs to push. Bode calls Vince and Sharon, and Sharon helps the woman deliver a healthy baby. Everyone is happy. The woman reveals that the father, her boyfriend, is an inmate at Three Rock camp.
Under Division Chief Sharon’s supervision, three teams have been set up to lower the rapid spread of the fire that is moving uphill. Three teams have been sent in three directions, while Three Rock is cutting a line in the fourth on a slope too steep for a bulldozer. She tells Vince to head there to look out for spot fires and douse them. Evacuating the hillside is imperative. She then heads to Freddy herself to give him the good news. She reaches the spot where Three Camp is working and calls for Freddy. Freddy approaches her, and she tells him that he has become a father. Freddy is overjoyed and speaks to his girlfriend, Cookie, on Sharon’s phone.
To Match Or Not To Match
Vince and his team encounter a wooden house in the hills that they need to evacuate. However, the owner of the house, Harlan Denbo, believes that until he can see the fire, his house is safe, as it has been many times before. After being unable to persuade him, the only option Vince and his team has is to prep the house for the fire.
While returning to the base camp from Three Rock’s location, Bode tells Sharon that he is a match for her kidneys. However, Sharon is not at all amenable to letting Bode donate his kidney. She has got her son back after a very long time and knowing the possible complications of the transplant, she is not compromising Bode’s life in any way ever again. Meanwhile, Gabriela and probie Collin are on top of a cliff over Three Rock to get data about the weather. That’s when Collin steps on a boulder that detaches itself from the hill and starts rolling toward the firefighters of Three Rock. Gabriela yells at them to run, and everyone manages to escape unhurt and not be crushed under the boulder. When Vince comes and asks the two about it, Gabriela takes the blame, saying it won’t happen again.
Sharon orders both Vince and Manny to work together and secure Harlan Denbo’s house for the fire. While Manny heads back to his team, Sharon tells Vince that Bode is a donor match, and while Vince is glad, she tells him that she has no intention of receiving a kidney from Bode. Provided the situation at hand, Vince tells her that they need to discuss it later.
Fire In The Wood
Both Vince’s and Manny’s teams arrive at Harlan Denbo’s house and begin setting up the structure protection. Eve and Jake talk about Bode being a match for Sharon, while neither of them is. Meanwhile, Freddy tries to clear the air between Freddy and Gabriela, both of whom seem to be doing just fine, although there isn’t much conversation between them, something that irks Freddy. During one such moment, Gabriela congratulates Freddy on his newborn baby. That’s when Freddy finds out that almost everyone he knows at Station 42 has seen his baby. He thus decides to get back to his girlfriend, leaving his work. Bode and Gabriela catch up to him on a road and Bode makes him understand how he needs to stop acting on impulse, as it can compromise his time at Three Rock and cost him his time with his baby girl. Freddy realizes that what he is about to do is wrong and returns after giving Bode a hug. Bode then tells Gabriela that he is trying to change for her. Gabriela replies that he needs to stop trying to impress her and be better for himself. This is when the two see some horses running past them. Bode realizes that they are running from the fire. It is spreading fast.
Seeing how the fire is spreading, Harlan acknowledges that he does need evacuation and tells Vince to evacuate his ailing wife. He shows Vince some papers and tells him that he had to stop paying the house’s insurance premium to afford his wife’s meds. The insurance company, too, has refused to help, and thus if he loses the house, he will end up with no shelter. Unfortunately, nature doesn’t understand the ways of men, and the fire is making its way toward the house. Whatever they need to do needs to be done quickly. Outside, Jake speaks to Bode about his match for his mom and tells him to reconsider the complications. Eve doesn’t like how Jake is trying to talk Bode out of his decision and tells him about it. Jake stays quiet.
After speaking to Manny, Vince contacts Sharon, who is apparently sending a fire-retardant tanker. The house still has a chance of survival. Harlan’s wife is put in an ambulance, and she will be taken to their daughter’s apartment. Soon a plane flies over, dropping the fire retardant (pink chemical) that douses most of the fire in the area. Collin shouts out that it was he and not Gabriela who was responsible for the boulder shower earlier. He is clearly enjoying his job and doesn’t want to lie about it. Then, as everyone is cleaning the rubble, Bode notices embers flying by and reaching the house, which, to everyone’s sheer shock, catches fire immediately. Nothing can be done to save the house, and thus Vince orders everyone to move to the safety zone. Once there, they find two people missing. One is Harlan, and the other is, as expected, Bode.
‘Fire Country’ Episode 12: Ending Explained – Does Bode Save Harlan?
Bode is inside the burning house, looking for Harlan. He does find Harlan upstairs, but he isn’t willing to come down. Harlan isn’t willing to let go of the house where he has spent most of his time with his wife. As the house breaks in on itself, Bode decides to rush out and save himself. Outside, he finds his father Vince and Manny and tells them that he tried a lot, but Harlan just doesn’t want to come out. During one of these moments, they hear someone coughing, and out comes Harlan from inside the burning house. The three hold him up and take him to safety. Later on, Sharon tells the teams that the fire has stopped on top of the ridge, and there isn’t a single casualty. Everyone congratulates Freddy on his new baby. Bode convinces his parents, Sharon and Vince, to let him donate his kidney. By allowing him to do so, they will only be saving him by letting him feel like family. Vince mentions how proud he is of him. All three share a hug.
Back at camp, Freddy meets his girlfriend Cookie and their baby at the Leone’s residence, who have given them a spare room for some days, after which Cookie will return home to LA. Manny is also there, and he tells Vince and Sharon that he has signed up for overtime so that he can make some more money and get himself a new house. At the station, Jake mentions his doubts to Eve about himself being worthy to be a firefighter as he didn’t run after Harlan as Bode did. Back at Three Rock Camp, Bode finds Gabriela waiting for him to talk it out and clear the air, as Freddy said earlier. They end up kissing briefly when Gabriela mentions that they need to wait until Bode gets out of Three Rock in a year. Then, it will be like unwrapping a gift. But will it?
The next day, someone sparks a fire in the forest. We can only see the boots that are smeared with the fire retardant that was used to douse Harlan’s house. Is the person a member of Cal Fire? Or even worse, Three Rock? As Cal Fire undergoes an emotional shift, there is someone on the inside which is planning disaster. If this person isn’t stopped, it can lead to Cal Fire’s downfall.
