‘Fire Country’ Shocker! Season 4 Trailer Reveals [Spoiler]’s Death — Bosses Explain

Fire Country reveals the aftermath of the fiery cliffhanger from last May in the Season 4 trailer, released on Tuesday, September 23, and it shows that one of the Leones trapped in a burning building — Vince (Billy Burke), Sharon (Diane Farr), and Walter (Jeff Fahey) — dies as Bode (Max Thieriot) is held back outside.

In fact, as we see in the trailer, which you can watch above ahead of the October 17 premiere (at a special time of 8/7c), Jake (Jordan Calloway) is the one to make sure his best friend can’t run back inside. “I will never forgive this,” Bode warns him.

After that, the Leone family and the town of Edgewater must begin to grieve. “I’m going to spend the rest of my career protecting my father’s town, my father’s station, and my father’s mission,” Bode says in his eulogy. But that’s easier said than done with the big question of who will be battalion chief with Vince gone — and Jake seemingly having his eyes on it. “It’s my birthright!” Bode argues.

The video also sees Sharon suspend 42 from active duty and shows Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila, exiting in the premiere) telling Bode she still loves him.

Below, co-creators Tony Phelan and Joan Rater explain why they’ve killed off Vince and revealed it in the trailer ahead of the premiere, preview everyone’s grief, tease Shawn Hatosy‘s character, reveal a Sheriff Country crossover, and more.

Why kill off Vince?

Tony Phelan: We felt like coming into Season 4, we have a show about wildland firefighters and we have the same cast that we had from the beginning. And to be truthful to the work that these people do, which is always our desire, we felt like it was time for the show and the characters to have a loss. And last season was about legacy. Vince dealing with the legacy of his father and using that as a lens to look at what his relationship with Bode was. And as we were talking about the end of the season, we felt like the thing that was really going to shake up the show and shake up our characters in the best way possible and force them to really reassess where they were and what they were doing was this kind of loss. And so at the same time, we want to be very respectful of the character of Vince, of how important he is to the show, and how important Billy was as a presence on the show. So, the loss of Vince is going to echo through the entire season, and we are going to see our younger firefighters really have to begin to grapple with growing up and what is the next step for them.

Sergei Bachlakov / CBS

Joan Rater: The reveal in the trailer was we care about our fans, and to play Vince’s death as a gimmick or a [gasp moment] didn’t feel right. It felt awful actually. So it’s like, prepare the fans and really get into Vince’s dead early on and how is this going to impact us? And that was the decision.

Phelan: There’s also a desire, too, to the loss of Vince, a lot of our storytelling over the past three seasons has been Sharon and Vince as the kind of parents, and then you’ve got the young people. And losing Vince means that we’ve got to find new combinations and that leads to new stories and it leads to different emotional journeys for our people.

What can you share about the conversation you had with Billy? And is it possible that we’ll see him again because there’s always flashbacks.

Phelan: It was a very difficult conversation to have with Billy because we love the character and love him so much. But I think that if you’re an actor on one of these shows, that’s always a possibility. There’s always, if the storytelling leads there… And I won’t say never. I’ll never say never. Right now, that’s not in the immediate plans, but could certainly happen.

Bode tells Jake that he’ll never forgive him for keeping him from going into the fire. We also see that the two are arguing about battalion chief. The series started with those two at odds after a death in Bode’s family. So, here we are again. What makes it different this time?

Rater: Well, like Tony said earlier, we as the writers really want to explore these guys growing up and dealing with some of their baggage and some of their s**t. We also as writers want to give characters that haven’t had as much story — Jake and Eve [Jules Latimer] — really important centered storytelling. So, what’s different about it is that maybe they’ll handle it differently because they’re going to f**king grow up and deal with their s**t. [Laughs] But it’s not going to be easy. I don’t know. I grew up, and I did it in a very messy way. And so we’re going to explore these guys, what they want, can they come together? Can they be honest with one another? We love the three — Eve, Bode, and Jake, their friendship. We love it and we want them back. We love those moments when they see them being friends. So, we’re going to see what happens.

Phelan: The other big thing that we’ve been dealing with is Bode is out of prison and so much of his life and his energy has just been about achieving that. And now he finds himself out, he finds himself at 42, but he finds himself without his father and that is going to seriously put him on his heels. And so, what he struggles with through that loss and that grief and does he have an ability to reach out to others and ask for help or is he the Bode of old is a big part of this story this season.

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Another divide that seems to be stemming from that incident — Sharon tells Walter he should have left her there. The Leone family feels like it’s just being fractured. What can you say about what we’re going to see from the rescue that leads to that moment that we’re seeing between Sharon and Walter?

Phelan: I think that the audience’s expectation was that if anybody was going to die in that fire, it was going to be Walter. And to not have it be Walter, I think, is a huge surprise to everyone, including Sharon. And you say things in grief that you don’t mean, or maybe you do mean them but you wouldn’t normally say them, but she says it. And so it is going to have an impact on them and how that family comes back together and how long does that take and how does the fire station keep running when they have suffered such a huge blow? And that’s where Shawn [Hatosy]’s character comes in. He has been tasked with going to fire stations where they have suffered this kind of loss and deciding, do I dissolve this fire station? Do I reassign everybody or is there something here that can be saved and reassembled?

The trailer does show him watching the fight between Jake and Bode and then also it looks like running drills with 42.

Rater: It’s like, back to basics, bitch. It’s time to get back to basics.

We see Bode and Sharon grieving separately. Is that what we’re going to be seeing also throughout the beginning of the season at least?

Phelan: How they come together, I think, is a really interesting part of the story. She doesn’t want to burden him, he doesn’t want to burden her, and they grieve separately.

Rater: They’re these stoic people, they’re intermeshed, and yet then they isolate, and so we’re going to play with that. But their relationship is really core and key and their love for one another. But to watch them grieve will be interesting.

Yeah, because it doesn’t feel like they’re mad at each other or anything. It’s just the way that they go about it.

Phelan: I think for both of them they’re doing it in their minds to protect the other person so the other person doesn’t have to deal with their grief as well.

Will there be any big crossovers between Fire Country and Sheriff Country?

Phelan: There will be a big crossover event coming up this season. We will see the two worlds. It will be a two-hour single evening event and we’ll see how these two worlds crash into each other and they help each other.

Is there anything you can say about the emergency that brings them together?

Phelan: I would just say it is crazy and it tests everyone involved, but the very future of Edgewater is really put to the test.

Fire Country, Season 4 Premiere, Friday, October 17, 8/7c, CBS

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