Fire Country season 2’s finale finally brought Bode’s story back to its origin, promising a thrilling new focus for season 3. Ever since Fire Country’s series premiere introduced Bode’s plight, his focus had been to work through the rest of his sentence and do so as an inmate firefighter, hoping that serving the community would reduce his sentence. Fire Country season 1 included many obstacles for Bode in the form of his return to Edgewater by ending up at the Three Rock fire camp, inevitably letting him clash with his friends and family whom he abandoned after his sister’s death.

Fire Country season 1 showed Bode invested in getting out so that he could live his relationship with Gabriela freely, even having the promise of them being together hinge on his release. However, choosing to sacrifice his shot at freedom so that Freddy could be released essentially put a stop to the chance of a relationship between Bode and Gabriela, even more so as Bode decided to stop answering Gabriela’s letters, forcing her to move on from him. Bode’s terrible choice in Fire Country season 1’s ending nonetheless gave him the chance to focus solely on himself in season 2.

Despite undoubtedly still having feelings for Gabriela, Bode refused to voice them, even letting her believe he had moved on. With the possibility of Genevieve being his biological daughter taking all his attention, Bode forced himself not to interfere with Gabriela’s life, thus focusing more on his goals. While gaining his extraordinary conduct credit as a result of his actions in the campaign fire, it was Bode’s focus on saving Three Rock and getting there that made such heroism possible, which would have been difficult to obtain had Bode been actively hung up on Gabriela in Fire Country season 2.

Fire Country season 3 returns to CBS on Friday, October 18 at 9pm.