Fire Country is building up a love triangle between Bode, Gabriela and Jake,
but the story’s pacing leans too dramatically in one direction: Bode and Gabriela
without investment in the other of the triangle’s legs, Gabriela and Jake.
While the show gives plenty of reasons to root for Bode and Gabriela, it fails to foster any substantial reasons to pull for Gabriela and Jake. In the process, the love triangle the show wants viewers to invest in falls apart at its seams, leaving the obvious choice for Fire Country’s best ship, Vince and Sharon Leone.
The CBS firefighting drama’s debut season already proves Fire Country’s storytelling and setting help it stand out in the growing TV subgenre. Since the show is only its first season, there’s still hope that the love triangle will strike a more even balance, if not subvert expectations entirely and give the trope that some believe needs to end a unique spin. With or without the Bode/Gabriela/Jake love triangle, Fire Country has plenty of worthy romances to follow, including the new relationship between Eve and Aydan and the evergreen Vince and Sharon.
The Bode/Gabriela/Jake Love Triangle Needs Sharper Edges
Fire Country finds Jake and Gabriela redefining their relationship, becoming more committed to one another. However, the show has yet to follow the couple beyond the workplace to showcase the extent of their romantic relationship, the stability of it or the cracks in it. They interact at the firehouse and in the field, but not much beyond that. Despite Gabriela mentioning that she briefly moved in with Jake during “Like Old Times,” Fire Country never follows Gabriela to Jake’s place, even for a single scene, which could have done wonders.
If Fire Country is committed to a love triangle, as the story thus far suggests, a scene with Jake and Gabriela at Jake’s apartment could have shown the reasons the couple needs to shift the weights in their favor. It would build up their dynamic as something much more than a way to tug at the strained ties between Bode (played by SEAL Team’s Max Thieriot) and Jake after the death of Bode’s younger sister. Bode and Gabriela talk in the field, on the phone and at Three Rock, and a lot of depth comes from those frequent interactions. Jake and Gabriela need that, too, for the love triangle to be sustainable and not burn out too fast.
Sharon and Vince Leone Make Up Fire Country’s Central Ship
While Fire Country would benefit from taking the time to build up the dynamic between Jake and Gabriela, its romantic potential burns the brightest with Sharon and Vince Leone, played by Diane Farr and Billy Burke. The couple’s chemistry is electric, not needing the time to simmer to build the heat. They are a stabilizing force in Edgewater as a central couple in the professional and personal spaces. Fire Country doesn’t showcase their relationship in one location but all of them: their home, the firehouse and beyond.
Sharon and Vince are partners in every sense of the word, and Fire Country’s first six episodes show the highs and lows of such a relationship. From Vince’s complex relationship with his son to Sharon’s battle with chronic kidney disease, Fire Country follows Vince and Sharon into the trenches of their personal life. It also tests their love and loyalty in the professional sphere when Sharon makes tough calls that could benefit a larger group of people but possibly be to the detriment of Vince. There are layers upon layers to Sharon and Vince’s relationship.The overwhelming strengths of Sharon and Vince’s dynamic unfairly light a fire under Fire Country’s love triangle to catch up, to match or exceed Sharon and Vince’s potential. They’re not the same relationship or even the same kind of romance tropes. Ultimately, the romances’ differences and the success story (thus far) of Sharon and Vince bode well for whatever twists and turns Fire Country has in store for Bode, Gabriela and Jake, even if the love triangle needs to take a few more episodes before that path clears the smoke.
