Fire Country Season 3 Is Doing Exactly What We Didn't Want

Contains spoilers for "Fire Country" Season 3, Episode 6 — "Not Without My Birds"

The will-they-won't-they romance between Bode Leone (Max Thieriot) and Gabriela Perez (Stephanie Arcila) may be what makes "Fire Country" tick. But it's getting clearer that the show has no idea how to keep that spark going without turning them into one of those insufferable couples that audiences want to stay dead. The show just shed Gabriela's engagement to Diego (Rafael de la Fuente), leading to all three parties figuring out that Gabriela and Bode love each other more than she ever loved Diego. Gabriela and Bode agree to proceed casually, but their fragile unity is already being threatened. 

Enter Audrey James (Leven Rambin), one of the new cast members on Season 3 of "Fire Country," who works as part of Bode's training program. They start out as antagonists, but that antagonism is starting to become friendship — and might even become attraction, even though Audrey has a boyfriend. Bode tells Gabriela he can't wait for her forever and calls off the relationship — leading to her being tempted into starting something with Bode's supervisor, Cam Casey (Jared Padalecki, last seen on Season 4 of "Walker").  

Turning a triangle into a quadrangle might be novel, but after three seasons of this back-and-forth nonsense, enough is enough. If "Fire Country" can't figure out how to make Gabriela and Bode compelling without adding outside temptation into their relationship, then the central romance of the series is pointless — and bound to leave viewers feeling frustrated. All we know is that it's the last thing fans want from the drama.

This possible love square doesn't have many fans in the "Fire Country" fanbase, with the blame being spread between the characters. Those who fall into the anti-Bode camp blame his wishy-washiness, which continues to be a huge character flaw of his. "In the short span of two episodes, Bode's gone from 'I'll wait for you as long as it takes' to 'I can't wait any longer. We're done,'" remarked u/gk802 on the "Fire Country" subreddit. 

Plenty of fans are equally disgusted with Gabriela, who note her inability to see a romance through as a major flaw. One fan noted that Cam's presence in the storyline seems to solely exist to drive Gabriela away from Bode. "[This] is going to set up Bode, Gabriella, and Camden to create an unnecessary love triangle. Whilst simultaneously forming another love triangle with Gabriella and Audrey. This very well may be the worst 'will they, won't they' scenario I've ever seen written into a script," wrote u/Against-The-Current.

A number of audience members, however, think it will never happen due to Audrey having a boyfriend and Jared Padalecki's stint on the show being relatively brief. But even so, what should "Fire Country" do to change the soapy, messy tangle that is Gabriela and Bode's romance?

The answer to the Gabriela-Bode question is simple: can we please see them as a stable couple in order to figure out if we actually like them together when they're not risking life and skin in a fire? That doesn't mean the high-stakes tension related to the show has to cease or change, it would just be nice to see how they work without one interloper after another ruining their lives. 

There's always a possibility that the audience might not like Bode and Gabriela sans drama, which means the show's creative team might have to go back to the drawing board with their star-crossed romance. But if they want to make the twosome compelling in a way that suggests they'll last, then we need to figure out why they like each other — and why they also constantly push against and repel each other. With any luck, they'll be a couple for the ages — but "Fire Country" had best figure out what to do with them before the audience abandons the show completely.