How Fire Country Ruined Gabriela (And How The Series Could Bring Stephanie Arcila Back)

This article contains spoilers for "Fire Country" Season 3, Episode 19 ("A Change in the Wind"), and Season 3, Episode 20 ("I'd Do It Again"). We're also getting into potential spoilers for Season 4.

After an eventful set of episodes for Gabriela Perez, Season 3 of "Fire Country" ended on something of a whimper for Stephanie Arcila's character. Gabi goes off the deep end because of her failed wedding then ends up being stalked by Finn (Blake Lee) in a disappointing storyline. Her friend Audrey (Leven Rambin) and father Manny (Kevin Alejandro) are soon sucked into her stalking nightmare, which ends when Audrey shoots Finn in the chest. Audrey and Gabi perform rudimentary surgery on him, and then they have to drag him through the Zabel Ridge wildfire to safety. Gabi's season ends as she watches Audrey being hauled off by the police for breaking her parole.

This is just another way the writers have kneecapped Gabi as a character, turning her from a strong, feisty woman into a damsel in distress who is perpetually helpless. While that initially seemed to be something they introduced so that Bode Leone (Max Thieriot) could rush to her rescue, during Season 3, it's actually Manny who becomes her savior. Nothing screams arrested development quite like being a 30-something rescued from your own hubris by your father.

There's no getting away from the fact that Gabi keeps making horrible choices that turn her into a wilting lily — and it's gotten so bad that her upcoming exit from the series is something of a relief. While it wasn't exactly foreshadowed in "I'd Do It Again," it's been confirmed that Arcila is on her way out after being with the show since its first episode. The hows and whys of it all are unknown as of this writing, but one thing's for sure — Gabriela was ruined by bad writing a long time ago.

While Gabriela Perez starts out in "Fire Country" as a smart woman, she definitely has some big-time baggage. She was Edgewater's hope in the Olympics, but her career as a championship diver came to an end when she came 14th at the Tokyo games. Returning home to bask in her residual fame, fate puts her on the scene of a fire and she finds real purpose in continuing the Perez legacy. It's here she meets Bode — and where Gabi stops being an interesting character and starts being a milksop. Gabi and Bode have an on-and-off-again relationship in which she tries to stand on principle and tell Bode to stop risking his life and freedom to fight fires. Bode cannot, and when he pushes her away, she falls for a new man. This once again shows her inability to function without romance in her life, as she's never been single on the show for any meaningful length of time.

Gabriela almost marries Diego (Rafael de la Fuente), but she can't stay away from Bode, and when their wedding is interrupted by a helicopter crash, Diego comes to realize that she's still obsessed with her ex. That's some truly alarming wishy-washiness, especially because she starts chasing Bode again as soon as she's free. They try a relationship, but it fizzles out because they want different things out of love. With this turn of events, "Fire Country" fumbled its biggest Season 3 storyline and turned Bode and Gabi into an insufferable couple who ought to stay apart. Gabi responds by spiraling into reckless behavior, which peaks when strips off her gear and walks into a blaze, putting the lives of her whole team at risk. In short: she's become so incredibly messy and dependent on others that it's hard to root for her.

It's very clear that Gabi needs a cooling-off period, and perhaps her time away from Edgewater will teach her real independence. Maybe she could take the rap for Audrey and go to prison for a little while. That would show her what her dad and Bode have been through — and even teach her how to make it on her own. Until she can be her own woman, bringing her back to "Fire Country" would be irritating at best and a death sentence for the show at worst. Maybe she could develop her own youth program, something that builds on her love of firefighting and proves that she can make choices without a single helping hand. Anything that shows actual growth for the character would be delightful. It turns out that this is pretty much how Stephanie Arcila feels about it, too.

"I think that she could continue as a firefighter, I think that she could continue as an EMT, but I definitely think she will never stop learning and growing," Arcila told Deadline. Will she ever get that chance? Per series co-executive producer and co-creator Tony Phelan, there's plenty of unfinished business between Bode and Gabi. "It was really a decision that came out of the dynamic between Bode and Gabriela; we felt like those two characters needed a reset," Phelan told Deadline. "We're hoping that we can bring that character back, because we think that they have such great chemistry, and the audience is really invested in the two of them. But we felt, with everything that's happening in the finale and moving on into the next season, that it was time for that character to discover what's next for her." Hopefully a reset will make Gabi a more complete and capable person.