Spoilers for Fire Country Season 4, Episode 4 are ahead. If you are not caught up, you can stream the show with a Paramount+ subscription, and then catch new episodes on CBS every Friday at 9 p.m. ET.
Vince’s death on Fire Country has led to some major shakeups. While the first few episodes to air on the 2025 TV schedule have highlighted how his passing has opened up a major leadership position and how Bode and Sharon are dealing with the loss of their father and husband, a mystery has been introduced, too. That’s because Eve found a threatening letter in Vince’s guitar case, and in Episode 4, Bode found out about it.
Personally, I was shocked when Eve and Jake decided to show Bode the letter (which you can see below). So, when I had the chance to chat with Jordan Calloway, who plays Jake, about the episode he also directed, I asked why they did it.
As I mentioned, after Eve found that letter in Vince’s guitar case, which implied that he could have been having an affair (maybe with Renée, who notably just came back) or he was in some sort of sketchy situation, she and Jake decided it was best to tell Bode. When I asked Calloway why they did that, he noted it was because when it came to everything else going on for these characters, they’d handled it all wrong. So, it was time to do something right and as a team:
We’ve dealt with this thing wrong; whatever the issues may be. Bode dealt with his pills the wrong way. He didn’t rely or fall back on family to help him. Jake, he was dealing with trying to be, you know, captain on his own. And this is all also after Vince’s passing. So everyone in their own right is feeling their own sense of grief, right?
He’s right, everyone has had to handle Vince’s death, and with it, they’ve had to face personal and professional struggles. While Bode battled with addiction and hit a new low after the death of his father, Jake was trying to become the battalion chief while Eve handled the aftermath of the fire that also took out Three Rock at the end of Fire Country’s third season.
To that point, Calloway elaborated on what Eve had been through, too, and how that impacted her and Jake’s decision. He explained:
You have Eve, who’s dealing with not feeling like she did enough. I mean, this is a huge episode for Jules [Latimer], and I was so proud of her. Like where [Eve] is, she doesn’t want to be a mother, you know, from last season. But then at the same time, she feels the guilt and the shame of not having watched and been there for her kids, also for having lost Three Rock. She blames herself for that.
So, between Bode’s struggles with his job and the pills he ended up flushing, Jake ultimately not getting the battalion chief job (Manny got it), and Eve’s mission to get Three Rock back, they are all in need of each other. Calloway said that’s partially why his and Jules Latimer’s characters decided to show the note to Max Thieriot’s firefighter. The actor/director told me:
But none of us were falling back on somebody. None of us were using anyone to help support. And so when Jake says that decision, it’s like, ‘Hey, hold up the trio, The Three Musketeers. You know we need to band together, because we don’t know what this is, but we know we need each other. And we know we need to keep this intact before we go to your mom, because she’s also in a terrible state.’
I love that these three are finally banding together. They need each other, and seeing specifically Bode and Jake butt heads in the first few episodes of Season 4 was tough, since it was clear they were both really struggling in the aftermath of Vince’s death.
I also think it’s important that these three work together to figure out what exactly is going on with that note. They are the best folks to protect Sharon from whoever was threatening her late husband, and I hope that they eventually loop her into this situation, too.
Now, to see how this note and Bode’s knowledge of it impact the rest of Fire Country’s fourth season, you can catch new episodes every Friday and stream old ones on Paramount+.