Fire Country Season 1 Episode 18: Off the Rails

Manny receives a job offer. He is at a Gambling Anonymous meeting when he mentions he is a firefighter, which catches someone's attention: a woman who waits until after the meeting to approach him. At first he thinks she is flirting with him, and she is — she admits as much — but she also wants to mix business with pleasure, and she offers him a job. She is the CEO of a concierge fire company, the people the rich call in to protect their many vacation homes; they do not want to wait around for the free firefighters in their area, so they pay for someone to focus only on them.

Regular firefighters usually look down on these concierge crews as glorified house sitters, and Manny could have ignored the offer — but he is in debt, he does not even have his own place and is staying on a friend's couch to save on rent, and the only thing he feels he has to look forward to is getting Bode released. He talks in his meetings about paying back the Leones for all they have done, and the new job could help him pay off the actual debt and repay his daughter, whose credit he ruined with his addiction.

Manny is thinking about all of that when the call comes in — a reminder that Bode can self-sabotage. There is a train crash not far from the fire camp, and the fire camp is the first to respond. Bode takes control of the scene and calls it in after their CO passes out at the first sight of a body, giving Bode full reign over the crew. He follows protocol while they wait for backup. The train accident happened because a party bus got stuck on the tracks: the bus was delivering a group of teenagers to their prom, and it took a full head-on impact from the train.

Many died, and the remaining kids are all injured — there is a girl with a broken leg, and a boy impaled through his chest who is still alert and talking. Sharon sends everyone she can to the scene.

Sharon also brings a doctor with her: Jake's mother is in town. Lilly has just found out her only child was investigated for arson and wants to know why her best friend did not tell her. She reminds Sharon that Jake is not like Bode, and that neither she nor her son has the benefit of walking away clean after an investigation, even if it proves them innocent — they are Black, they are seen differently, and the arson investigation will be held against Jake for the rest of his career.

Lilly came back to town to demand answers, but after hearing about the train accident she puts aside her anger to treat the many victims, including the teenagers and the conductor. The conductor admits that he has been accepting secret payments to look the other way while illicit cargo was loaded onto the train — jet fuel — which makes the fires in the area that much more problematic. Hearing this, Manny calls in a favor with his new CEO friend and gets the concierge company's equipment and gadgets to assist with the fire.

The teenagers are brought back to the fire camp. There is a mysterious man who was riding the train; he disappears once the police show up, handing his bag to Bode, and Bode then hands the bag to Freddy. Bode also ignores a direct order from Manny, claiming he only wants to save lives, though he is beginning to self-sabotage. He finds out he has a parole hearing coming up in sixty days and tells his loved ones about it, asking them not to get their hopes up because he has already been turned down for parole once before and expects it to happen again.

Manny has been where Bode is and knows those final days before a parole hearing are usually when people self-destruct, because they do not think they deserve better. So Manny stops Bode from doing that: he keeps Bode out of harm's way, even deliberately putting himself in danger to ensure Bode will not — and while he survives removing the fuel, he scares his daughter. Gabriela is so afraid of losing him that she gets angry at him for doing something so stupid.

Manny gets help from his buddy to save the day. He goes on to start a relationship with her, but he ultimately turns down the job with her company: he loves his current job and is going to keep doing it. Lilly also learns that Jake was in the same county as his half-brother and talks with him about it; she has known about his brother all along, and she tells him his dad never cheated on her — they were separated, and were living in the same house only to make things easier on Jake.

That changes Jake's perception of his father, and he can now have a relationship with his brother without it hurting his mother. He is still on the outs with the Leones, though, and he can see that Eve is coming apart at the seams, so he warns Vince before it becomes a bigger issue. Vince gives Eve time off to heal after a year of trauma, hoping she will start feeling better.

The train crash is resolved: the teenagers and the conductor are treated, the illicit jet fuel is dealt with, and Manny survives removing it. The concierge company's equipment helps the crews, and Manny turns down the job offer while starting a relationship with its CEO.

Several threads are left open. Bode's parole hearing is now sixty days away, and whether he can avoid self-destructing is unresolved. Jake remains estranged from the Leones, even after learning the truth about his father. Eve has been given time off to heal from a year of trauma, and whether that helps her is left for later. And the mystery of the man who handed Bode his bag — Robin — is left without explanation within the episode.