Fire Country Season 1 Episode 2: The Fresh Prince of Edgewater

Bode stands outside the hospital replaying the night he learned about Riley and Jake. Behind him Vince and Sharon argue about whether he should stay in Edgewater or go back to prison; Bode reminds Vince that he once followed an order Sharon knows nothing about. Manny tells Sharon that the placement decision is his, to be made once the Buckeye incident report is finished, and Bode tells Manny he would rather be sent to High Rock or Valley View than stay. In the parking lot Sharon asks Vince what the order was and he will not answer.

Vince tells Eve and Jake not to hold anything back in their incident reports. Jake tells Gabriela that it was Eve, not Bode, who pulled him out of the Buckeye fire. A thunderstorm warning for Willow Creek interrupts Sharon and Vince at a restaurant and they head for the station.

Manny takes the inmates to a recreation centre to clear defensible space. Eve and Jake patrol the town warning residents about the storm and report two lightning strikes starting vegetation fires. Lightning then hits a tree beside Manny's crew at the recreation centre. With no water nearby Manny radios Sharon, who tells him to evacuate civilians and wait for a water tender, while Vince's crew moves on the location Eve and Jake reported. Gabriela brings a group of children to the centre and takes them inside.

When the fire reaches the centre the inmates give up their bus seats to the children and their teachers. After Vince's crew extinguishes the vegetation fire Sharon sends them to help Manny. Manny's bus then drives toward Vince's crew and lightning strikes it. Eve, Jake and Vince run over and find the children and their counsellor unhurt but the driver unconscious with asphalt driven into his chest. Vince moves the children and counsellor to safety while Jake and Eve treat the driver.

Bode helps Manny cut away a burning awning. When Vince tells Bode to take the hose Bode does not follow the instruction, and Vince shouts that he is not helping. With the children safe Eve decides to ride with the injured driver to hospital and Jake stays. Before she leaves, Jake admits to her that he was unfaithful to Riley. Green smoke then shows from the recreation centre - the fire has reached chemicals inside - and Jake takes an extinguisher into the building to put it out.

Sharon calls Vince to say the lightning has left the city. Manny tells Vince that Bode helped a great deal, but Vince says Bode has not changed. At the bar that night Jake tells Eve that he and Gabriela are together and that he intends to report Bode's punch to Manny; Eve says that would send Bode back to prison and leaves angrily. Vince finally tells Sharon about the order: after Riley died he told Bode to leave Edgewater and never return.

Sharon meets Manny, who tells her Jake has made no complaint and that he will transfer Bode to High Rock as Bode asked. Sharon tells Manny that she has chronic kidney disease and is dying, and that living with her son is what matters most to her. Manny finds Bode packing and tells him his father's order is the reason he wants to leave, and that the way to fight it is to take a second chance in Edgewater. Manny decides Bode stays.

The episode closes the placement question that the premiere left open: Manny decides that Bode will stay in Edgewater rather than be transferred to High Rock, after Sharon tells him she is dying and that living with her son is what matters most to her (F34, F35, F38). The recreation-centre fire is also resolved, with Jake putting out the chemical fire inside the building (F26).

Two things are left open. Jake tells Eve he will report Bode's punch, and the episode does not show him doing it - Manny only tells Sharon that no complaint has been made, so whether Jake changed his mind is not established within the episode (F30, F33). And Vince's position does not move: he tells Manny that Bode has not changed, and the episode does not show him learning that Bode is staying (F28). Sharon's kidney disease is disclosed to Manny but not to Bode or Vince within the episode, so the family's knowledge of it remains unconfirmed (F35).