‘Fire Country’: Stephanie Arcila on Gabriela’s Love for Bode & Reunion With Her Mom

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Fire Country Season 2 Episode 8 “It’s Not Over.”]

When better to have your estranged mother show up than at a Firefighters’ Ball attended by two of your exes—one of whose future is up in the air—and your fiancé? We do think it’s better than a reunion coming at a wedding, but that’s what Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) had been planning on Fire Country.

But after her fiancé Diego (Rafael de la Fuente) invites Roberta (Paola Núñez), drama, of course, ensues—and she talks to all three men in her daughter’s life, even seemingly giving hope to Bode (Max Thieriot). And this comes as Gabriela’s also dealing with being the only one to know about Vince’s (Billy Burke) hand tremor, which is shown to be detrimental to his heath.

Below, Arcila discusses Gabriela’s family reunion, feelings for Diego and Bode, and more.

That reunion with her mom was rough, to say the least. Gabriela had wanted time to think about what she’d say to her and thought she’d get that by seeing her at the wedding, but do you think that would’ve helped at all? Especially considering how stressful a wedding can be?

Stephanie Arcila: I know, but at the end of the day, she was so busy that she wasn’t planning too, too much. Diego’s been like an amazing fiancé and has helped out so much. Gabriela’s very much a planner and very structured, and I think when things are not planned, it kind of shakes her up a bit and especially something that puts her in such a vulnerable position and she has everything there in her face. Even her past—she has Jake [Jordan Calloway], Bode, her mom, and then she has her future—her new fiancé, Diego, and her dad… Literally all of the drama and trauma is in her face.

How is Gabriela feeling about her and her mom’s relationship and repairing it? Does she feel at all optimistic at the end of the episode?

I think she’s still processing. I think it can go either way. She can decide to say, “You know what? We can move forward with this and kind of figure it out.” Or I think just based on her mom’s decisions or crossing her boundaries, she can also be like, “You know what? I’m going to love you from afar.” But I think that also Gabriela is a person that is subconsciously very open to healing.

Sergei Bachlakov / CBS

What can you say about the next time that they see each other at the wedding?

We will see if she shows up, right? … If she shows up, because that’s Roberta, you just never know with her. It is a roller coaster with her. I think she’s, after this, probably prepared to see her there, but I don’t know, sometimes we’re human and sometimes things trigger us in moments.

The other part of the episode was Gabriela worrying about Vince and he threatens her career if she tells, since she’s his health provider. But then it kind of almost reads that he could be trying to manipulate her by telling her that he wants to fight fires with Bode and bringing up that she knows what it’s like to wait for Bode. How is Gabriela feeling about how all of that went down with Vince?

I think Vince knew where to pull at her heart because at the end of the day, there will always be loved for Bode. She clearly still loves him, and I think she always will. But I think that was a very bold move of Vince and it is nice that he realizes it at one point. We’re human, we all have low moments, and he did and he apologized. So I think moving forward, it’s going to also make Gabriela make different decisions in how she handles things like this.

How is she doing keeping that secret for him?

I don’t know how long she can keep it for, and I don’t know how long Vince will be okay with [it], because also, he is trying to hide something in front of people who do take care of medical cases like this. It’s kind of hard to hide something like that. And when you hide things, you go out of character and people notice different things and notice when you’re missing and notice when you’re hiding things. So it’s a tricky situation.

And they’re all going to this campaign fire, where they need everyone to be 100 percent.

Yes. On top of that.

Eike Schroter / CBS

Like everyone else, Roberta sees what’s between Gabriela and Bode and has that talk with him where she tells him nothing’s over until it’s over. How is Gabriela feeling about her mom talking to Bode?

It’s definitely a big boundary that she’s crossed. She talked to Jake, she talked to Diego, and she talked to Bode. She literally talked to her whole life in Edgewater. So I think it’s a big boundary that she crossed and she’s hurt because she’s trying to heal. And it’s funny because her mom coming back into the picture could be a healing moment, too, but she’s not making it easy for her.

Even though Gabriela is about to marry Diego, it is very clear there is still something between Gabriela and Bode. How does Gabriela feel about Bode at this point?

I think she’ll always love him. I think the chemistry is undeniable, and she really fought for him and she really wanted to be there for him. So I think that’ll always be there. I think it’s her mind fighting her heart as well and trying to assess what’s best for her in her personality because she’s so structured and organized and she’s such a big planner as well.

How much of Gabriela going all in with Diego the way that she has since the premiere is about how she feels about him and how much is it because of everything that happened with Bode?

Yeah, I think that she really has yearned for so long—and you can see it with Roberta coming in—for a family. She’s yearned for a community. She’s yearned to have that a stable home with her own family. And I think that’s one of the biggest reasons she was drawn to Diego because she can have that with him and they are both go-getters. But I think that secretly she really wishes that was Bode.

So if say somehow Bode gets out and is a viable option for her, who would she choose between Diego and Bode?

I know maybe what her heart would choose, I know what her mind would choose. I don’t know. I think she’s also in a moment where she’s processing a lot and trying to figure out where she’s at mentally because everything is being thrown at her at once.

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It’s probably a good thing she doesn’t have to directly deal with Luke (Michael Trucco) being the one to recommend Three Rock be shut down…

Yeah, it’s tough, right? Because that also pulls at her heart. It is about Bode, but it’s not just about him because she cares about the people that surround him also because she works with them every day. So she cares about Vince, she cares about Sharon (Diane Farr), she cares about Jake and Eve (Jules Latimer). So it’s affecting the people that she loves as well that have become her family,

And especially Manny, because we see how Manny (Kevin Alejandro) reacts.

Oh, man, yes, especially Manny.

I love that father-daughter relationship because it’s not perfect. They acknowledge their flaws.

I agree. It’s raw. It’s in your face, which is beautiful because that’s what we all are. We are not perfect. We have our ups and downs, we have our low versions of ourselves and our high versions, and above all of that, there’s unconditional love in our relationship.

But because of the love that she has for Manny and because she knows how Roberta is, how would Gabriela feel about that kiss? Because she has to feel protective of her father, right?

Yeah. She is protective of her father. I don’t know if it would bring up a little bit of anxiety for her, but I also don’t know if her dad would go back to it. He’s a very smart man, and he knows that she’s like a drug for him, and as an addict, he knows what’s right and what’s wrong for him. And I think his biggest driving force is Gabriela, his daughter.

What are you enjoying most about who Gabriela is this season? I’ve enjoyed seeing her as a paramedic.

Yeah, it’s so nice seeing her as an EMT, but it’s also nice diving into her past and letting the audience get to know her family, her mother, her father. You get to see, by Roberta coming in and by Diego coming in, more of her triggers and where she’s at and what she’s feeling because they come in to shake things up, to shake up emotions and really see what’s true and what’s not and what you should do and what you should not. So I think it’s fun to see her maneuver these things in the way that she does. And it’s very admirable as well, because for any human, it’s a lot.

Something else I’m enjoying is that I think the relationship for Gabriela that has the least drama in it this season is with Jake. And after last season, that’s kind of surprising.

I know. It’s so nice. We’ve created this friendship, this coworker friendship now, and we kind of confide in each other for Bode, right? And try and figure things out together. I think that the way that their relationship has flowed outside of what they were in the beginning has come to a really, really beautiful friendship.

Fire Country, Fridays, 9/8c, CBS