This story contains major spoilers from the Fire Country season 4 premiere.
Fire Country season 4 just premiered on CBS, and fans are reeling from the aftermath of the tragic fire at the end of season 3.
As viewers discovered Vince Leone (Billy Burke) heroically died to save his father Walter (Jeff Fahey), they also got to see how his wife Sharon (Diane Farr) processed losing her husband in such a heartbreaking manner. And while her son Bode (Max Thieriot) stepped up to try and hold their team at Station 42, Sharon instead fell apart and gave into the grief she didn’t know she’d experience so viscerally.
With Vince’s death as the catalyst for a new era on Fire Country, Diane exclusively sat down with Good Housekeeping to discuss her character’s future, the importance of displaying grief on TV, and why it was so hard to lose her on-screen husband.
I had survivor’s guilt. Billy and I went into the fire [in Fire Country season 3], and our producers didn’t tell us who was coming out. We spent the whole summer, and then it was Billy who told us he was let go. It left me questioning, am I worthy? Why am I here and this other person isn’t? What do I have to do to make myself worthy as an actor and a human?
It wasn’t hard to tap into grief. I was actually eager to do it, because it felt honest for the character and what firefighters have to deal with in real life. We talk about firefighters as heroes, but it is one of those jobs that carries the imminent risk of death. We wouldn’t be doing any favors if we just showed periphery characters losing their lives.
In television, I don’t think you could portray grief non-stop for a year. People spend years in development, trying to do shows about grief. But they could never find the balance of that pain and making it watchable. My biggest fear was, will we do enough to show how important this wound is?
The showrunner and I went through our own five stages of grief. We wanted to show different stages for Sharon’s healing as the weeks go on. Seeing Sharon cry every week wasn’t something any of us were interested in, but we wanted to see her angry and see her bartering with God.
I have two uncles, and they both were firefighters. I showed the showrunner photos of their funerals, and our depiction in Fire Country is pretty much an exact match—down to where the flag is hung and the bagpipes, because I’m Irish.
From the premiere, it’s clear Sharon and Bode express their grief differently. But the grief is also experienced in two different genders and generations. They’re having parallel grief, but they’re not sharing the pain with one another. They’re trying to protect each other, but they don’t have the bandwidth to take care of anyone besides themselves.
Everybody ends up where they’re supposed to be. But losing my scene partner in Billy—we built a really strong unit in a show that already has an original wound. And now we’re re-arranging our family, both on and off-screen.
I hope Vince’s death gives people permission to feel all the feelings, because no feeling truly remains. Happiness, when it comes, does not last forever—and neither does sadness. If we can see a character hit their bottom, the experience of seeing them come out of it will give someone the chance to reach the entire depth of their feelings. There’s something really helpful in showing the every man quality of feeling everything, and not just pretend they’re there on the surface.
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