FIRE COUNTRY Post-Mortem: Billy Burke on Vince’s Health Gamble and End-of-Season Drama to Come

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Friday, May 3 episode of FIRE COUNTRY.]

Vince’s (Billy Burke) small hand tremor—after being shocked during a call—escalated on the Friday, May 3 episode of FIRE COUNTRY.

With Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila), who was the only person who witnessed the tremor, checking in on him, Vince insisted it was probably only a temporary side effect from being shocked. He also promised it was getting better.

But when she came to check in on him—after he was MIA from an event that could help save Three Rock—Gabi found Vince collapsed at home. She wanted to call an ambulance, but he was firmly against it—it could ruin his career. Instead, he pitched an alternative: Gabi shock him, in the hopes it would stop the arrhythmia. 

However, Gabi said she couldn’t do it, because if she hurt Vince, she wouldn’t be able to look Bode (​​Max Thieriot) in the eye again. It was out of her hands, though, when he flatlined and she was forced to shock him.

When Vince was revived, Gabi said she needed to tell Sharon (Diane Farr), because he was like family and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if something happened to him. Vince reiterated she was like family to him, too, but she’s also his healthcare provider…which meant she had to abide by his request for privacy.

Later, Gabi called him out on the threat, and Vince acknowledged she didn’t deserve that. He opened up that Bode was going to get out in a year and he just wanted to fight fires with his son. He insisted he was fine and that if there were any more symptoms, he’d go to the ER. “Just give me a little more time,” he requested. “For me and for Bode.” 

“I think those scenes in particular are where the show lives, for me,” Burke tells Give Me My Remote of filming Vince’s health issues and conversations with Gabi. “It’s those family questions, those family moments, there’s no right answer—those are the places I think people really identify with the show. Yeah, we have tragedy and all that stuff, but it’s really a family drama at its heart. Vince will do what it takes to protect his family, his job, and then Edgewater.”

When Sharon and Vince caught up later, she noticed he looked off, but he downplayed things, claiming he ate something bad. So when will Sharon find out what’s going on with Vince?

“He’s not going to let her in on purpose,” Burke says with a laugh. “It’s accidental how she finds out. But of course he knows all along she will find out and he hopes that he can be the one to break it to her. But that’s not how they treat this relationship. Both Vince and Sharon try to protect each other through what they think are harmless secrets at the time for the greater good.”

And with the crews now on their way to fight the Lazarus Fire—where they’d be living on-site until they could kill it—trouble is brewing in the final episodes of the season. “There’s a lot of that stuff going on, but there’s a lot of family personal drama going on,” Burke teases. “We’re going to end the season with question marks for almost every character. And it all culminates in a wedding that’s transpiring. I don’t know whether or not we’ll see the end of the wedding, but we’ll see what happens next season.”

FIRE COUNTRY, Fridays, 9/8c, CBS

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