‘Fire Country’ Director Says Show Came to Him When He Wanted Something Like ‘Friday Night Lights’
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With many favorite shows coming back soon (finally!), including Fire Country for its second season on Friday, February 16, 2024, we of course can’t help but look back on where they left off. For example, the CBS firefighter drama ended its first season with the powerful “I Know It Feels Impossible,” which included that parole hearing scene in which Bode (Max Thieriot) shocked everyone by saying he’s the bad guy at the fire camp, leading to him back in prison.
“Max Thieriot is just a champ,” Dermott Downs, who directed the finale (and two other episodes), told TV Insider while discussing the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode (the musical) he helmed. (The star and executive producer was inspired by the town in which he grew up.) “He’s really grounded and rooted in trying to bring some truth. It’s this guy’s redemption story basically at the gates of Hades because there’s fire — he is in the midst of fire every week practically.”
The concept was something that “really resonated” with Downs, he continued. “It was right after Strange New Worlds I started that. I was like, ‘I want to do something gritty and docu-style, like Friday Night Lights.'”
As for that parole hearing scene in the finale, “what a speech and what a delivery by Max,” he raves. “That was great.”
For the aforementioned Strange New Worlds episode, its musical, Downs worked with choreographer Roberto Campanella, and there’s almost a dance to action scenes like the ones he got on Fire Country as well. In scenes like that, the director explained, “I try to let the camera follow as much as I can when you need to, when there’s so many things happening. You need to break that up with coverage, of course, you need to sell all the points that are happening simultaneously, but there are a few moments that really got to play out longer, and that’s kind of exciting to let the story unfold and in action.”
“And certainly the finale of Fire Country, there were some big, big scenes that I tried to let the action and the actors just sort of drive and not get caught up in the pyrotechnics of camera work, but that’s all fun, too,” he added.
Fire Country, Season 2 Premiere, Friday, February 16, 2024, 9/8c, CBS
