‘Fire Country’: Max Thieriot Talks Reuniting With Alona Tal & Letting Potential Romance Build

Max Thieriot wasn’t too sure how the SEAL Team reunion in Fire Country Season 4 was going to go over. After all, he and Alona Tal didn’t just play one-time love interests on the CBS-turned-Paramount+ drama; their characters were together for years, got married, and had a child before he died. But having that established relationship has been beneficial.

“I adore Alona. I think she’s an incredible actress and was just honestly super-excited that we get this opportunity and frankly wasn’t sure how everybody was going to react at first, mostly on the production side of things, like, ‘Hey, we can we be back on camera together after being, I guess, married for a few years on camera and together for, whatever it was, five?'” Thieriot shares during a Television Critics Association virtual panel.

“But I think that the fun thing about it, too, is that she and I have this rapport that we’ve already established as actors together in our scenes — obviously two very different characters than the ones that we played before, but it’s been awesome having her back,” he continues. “And I think having that familiarity, it’s easy to jump into and you find that you’re not trying to discover this relationship with this other person and sort of find this chemistry. We know that it exists. So I think it was a fun thing for us to be able to jump right into.”

Erik Voake/CBS

Max Thieriot and Alona Tal’s characters on Fire Country, Bode and Chloe, were high school classmates who had crushes on each other and reunited when the firefighter ran a drunk-driving drill at the school where she works and her son, Tyler (Conor Sherry), goes. (He first met her son during a rescue.) Since then, he’s become a mentor of sorts to her son, and the fall finale left off with Tyler running into a dangerous fire to try to help and Bode getting him under a fire shelter. Their fates will be revealed in the February 27 midseason premiere.

As for the potential romantic side of Bode and Chloe’s present relationship, Thieriot admits, “I don’t know if he’s in the right place” for a romance. After all, his and Gabriela’s (Stephanie Arcila, who exited in the Season 4 premiere) relationship was complicated, and he and Audrey (Leven Rambin) just ended their romance.

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“Obviously there’s a lot of other stuff going on in both their lives — everything that’s happened with Vince [Billy Burke] and this community and everything that’s been going on with her son and sort of the trouble,” Thieriot says of Bode and Chloe. “And so at this point really, Bode is there sort of as a mentor to this kid and trying to help him not make the same mistakes that he made. Obviously we’re hinting that it might go further than that because they had a preexisting crush from when she used to tutor him in math, which he was terrible at, but I don’t know if it’s too soon. But we’re certainly going to let it develop and build into something rather than totally rush it, which I think is fun.”

What do think of Thieriot and Tal’s reunion? What are you hoping to see with Bode and Chloe? Let us know in the comments section below.

Fire Country, Midseason Return, Friday, February 27, 9/8c, CBS