A pressure cooker brings together the first responders of Edgewater’s two shows in this season’s major crossover event, airing on Friday, November 6. The action begins during a major windstorm and roaring wildfire, kicking off on Sheriff Country (8/7c) with a prison break that turns into a hostage crisis, which leads into a dangerous manhunt on Fire Country.
Last year’s epic crossover put Bode (Fire‘s Max Thieriot) and Boone (Sheriff‘s Matt Lauria) in danger — and they made for a great buddy cop duo. Once again, there’s someone from each show in peril. While there’s great stuff from Bode and Boone, fans will particularly enjoy Mickey (Sheriff‘s Morena Baccarin) and Manny (Fire‘s Kevin Alejandro) this time around.
Read on for scoop from separate interviews with the showrunners, Matt Lopez (Sheriff) and Eric Guggenheim (Fire).
This year’s crossover involves a prison break escalating into a hostage crisis and Mickey having to decide with personal consequences. What can you preview about that and that decision and how it affects her?
Matt Lopez: I thought last season’s crossover turned out great, and I have to say, [having seen] the latest cut of the Fire Country side of the crossover, I think this crossover is better. I really do. It is so exciting. It’s exciting to see these casts mix again. It’s just a thrilling tale because yes, there are these prison inmates who escape, but they escape in the middle of this massive wind event and fire. And so you have two sort of pressure cookers simultaneously, full boil, full speed ahead, and we’ll sort of continue what we saw last season in the sense that there will be some really fun pairings of characters.
Sergei Bachlakov/CBS
There is one pairing which we just felt like we had to revisit because they were so great together, and that’s Boone and Bode, or as Max Thieriot likes to call them, Boode. And they had such great buddy cop movie vibes together that they are off on another adventure, and it’s just what you want it to be.
But then there are some pairings that are new and fresh. We’ll see, for example, Manny and Mickey have an adventure together, and Manny was not really part of last year’s crossover event; he was on the Fire Country side, but he didn’t come to Sheriff. But this year, the schedules aligned and the stars aligned, and so it’s really great to see those two together. It’s a high-stakes adventure, and we broke it like last year as a feature. It’s one continuous story, and it takes place almost in real time. It takes place over the course of a few hours on a very, very fraught and action-packed day, and the theme of the episode is impossible choices. Over the course of the episodes, Mickey, Manny, Sharon [Diane Farr], Skye [Amanda Arcuri], all of our characters will have to make these really, really difficult choices, and it’s fun to see them help each other get through that.
What can you say about any of those choices and what they entail?
Lopez: Two characters who we love, one from Fire Country and one from Sheriff Country, will be put in jeopardy, the likes of which I don’t think we’ve ever seen on either show, and the entire universe of characters around them will have to weigh what to do and what to sacrifice in order to save their comrades and their friends and, this being Fire Country and Sheriff Country, their family. So it’s very high stakes, and I don’t just mean action stakes; I mean emotional stakes.
Matt Lopez told me about a Fire Country character and a Sheriff Country character being in jeopardy, and everyone around them has to weigh what to sacrifice to save them. What can you preview?
Eric Guggenheim: I’ll just say that it’s not Bode and Boone because that’s what happened last season. When we started talking about this crossover way back in March, the first question that came up was, “What pairings do we really want to see?” That informed who we were going to put in peril.
There’s going to be a manhunt in the Fire Country hour. What can you preview about that, and who might be in danger as a result?
Guggenheim: What’s so much fun about these crossovers is we get to tell a story that we wouldn’t ordinarily get to tell on Fire Country. In this case, it’s a manhunt with escaped convicts in the middle of a wildfire.
Justine Yeung/CBS
Should we be worried about someone dying or is it more about the choices that have to be made to save them?
Lopez: There are people who will be in extreme physical jeopardy. I’ll leave it at that. There are really great surprises with the inmates that I don’t want to spoil, and similar to last year’s crossover, some real great twists and turns that I don’t think people will see coming. It’s a really great episode. It blends mystery and suspense with really great action. When I go to Vancouver, I’m a visitor, right? I’m there to produce, but I’m also there as a visitor to observe, and it was great to see Fire Country crew members who have been on that show for five seasons say, “Wow, we’ve never done anything like this,” just in terms of stunts, in terms of action. It’s a big, big, really compelling episode.
When you said that thing about the inmates, could one of them be Manny’s brother?
Lopez: It is not Manny’s brother. However, it’s interesting that you asked that. Manny’s past criminal history and his relationship with his brother might prove to be the key to getting out of the situation that Mickey and Manny will find themselves in.
I’ll also tease, by the way, a fun little bit of personal history for Mickey and Manny, and I’ll go ahead and reveal it now. What we will unpack is that they actually had a date, which Mickey refers to as “the night to remain silent,” because it was such a catastrophically horrible date that they are still not speaking to each other over it. And then, of course, they’ll be thrown into working this case together and unpacking the most horrible date of all time. Kevin and Morena had so much fun with it, and their chemistry is off the charts.
That sounds like it’s going to be hilarious. Will Sharon chime in about anything there?
Lopez: What we will find out is that the original date from hell was set up by Sharon, and neither Mickey nor Manny have ever quite forgiven her for it.
Matt told me about Mickey and Manny’s one horrible date and how they’ve never quite forgiven Sharon for setting them up. What are their interactions like as a result?
Guggenheim: The scenes between Manny and Mickey are terrific. They’re moving and funny. Kevin and Morena have such terrific chemistry.
How does Manny feel about his past coming up, considering we know how he feels about his brother and nephew?
Guggenheim: Manny’s past will always weigh on him, and he assumes people judge him for it. Most of the time, he’s right, but he’ll discover in the crossover that that’s not always the case.
What will we see between Bode and Boone this season, and what do we see from Bode that we don’t usually see on Fire Country because of that fun dynamic in the crossover?
Guggenheim: They’re both stepping out of their comfort zone. Bode’s going to be doing some cop things, and Boone will be doing some first responder stuff. They each to get to walk in the other’s shoes.
Are there any other pairings that you’re excited for fans to see?
Lopez: There’s a few. We will see Tex [Elias Kacavas] paired up with Skye, and Eve [Jules Latimer] also plays a role in that. It’s a really, really great episode for them. Skye’s had her own troubles with addiction and substance abuse, and Tex is obviously a convict in the Three Rock Camp, and they represent this younger generation of Deadwater, and two people who are finding their own way, trying to get through and figure out where their life is taking them, and it’s really fun to see.
Sheriff Country & Fire Country Crossover, Friday, November 6, 8/7c, CBS
