‘Fire Country’ Season 4 Episode 5 Recap: Manny Has a Rough First Day, and It’s All Sharon’s Fault

It is the dawn of the Manny (Kevin Alejandro) era at Station 42 on Fire Country as the former Three Rock captain officially takes over Vince’s (Billy Burke

) Battalion Chief position. Richards (Shawn Hatosy) gave Manny the job because he wanted to keep the job in the family, but when Manny starts changing things like the coffee in the break room and getting involved in scene incidents, it starts to go wrong. It’s not the crew that has an issue with Manny making some changes though. It’s Sharon (

Of course, Sharon isn’t just worried about Manny taking Vince’s job. She’s also stressing about how to tell Bode (

If anyone knows that there is no replacing Vince Leone, it is Manny Perez. So he’s not trying, but approaching Battalion Chief from his own perspective immediately puts Sharon on the defensive. It starts with Manny changing the coffee in the station break room to a Venezuelan roast instead of “Leone Muck.” I love Sharon, but it sounds like Manny might be onto something here? Let’s not ask people to run into burning buildings caffeinated with something with “muck” in the name, even if it is a joke. The bickering between the two continues when Manny chooses his own route to get to the fire at the local drive-in theater. Sharon gets back at him by taking over the scene and micromanaging his crew before Manny can even assess the situation.

These are the two adults on the show, so you think they’d just take a step aside and squash the beef like Manny and Jake did last week. But nope! Manny takes matters into his own hands and goes into the fire to save the owner of the theater instead of delegating to one of the junior firefighters. I guess no one wanted to remind him that the previous Battalion Chief insisting on going into a scene is how the job became open in the first place. It is like absolutely no one listened to Richards 

Manny makes it out of the building with the owner of the theater. He and Sharon get to work out their differences while directing the volunteer crew of movie-goers to put out spot fires. Sharon’s stepfather, Wes, who was at the drive-in for a show, manages to put his two cents in to help Sharon realize she’s bulldozing and make Manny remember that Sharon is not someone you want to piss off. Wes is a character, but he does give out really good advice to the Fox and Leone families. The fire is put out. 

I know, I know! I’m as stunned by the subhead as you are. We are giving Bode a break this week, though. He starts the episode by breaking into Sharon’s house to investigate the note from Vince’s guitar case and he manages to find a P.O. Box key. He thinks it may be the clue to what Vince was hiding before he died — Bode is on team “Vince did not have an affair,” which is objectively the correct team — but Jake (

Wes intervenes when he and Bode run into each other at the drive-in. Bode is stressed because Jake is insisting on telling Sharon, but Bode wants answers first. Wes gives him direct advice about handling someone resorting to blackmail, which is to go on the offense

, but take your team with you. That includes Sharon, who Wes insists will not be destroyed by a piece of paper (See? He’s so good), and Jake because true friends tell you what you need to hear instead of what you want to hear. I agree, Wes, but I just need Jake to be more consistent with the advice.

Anyway, Bode does come clean to Sharon at the end of the episode. She tells him about the potential arson in the Zabel Ridge fire, and he takes the news calmly (for now). He then hands her the note from Vince’s guitar case. She’s shocked by it, but not for the reason Bode fears. She immediately recognizes the handwriting and the signature. It’s not Renee (

It isn’t all bleak news in this week’s episode. Eve is stashing chickens for her girlfriend at Station 42, which brings some much-needed comic relief to the episode. Parmesan and Bridget are little troublemakers, but they bring joy during an otherwise stressful episode of 

We are now a quarter of the way into the season, and it is still going to take a minute before the new Three Rock is up and running, but this sounds like a promising new beginning for the program. We need to have some hope somewhere, and it’s good that Eve is making her way through the Sacramento bureaucracy to get Three Rock back up and running.

Fire Country continues Fridays at 9PM ET on CBS. Episodes are available the next day on Paramount+.

The directors behind Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will write, direct, and produce a new Star Trek film.

The Star Trek universe giveth, and the Star Trek universe taketh away. Hot on the heels of the announcement that the Kelvinverse timeline of feature films was finally 

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have been tapped to write, produce, and direct a brand new Star Trek film for the studio. Per Deadline, who first broke the story, the forthcoming installment will offer a completely new take on the franchise universe, unburdened by any sort of connections to current television series, previous films, or other projects that may or may not have sputtered out at various points in the development pipeline. (Sorry to Noah Hawley and Quentin Tarantino, I guess.) Virtually nothing is known about its plot, but the report suggests the film will likely introduce new characters to the franchise, though we don’t technically know if that will be in primary or supporting roles.

Goldstein and Daley have already proven themselves capable writers who can put fresh spins on preexisting IPs. The pair wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming, and though they’ve only directed three films, those include 

With the television universe busy slotting various series into gaps of existing canon (waiting on that Star Trek: Year One announcement any day now), it’s well past time to let the film side of things, well… boldly go. Tell different kinds of stories! Take some risks! It’s a big, bold, beautiful universe out there, and surely there’s got to be some pocket of it that doesn’t care 

Plus, there’s really something to be said for simply letting the Star Trek franchise have fun again. Say what you want about the silliness of its plot, but 

It’s possible to tell simple, enjoyable, relatively low-stakes stories in this universe that are a good time in their own right. And that’s exactly what one has to hope Goldstein and Daley are planning to do here. Strong, character-based stories with witty humor are kind of their whole deal, after all, and it’s a vibe this universe could desperately use more of. A fun space adventure grounded in an optimistic view of humanity’s best potential instead of its inevitable failings feels like exactly what Star Trek—heck, all of us—needs right now.