S01.E13: You Know Your Dragon Best

[Artsda]

Quote

"You Know Your Dragon Best" - The crews work to contain a dangerous forest fire and save a group of environmentalists protesting a housing development, on FIRE COUNTRY, Friday, Feb. 3 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+*.
 

 

Jake picked when the fire was coming and a tree hugger they were trying save quickly to have a discussion on the kidney match?

New guy comments at the end  warning Gabriela makes me think he's not a good person. 

I would rather see Body have a birthday with his parents than the friends, especially since they haven't had a family birthday with their son for so long.

 

[Linderhill]

I was wondering whose chicken that was that Gabriela appropriated.  I also think it would have been nice if Bode's parents had joined the young folk with their birthday cake.

[Dowel Jones]

1 hour ago, Linderhill said:

I was wondering whose chicken that was that Gabriela appropriated.

If it was at the station it's crew food, and not to be appropriated for private use.  But what's one more rule to break?

These firefighters couldn't organize a two car parade.  A simple car fire, although an EV model, turns into a raging forest fire.

I'm surprised Bode didn't try to talk Vince into letting him go all Rose from Titanic on those chains with his Pulaski.  Speaking of which, he's not first saw anymore?

I did appreciate that Sharon gave Eve a bit of command training.  It really is different than getting your hands dirty, and there's so much more to think about.  However, if Eve wants to continue as any kind of firefighter, she'll have to cowgirl up and learn how to take charge.  Everyone falls on their face and gets their ass handed to them (to mix metaphors) at least once.

The developer makes a huge donation to a state agency in return for getting the OK to build a subdivision.  Ohhhkay.  That won't make news anywhere.  Just FYI, the state doesn't regulate development on private lands; that's the job of the individual counties.  And yeah, those 'condos' will be affordable only to the select few.

Are we just going to abandon the mystery arsonist storyline?

3 hours ago, Artsda said:

New guy comments at the end  warning Gabriela makes me think he's not a good person. 

I could swear I saw his face morphing into Gallo from Chicago Fire.  A little jealous, eh?

[mythoughtis]

Eve has several promotions  to go before she would reach  Sharon’s level.  She’s not even anywhere near Vince’s level.  At this point she should be shadowing Vince.  Vince is still hands on.  

[possibilities]

Vince is probably still mad at her for reporting him and Manny at the bridge rescue, so I don't see him offering her any mentorship any time soon. I did like that he didn't smile for the photo and he turns out to have been sympathetic to the protesters, having been one himself.

But this show is all tell, no show. 

I notice the ads are selling the inmate aspect of the show, but the show itself barely mentions it.

[buckboard]

Made no sense for Sharon and Vince to turn around with their b'day cake when they saw Bode with his two friends.  Why not join them?  They didn't come across Bode and Gabriella shacking up in the fire department office.

Can people just come up to the prison camp and visit any time?  Someone seems to visit Bode every week after hours.

When Jake and Bode started having their argument in front of the woman strapped to the tree, Mrs. Buckboard and I started laughing.  Here they go again having this week's  inappropriate personal conversation in the middle of a dangerous situation.  If that was me tied to the tree with an approaching firestorm, I'd yell "Shut the f--K up and save your arguing until after you free me."

[Dowel Jones]

28 minutes ago, buckboard said:

Can people just come up to the prison camp and visit any time?  Someone seems to visit Bode every week after hours.

No.  It's strictly regulated.  But, in this show....

[Danielg342]

Since this show loves dropping its episode title somewhere during the episode, I'm going to borrow an old episode title to remind the show about what they should be doing.

"Work. Don't worry".

Because when the show decides to focus on a story and actually tell that story, they do wonders. When the show focused on telling the story of the battle between the money hungry developer and the concerned protes- sorry, Vince, I mean "demonstrators"- it was a wonderful piece of work.

For once I felt like I was watching an episode that had urgency and purpose. We don't get that enough on this show.

Sure, there were too many "talky" moments, because the writers still have not found that right balance of "talking" vs. "doing" in their episodes. Worst of it was Gabby getting frustrated at Bode's apparent silent treatment. I was hoping Bode would have told Gabby, "I'm not ignoring you, I just have to work", but no...in the middle of an immediate fire crisis, we need more childish drama.

*sigh*

That, though, is on the writers, because they decided to write the scene that way and frame the story in that particular way. The actors can only do what they have been told, and it's not their fault what they're being told to do doesn't make logical sense.

Other notes about this episode:

• I continue to enjoy the camaraderie of the prison camp, as well as the fact Bode played his birthday rather nonchalantly. Too often Hollywood will have the "birthday character" get upset and uppity that people make a big deal about their birthday, so it was nice that Bode just took everything in stride. Birthday chicken was a nice touch too, though his parents should have totally crashed the party with the cake.
• The actors all around again shined, but Billy Burke stood out here. Not just because he brings to life Vince's take-charge attitude but because we also got quite a bit of snark from the Chief, who didn't hide his disdain for the developer. Maybe Vince ought to have taken a bigger stand against posing for a picture with the developer, but, that's on the writers. Max Theriot and Jordan Callaway had a nice, touching moment at the end too.
• I wonder if Eve is being primed to take Sharon's position, or at least to move up somewhere in the ranks. I could see a situation where Sharon retires, Vince takes her position and Eve takes Vince's current position, since it gives Eve something of substance to do and keeps Vince and Sharon both on the show in some capacity. It would probably mean Diane Farr would have to be relegated to recurring status, but Sharon and Eve hardly do much on this show to begin with so something has to give.
• As annoying as the kidney transplant storyline is, at least Bode and Jake resolved it like adults. There has been some real character growth with those two, and it looks like- finally- their fences are mended.

22 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Are we just going to abandon the mystery arsonist storyline?

This episode was aired out of order. What aired as Episode 12 was originally supposed to be Episode 13, and this was supposed to be Episode 12.

So it's on CBS for why there was no follow-up to the mystery arsonist. I would expect the story to pick up in Episode 14, which looks to be aired in the proper spot.

[Dowel Jones]

3 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

This episode was aired out of order.

Thanks.  I forgot about that.  

 

3 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

Maybe Vince ought to have taken a bigger stand against posing for a picture with the developer, but, that's on the writers.

That's probably realistic.  A  lot of those posed photos in the newspapers, with Governors, Presidents, etc., with the fire engines in the back, are kind of "You will pose for the sake of the Department" directives from higher up.

[circumvent]

Gabriela, as the fire is raging all around them, the woman is still trapped to the tree: "Do we save Tatum or do we fight the fire?" WTF is she asking, and why is she even asking this question?

This Gabriela/Bode for (Broody) soap is so annoying. They decide to take a break and focus on work, then they questions each other's "distance". Or maybe because the episodes were out of order, but still annoying. The developer saying that he was trying to help solving the housing crisis got a big snarky laugh out of me and I wish Billy Burke had unleashed even more of his snark. It is not because the are burns easily, it is because working class people cannot afford those houses.

The the same clueless developer asking if the people with the cameras were filming him. Oh boy.

In real life the protestors would be in jail and charged with domestic terrorism. Timely episode, CBS 🙄

Diane Farr didn't overact too much this time but the actress who plays Eve did. The director needs to do a better job with her because she acts as if she is in a theater. Is she a stage actor? I never saw her before on TV.

The CGI is so bad, I can't even

[Danielg342]

On 2/5/2023 at 4:50 AM, Dowel Jones said:

That's probably realistic.  A  lot of those posed photos in the newspapers, with Governors, Presidents, etc., with the fire engines in the back, are kind of "You will pose for the sake of the Department" directives from higher up.

I understand. That I'm not complaining about. I think when Vince was with Sharon he should have made it a bigger deal than it was. Perhaps we could have found out, say, that Vince kept pushing off the photo op and now the developer is getting annoyed so Sharon has to push Vince to accept. The Vince-Sharon scene suggested that the photo op was just a minor inconvenience for Vince when, deep down inside, it was a bigger deal.

[mythoughtis]

On 2/5/2023 at 12:43 AM, Danielg342 said:

This episode was aired out of order. What aired as Episode 12 was originally supposed to be Episode 13, and this was supposed to be Episode 12.

This statement doesn’t work for me.  The new firefighter was introduced in the episode that aired last week and is fighting the fire in this weeks. So those scenes are in order as aired. 

It’s the same for the kidney transplant list, matches, tests, etc.   

I just don’t see how the episodes are supposedly aired out of order  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2023 by mythoughtis

[Danielg342]

8 minutes ago, mythoughtis said:

This statement doesn’t work for me.  The new firefighter was introduced in the episode that aired last week and is fighting the fire in this weeks. So those scenes are in order as aired. 

It’s the same for the kidney transplant list, matches, tests, etc.   

I just don’t see how the episodes are supposedly aired out of order

I'm just the messenger...unless there's something about The Futon Critic I don't know about, I've got no reason to doubt their information. Of course, even if they're reliable, they can still get it wrong every now and then and maybe they got it wrong here.

[NJRadioGuy]

I'll preface this by saying I know little to nothing about brush fire fighting, beyond what I remember from watching Johnny and Roy in the 70s, but with that said, once the SUV got going, the first thing I saw in the middle of the screen were those Big Honkin' Propane tanks (or whatever gas that was). Job 1, get those the hell away from anything potentially combustible. Re that dragon contraption, a K12 could have gotten through the apex of that in about 2 seconds flat. Maybe try pulling the burning car away from anything further combustible before things got out of hand? Just silly any way you look at it.

[Danielg342]

3 minutes ago, NJRadioGuy said:

Re that dragon contraption, a K12 could have gotten through the apex of that in about 2 seconds flat.

For what it's worth, Leslie Murphy- who played Tatum- said on her Instagram page (because I asked the question :P) that the sleeping dragon the show used was a prop.

Now, I realize that there's no such thing as a "real" sleeping dragon- they're all ad-hoc devices made by the protester themselves- but it's possible this was created by someone in the prop department who merely researched sleeping dragons and never actually made one themselves. I also suppose there may be liability issues preventing the show from making a "real" sleeping dragon, since in the case of an actual emergency on set everyone would have to leave quickly.

I thought the prop was pretty good, but then again, I'm not an expert on sleeping dragons, so make of all that what you will.

[circumvent]

4 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

This statement doesn’t work for me.  The new firefighter was introduced in the episode that aired last week and is fighting the fire in this weeks. So those scenes are in order as aired. 

It’s the same for the kidney transplant list, matches, tests, etc.   

I just don’t see how the episodes are supposedly aired out of order  

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe they edited out of order. Some shows shoot several episodes at once, so maybe the scripts said one thing but they decided to change and edited scenes initially meant for one episode into another episode. Of course, one would have to go and review if a possible edited scene would fit in the new plan but I am not invested in the show to care one way or another. I think it is more likely that the writing is just bad

[Sake614]

8 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

This statement doesn’t work for me.  The new firefighter was introduced in the episode that aired last week and is fighting the fire in this weeks. So those scenes are in order as aired. 

It’s the same for the kidney transplant list, matches, tests, etc.   

I just don’t see how the episodes are supposedly aired out of order  

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah I was thinking the same. Gabriella mentioned the kiss, Jake knew he was a match last week and debated saying anything. And I’m fairly sure the new kid is a fire bug. If not him, another firefighter. They showed the boots with flame retardant on them while the person was setting the fire. Then again, there was no follow up to that fire, so who knows?

[FnkyChkn34]

10 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

This statement doesn’t work for me.  The new firefighter was introduced in the episode that aired last week and is fighting the fire in this weeks. So those scenes are in order as aired. 

It’s the same for the kidney transplant list, matches, tests, etc.   

I just don’t see how the episodes are supposedly aired out of order  

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I agree. I was going to comment the same thing, even forgetting about the new guy. Jake being a match for the kidney made sense the way it was aired. He was reluctant to tell anyone last week as he was debating if he wanted to do it; this week everyone knew and he changed his mind.  

The episodes made sense in the order they were aired to me. 

[Dowel Jones]

9 hours ago, circumvent said:

Some shows shoot several episodes at once, so maybe the scripts said one thing but they decided to change and edited scenes initially meant for one episode into another episode.

Interesting sidelight here:  Anyone who's ever watched the old series 'Dragnet' will notice that Jack Webb had the same gray suit every single episode, except for a few specific scenes.  This was intentional, so they could do just that sort of editing.  Not that it mattered too much, the plot was almost always the same...

[jabRI]

I still say Vince and Sharon are lousy parents.  Your kid turned 30, you're going to leave him alone with all of his 2 friends eating Costco chicken, and walk away with the cake.  Sheesh!  If you didn't want to 'intrude' stay for one piece of cake then leave, saying Sharon needs her rest (probably mostly true anyway).. Instead Bode is made to think his parents forgot his birthday or didn't think it was worth mentioning.  Yeah, go home and make Bode's breakfast for your husband.  Your caring is abyssmal.

[TV-watcher]

I actually thought the fire started by the Molotov cocktail was started by the arsonist/new firefighter. Notice the protestors insisted it wasn’t them and they were trying to protect the forest, not burn it down. 
He came running up almost immediately when it started with 2 fire extinguishers in hand IIRC. 
I think eventually we will get flashback scenes showing us which fires he set and this will be one of them. 
 

[CoyoteBlue]

Ok, this might be a totally ridiculous question, posed out of complete ignorance but:

Is there any way they could have cut down the tree she was wrapped around low enough to lift her over the stump? Or would it just be insanely dangerous to everyone involved?

[Dowel Jones]

That was actually my first thought.  It's not a huge tree.  For a skilled sawyer (paging Bode....), it would be possible.  You have to woman prone out on the ground, and cut the stump high enough to avoid any contact with her, but low enough so that she could stand up afterward and slide the trap off the top.  The risks would be in getting the tree to fall in an open area so that it doesn't hang up in the other trees.  If it's leaning in one direction it almost has to go that direction.  It would be a delicious irony to cut down a tree to save the tree hugger.

[circumvent]

On 2/10/2023 at 8:26 PM, jabRI said:

I still say Vince and Sharon are lousy parents.  Your kid turned 30, you're going to leave him alone with all of his 2 friends eating Costco chicken, and walk away with the cake

Sorry, but he is 30, not 3. I get your point, they had the cake right there and could just drop it off and leave. But he is 30! I don't think they were specially lousy parents at that moment. 

But I also get that they wanted him to have friends and he seemed to be enjoying the moment. Helicopter parents of an adult would be creepy. But again, they had the cake. Drop it of, walk away. 

[Danielg342]

4 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

The risks would be in getting the tree to fall in an open area so that it doesn't hang up in the other trees.

Sounds like something that's "last resort" material rather than the first choice. The other question I have in this regard- because I am not a botanist- would be where one would cut a tree while keeping it viable. According to eHow, anything less than a foot off the ground is not viable anymore.

3 hours ago, circumvent said:

I also get that they wanted him to have friends and he seemed to be enjoying the moment. Helicopter parents of an adult would be creepy. But again, they had the cake. Drop it of, walk away.

I think Sharon and Vince could have dropped off the cake, read the situation, and then decide to stay or leave. It's small town, rural California- Sharon and Vince aren't random fifty-somethings, they have an actual relationship with Bode and his friends and they'd be at least cordial with each other even if they don't seek each other out to hang out. No reason the default should be to walk away- Bode and his friends might reasonably invite them to stay.