[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Fire Country Season 3 Episode 7 “False Alarm.”]
When Jared Padalecki was first cast as Camden on Fire Country, it was said that there was potential for him to get a spinoff. Now that his three-episode arc has wrapped, it’s easy to see how he’s been set up for just that.
Camden came to Edgewater as Bode’s (Max Thieriot) Phase 3 training instructor, and from the start, he’s rubbed people the wrong way; notably, Jake (Jordan Calloway) and Sharon (Diane Farr) weren’t exactly pleased with how he went about things on Bode’s first call, sending him on top of a plane on fire. Then, in the second episode, he clashed with Vince (Billy Burke) when it came to a fire threatening an eagle’s nest. In fact, Bode choosing to stay and help his father and friends almost led to him not graduating. But after Bode and Camden—along with cadet Audrey (Leven Rambin)—survived a hostage situation together, and words were exchanged, Bode graduates.
It was in Episode 6 that we learned that Camden’s younger brother died in a fire 10 years ago. Vince told Camden about Bode losing his sister, and that while it’s taken time, he’s finally crawling out from under the loss; while the pain will never go away, he’s all in, honoring his sister by doing everything he can to heal himself. Camden wasn’t ready to hear it.
Eric Milner / CBS
Then, in Episode 7, during the hostage situation, Camden called Bode Patrick while saying he was his responsibility and his idea to grab the guy’s gun was “how I keep you alive!” After, Bode called him out on it, and Camden shared that his brother died working with him. Hearing that, Bode could see how they have more in common than he thought—and not the loss of a sibling. Bode pointed out that Camden wanted to hold his entanglements against him and said his family would hurt his career, but he made him his surrogate brother. He couldn’t convince him that his relationships were holding him back when he couldn’t move past his own.
“Camden is able to take away a lot personally from Bode and Bode is able to take away professionally and personally things from Camden,” Thieriot told us earlier this season. “So they both certainly leave an impact on each other.”
Then, at the reception for the cadets’ graduation, Camden shared he was heading back to SoCal, closer to the beach, and he had unfinished business. Now if that doesn’t scream spinoff potential…
The door certainly seems open for one or for him to show up on Fire Country again. And executive producer Tia Napolitano had certainly teased that possibility ahead of the season.
“Bode is definitely going to help Camden. I think by the time we say goodbye to Camden this season, at least, all of our people and all of Edgewater will have really left an impression that Camden’s going to bring forward with him when he leaves us for now,” she shared with us. “When we say goodbye to Jared this season, it’s definitely not goodbye forever. You get the feeling that it’s a revolving door and he’ll be back again.”
Now, should that be on a spinoff—joining the upcoming Sheriff Country in expanding the universe—seeing him dealing with his past while continuing to help cadets in SoCal? Should that be, perhaps first, through more visits to Edgewater? Let us know in the poll and comments section below.
Fire Country, Fridays, 9/8c, CBS