), the stepsister of Cal Fire’s division chief Sharon Leone (Diane Farr), as she navigates a complicated relationship with her ex-con marijuana-grower father Wes (W. Earl Brown) while he tries to go legit. Clashing with her daughter Skye (Amanda Arcuri), who is trying to make better choices that will stop getting her in trouble, Mickey has a lot to juggle in a town that is already quick to judge someone they know so much about.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, showrunner Matt Lopez discussed what makes Mickey Fox such an exciting character to center a series around, all the layers that Baccarin brings to the role, sharing a common DNA with

Fire Country while becoming its own thing, what Brown and his “pirate” character bring to the series, Edgewater crossovers, the complicated Mickey-Cassidy (Michele Weaver) friendship, being toward between being a sheriff and being a mother when it comes to her daughter, and what he’s most enjoyed about how this ensemble is coming together.

Showrunner Matt Lopez Loves the Duality of Mickey Fox in ‘Sheriff Country’

“She is a person who puts up some armor, but she cares so deeply about her town.”

Collider: What drew you to this world and what do you love about a character like Mickey at the center of it?

Fire Country Season 2 and just captivated me. Morena got hired right around when they approached me. It was like, “Oh, and by the way, we’re talking to Morena Baccarin about this.” I actually did an ABC pilot with Morena’s husband, Ben McKenzie, and I’d gotten to know her. I’ve always been such a huge fan of hers. That was just the cherry on top because I knew what she could bring.

I also loved the idea, which I think the show delivers and makes very exciting, that it’s a show that very much plays in the waters that Fire Country does, in terms of this very common DNA that they share, with the small town vibes, the spirit of community, a certain spirit of hopelessness, and themes of redemption and community that come again and again. At the same time,

Sheriff Country has afforded us an opportunity, like the most successful spinoffs or second chapters, to find our own identity. That’s very much something that excited me, the idea of taking viewers of Fire Country to some corners of Edgewater that they’ve never seen before and playing in some waters that are maybe a little more treacherous and dangerous, in terms of the town.

In episode two, we introduced this idea of Deadwater. Mickey grew up there, which is really interesting. She’s a child of Deadwater, and to call it the other side of the tracks is an understatement.

 So, there’s this gray area of really rich stuff with a character who, at the end of the day, is going to do the right thing. It may be complicated, and it may be painful, but she does have this great sense of right and wrong. All the ingredients were there. I read that pilot, so memorably created by Tony [Phelan], Joan [Rater] and Max [Thieriot], and I was like, “This is a show that can go for a long time.”

LOPEZ: Yeah. Wes is great, and he’s portrayed so indelibly by W. Earl Brown. He’s an actor I’ve followed forever. Sometimes an actor and a role meet. Earl may not be a household name yet. For people who really are into TV, he is, but to a much wider audience, he is about to become a thing. The word we use for Wes in the writers’ room, more often than any other, is pirate.

He’s a pirate, and like a pirate, you never know from one moment to the next what he’s going to do. Will he tip toward the light or toward the darkness? Whichever one he does, it’s going to be charming as hell because that’s what he brings. It’s going to be funny because he brings a great element of comedy to the show. He is walking this razor’s edge. He made his daughter this promise that he would go legit. Whether he, in fact, will be able to honor that promise is something that is a great story that we’ll play in Season 1.

I thought it was so brilliant to have Wes step in when Skye was just not listening to the law side of things, as far as why she shouldn’t be with her boyfriend. She listened to the criminal side of things in a way that she wouldn’t listen to her mother.

As the Season of ‘Sheriff Country’ Progresses, You’ll See Less Expected Crossovers With ‘Fire Country’

“That’s the exciting thing about this town of Edgewater.”

You jumped right in with crossovers, having Max Thieriot bring Bode into the first episode. Did you intentionally want to bring him into things so early? Was it important to also give Bode someone he can talk to about addiction in a way that he can’t really, with most of the characters on his own show?

LOPEZ: It’s true. In Skye, he does have someone who is reliving struggles that he is intimately and unfortunately deeply acquainted with. In these early episodes, the Venn diagram of where the two shows overlap is very much centered in the Leone and Fox families that live at the core of this Edgewater universe. 

As we get deeper into the season, without giving anything away, what becomes very exciting is actually expanding from there, seeing some pairings between the two shows that might not be so obvious. We expect Bode and Mickey, but to see Boone cross with someone from

Fire Country or Wes cross with someone from Fire Country that he’s not related to, that’s the exciting thing about this town of Edgewater and creating this quilt, if you will, between these two shows.

LOPEZ: The Mickey-Cassidy relationship is one of my favorites in the show. Cassidy tells us, in the first episode, how she met Mickey. Cassidy’s origin story as a deputy is directly related to Mickey, and we will unpack that in future episodes. 

It goes much deeper and is more emotional than your typical sheriff/deputy relationship. That only enhances how fraught it is, emotionally. There is a later episode coming up where Mickey will ask Travis, and she and Sharon talk about it in episode two, “Of all the women in town, why my deputy? And not just my deputy, but why my protégé?” C