Fire Country returns from its midseason break by picking up right where it left off: with the fire raging, threatening to destroy Eve’s (Jules Latimer) family’s ranch, Bode (Max Thieriot) and Audrey (Leven Rambin) trying to avoid the flames underwater (but she can’t swim!), and Manny (Kevin Alejandro) off searching for his daughter Gabriela (Stephanie Arcila) after she walked off the job without any of her gear.

The good news: Everyone lives and they manage to save the ranch! Audrey does end up in the hospital with a bronchospasm after taking in smoke and water, and Gabriela awkwardly sees Bode bringing her flowers in the hospital. (She thinks they’re for her at first, since she got her sprained ankle treated.) Sharon (Diane Farr) and Vince (Billy Burke) are keeping it under wraps that Manny technically escaped to find Gabriela; the Leones also were the ones to come to their aid before Bode, Jake (Jordan Calloway), Eve, and her father Elroy (Phil Morris) rescued them on horseback. Plus, Gabriela goes to see Manny at Three Rock after letting out how she’s really been doing (not well) during the fire, and they’re well on the path to healing.

Below, Alejandro, who directed this episode, takes us inside the midseason premiere and teases what’s ahead for Manny.

Talk about directing this episode because you have the Bode and Audrey underwater, the fire raging round everyone, Manny and Gabriela in the woods, Sharon and Vince driving through it.

Kevin Alejandro: Yeah, it was exactly what I think Fire Country is. I got so lucky to have a script that had every element, which represents the reason why our viewers love our show. Sometimes we have to slow things down and become more of a character personal driven episode, and sometimes we go higher action. And I had it all and I was so, so lucky, and it was a great challenge. But we don’t succeed unless we feel like it’s too hard.

Manny and Gabriela are finally in a good place. Talk about working with Stephanie.

Yeah, Stephanie and I naturally have a really beautiful chemistry. I really care for her so much as a human being, and I feel like there are moments where she does look up to me in real life. And so we carry that on and off screen. So it makes it easy. It almost feels like we’re not acting, we’re saying words, but both of us in our lives have had touches with those emotions in real life. So it just makes it easier to look into her eyes or her look into my eyes and know that there’s a trust there and know that wherever you go, I’m going to follow. And I think we just unspokenly have that confidence with each other.

And it was beautiful because Stephanie also was my shadow director on this episode, so she was with me for every moment. When you come to set as a director or as an actor or as a businessperson, when you have a big presentation, no one sees the work. They see the product. And so when you come to work after doing all the prep, you say X, Y, and Z. And they’re like, okay, great. But they don’t see what happens beforehand. And Stephanie had never experienced that before. And so I have to spend a lot of time at all the locations after hours when there’s nobody there. I get special privileges to go to the ranches, go to the location, sit there for hours and figure things out. And I took her with me to do that, and she was like, whoa, I had no idea that it’s this intense.

And I was like, well, I’m not sure that it’s that intense for everybody. It is for me because I’m relatively new at this, but I also really care about our show and care about our people and care what our audience thinks. I just care about Fire Country so much that I’m going to obsess about it. I’m going to not sleep until it’s over. And I don’t think she was quite expecting that, but she came away with just a different perspective of how it all works. And it was great because during those times that she was with me, we were rehearsing everything. So all the work that we did by ourselves usually, then we were doing it together. And I just think it just added a different level of dynamics. I wish we could have rehearsals for two days on every scene with all the characters the way that we do in theater. So yeah, it was a beautiful experience.

I really liked the scene at the end with them and it opens up on a shot of the Father and Daughter Healing Practice book. But it feels like they wouldn’t have gotten to that point without something extreme like what happened. But it must be so heartbreaking for him to listen to what she’s been going through.

You’re absolutely right. And that’s just the way it is in real life. Unless your eyes are open to the relationship either by force or by just a slap in the face of reality, sometimes we’re just blinded by what happens around us that we just don’t see it. I thought that this episode was a great example for all the relationships that are going on. If you take a look at it, all the relationships, the trio of heroes —Jules, Max and Jordan, Billy and Diane, Manny and Gabriela — we all are kind of slapped in the face to realize what the other one sees and how we can coexist again, and how we can figure things out. And it was, in particular, our relationship with Manny and Gabriela, so necessary and so vulnerable, and it’s wonderful that they’re at that point now where there’s an openness. It’s almost like that raw feeling. It’s like I knew that I was super f**ked up for so long, but I didn’t know what that weight was. I just knew there was tension. And by the end of it, it was just like, that’s what it was. Thank you for helping me realize it. And that book that you opened up with, I was adamant about it opening up with that. And if you look, little Easter eggs in there. So if you look closely, it’s written by my son.

Everyone understands why Manny did what he did, going to find Gabriela. He did technically go MIA. Are there consequences coming his way, or is everyone making sure to cover him? Or is he now tempted to confess to what he did?

There’s definitely cause and effect consequences, action and reaction. How’s this for sort of a roundabout answer? He walked off the job, he broke a bunch of rules. So yeah, I think you’ve got to deal with that. Of course, because Edgewater is so family oriented, people are going to step up for him as to whether or not it goes the way it’s supposed to, who knows?