From the minute Olivia Thirlby stepped onto the screen of Fire Country Season 5, it was clear that CJ was hiding a past. It’s going to take time to peel back the layers, but it’s clear that she is a former firefighter with a past.
She wasted no time in helping out when a sinkhole caused havoc at the Founders’ Day festivities. It didn’t even matter that she didn’t know these people, or that she ended up in the sinkhole by accident — all thanks to a free cup of coffee. She knew that people needed help.
Thirlby chatted with Parade about getting the initial sides for her character and what drew her into the role. We then moved into what to expect as CJ gets more involved on Fire Country Season 5.
“I am very compelled by flawed characters,” Thirlby said as we talked about the layers that CJ clearly has. “I like telling those stories because I find them so personally relatable. I think they’re universally relatable because that’s the human journey: working through and confronting your own darkness and finding out how it balances with your light sides.”
And it’s true. Some of the most compelling characters for fans of any TV show have been those reckoning with something. Gone are the days when we want a woman who is a damsel in distress. We want someone who is going to hold herself accountable for her own flaws and work through them.
When it came to delving into the role, Thirlby found a few character traits that she loved, including CJ being “dry and sarcastic and a little spiky. She’s very salty and is a bit of a hard shell that masks the tender bits inside. That’s my favorite kind of character to play.”
The first time we meet CJ, it’s in the woods, when a poor choice leads to Bode coming to find her. She has a campfire in the middle of a forest under a fire ban, while Bode and Eve are already putting out a fire just close by. There’s a fun confrontation, as CJ shows just how to handle a strange man dressed as a firefighter coming into the woods.
“The more you learn, the more you’ll see she does have a reason to be suspicious,” Thirlby went in, as we talked about how CJ has no idea that Bode is actually one of the good ones out there. “She definitely has trust issues, and that is what makes her journey with all these people so fun. She wants to trust Bode, and takes his word for it that it’s the best coffee in town. Don’t we all want to trust that people are nice and kind?”
There is certainly a connection that quickly forms between CJ and Bode, and not because they work well together in the depths of the sinkhole. There’s an unexpected sense of kindred spirits.
That being said, the sinkhole is definitely a chance for her to shine: “It was really fun, and another thing that drew me to this role. It’s physically demanding, and they did forewarn me about that.”
If CJ is trying to run from her firefighter past, why would she jump straight into helping this town full of strangers, though? Why would she agree to do the After Action Report? It all comes down to the calling that firefighters have.
“It was fun to dive into the first responder world and why people choose to serve in this way. There’s an instinct and impulse to just roll up your sleeves and get right in there to support in whatever way you know how. She’s highly trained, so she knows how to support. Autopilot just takes over, and she dives back into her training and passion.
By the end of the episode, she reveals that she will stay in Edgewater for a while. That’s not completely by choice, as it turns out one of the exploding sewer grates hit the front of her car, and now it needs to be fixed. However, it looks like she could stick around and help out Station 42.
As Manny learns that the funds he was relying on to hire more people to fight fires are now going to repairing Main Street, Bode comes up with the idea of restarting the Volunteer Firefighting Program. There’s a look of respect from CJ as he comes up with this plan, and people start rallying around the idea of asking the town of Edgewater to protect its own.
“CJ has her reasons why she wouldn’t want to be in the environment or community of a station house, but despite herself, it’s where she is at home,” Thirlby explained, describing the look and the feeling she felt her character had when filming those moments. “I think she’s experiencing a confrontation of her own conflicting impulses, which is to forget these people and move along as if nothing happened, and the genuine pull and draw into this place.”
There will be a shock to the system for CJ, in a way, as not many places have the Cal Fire program that Fire Country has shown from the beginning. What could it be like for her to see how the firefighters and the inmates work together? There are certainly elements of her past that will play into this.
“CJ has a tremendous respect for the duality of the human experience. One of the themes of the show is that no one is the worst thing they’ve ever done, and CJ absolutely has her own versions of that. Everybody has consequences for mistakes, and we’re all just humans who ultimately want to be a part of something and want to belong. Everybody is worthy of help, support, and second chances.”
As for Thirlby, she is as excited to see how the storylines play out. While she’s filmed them, she hasn’t seen the cut episodes yet, and that’s always a treat. There’s plenty to come as we get to know CJ more throughout Fire Country Season 5.
Fire Country airs on Fridays at 9/8c on CBS and streams the following day on Paramount+.