Fire Country's Michael Trucco Warns of Biggest Threat Yet to Three Rock: 'All Hell Breaks Loose'

When last we tuned in, terminally ill Three Rock inmate Rudy braved an escape, and during his brief time on the lam, it appeared that he had killed the county sheriff as well as shot a lieutenant in the arm. It turned out, though, that said sheriff's lieutenant was crooked and had offed his boss himself.

Although Rudy had not committed murder before being caught, the incident has ignited concerns among the Edgewater community — to a degree that the Three Rock fire camp's very existence, which was already being called into question, is threatened.

To hopefully calm tempers, Three Rock captain Eve (Jules Latimer) this week leads a news crew on a tour of Three Rock, all the while with Luke looking, very closely, on.

"There's a bit of a backlash happening in the local community around Three Rock, so we have some damage control, a little 'spin doctoring' to do," Michael Trucco, who recurs as Luke, tells TVLine.

Along the way, Luke will have to play "bad cop" and make some tough calls about what is and isn't said — and who does and does not appear on-camera to represent the embattled Three Rock.

"I'm always curious to see what they've cooked up for Luke," says Trucco, who last appeared in this season's premiere. "He's the proverbial box of chocolates — you never know what you're going to get."

Luke made his Fire Country debut early in Season 1, and proceeded to almost drive a wedge between brother Vince (Billy Burke) and his kidney-needing wife Sharon (Diane Farr). Now, having replaced Sharon as Cal Fire Division Chief, Luke is determined to do whatever is necessary to keep Three Rock in the state of California's good graces.

"That's what I love about the dichotomy of this character they created for me, that you can't paint Luke with one solid brush stroke," Trucco notes. "[This week] he is genuinely handing the reigns to Eve, because he loves to see her succeed, but sometimes when Luke is on a quest to do the right thing, he 'steps in it' and creates conflict that makes things worse. But I dig that about him."

No amount of spin doctoring, however, will be able to divert the visiting news crew's attention when protesters arrive outside a new fence that the inmates are erecting around Three Rock, and harsh words begin to be exchanged….

"That's the wild card," Trucco teases. "You have Luke trying to keep the story positive, and you have people outside the gate getting agitated… That's where all hell breaks loose."

Can Three Rock survive the threat of another blemish on its record? Trucco is mum, but says that the events of this week will "affect the rest of the season," which airs its finale on May 17.

"Three Rock is the beating heart of the show, so the idea that it could close is very upsetting," says the actor. "If this one camp, Three Rock, proves that it doesn't work, they might take the whole system away."

Though there has been a bit of daylight between Trucco's Season 2 Fire Country appearances, one needn't turn the TV's proverbial dial far to catch sight of him somewhere else. Last summer, he co-starred on BET+'s Average Joe; in October, he played a real snake of a boss in Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher; and he pops up now and again on ABC's The Rookie, as ADA Sean del Monte.

What is the very craziest that juggling multiple gigs has gotten for Trucco?

"The epitome of it was in late 2022," he says, before detailing how with several Average Joe episodes left to shoot in Atlanta, Fire Country needed him in Vancouver for a "pivotal" episode featuring Luke and Vince. The outlook of making the Fire Country encore happen was bleak until "there was this last minute audible, some internal communication between CBS and Paramount, the parent company of BET+," he shares.

As a result, Trucco flew from Atlanta to Vancouver overnight, to make a 6:30 am call time and shoot Fire Country "for 12, maybe 14 hours"… catch 40 winks at a hotel ahead a 4:30 am pickup for the airport… and then fly back to Atlanta (connecting through Denver!) and be driven straight to set to finish his scenes for that Average Joe episode.

"I had no idea what time zone I was in, what country I was in…," Trucco recalls with a laugh. "But I had this moment, this realization, that this is the greatest gig in the world.

"I was tired, and cranky, but overwhelmed with gratitude. Look at what I get to do!" he adds. "That moment was not lost on me."

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