Sheriff Country Shocker: Mickey Went On A 'Date From Hell' With Fire Country's Manny?! (Exclusive Crossover Sneak Peek)

Friday's two-part crossover between "Sheriff Country" and "Fire Country" (CBS, 8/7c) reveals that two of Edgewater's finest share an unexpected romantic history — and things are about to get messy.

As we learn in TVLine's exclusive first look at the crossover, Mickey ("Sheriff Country" star Morena Baccarin) and Manny ("Fire Country" star Kevin Alejandro) went on a blind date back in the day, and they both have very different ideas about how that night turned out.

"We'll see some pairings that we didn't see [in the crossover] last year," showrunner Matt Lopez tells TVLine. "For example, we'll see Mickey and Manny, and Kevin and Morena have terrific chemistry. We will unpack that they actually have a history that we haven't been told about before, which is the worst date that each of them ever had. They were set up on a date by Mickey's sister Sharon, and neither of them has ever quite forgiven her for setting them up on this date. So they'll be thrown together in this crossover episode and forced to work together and unpack the date from hell."

That unpacking begins in our first look, as Manny pulls Mickey aside to "clear the air" during a particularly heated moment. Mickey is more playful about the whole thing, referring to their date as "the night to remain silent," but Manny isn't sugarcoating anything, calling it "the arson date from hell." (Wait, there was arson involved? Of course there was.)

Mickey reminds Manny that not only was he late, but he took her to a murder mystery dinner show. "You think I want to solve crimes on my time off?" she asks. He says he thought it would be a funny icebreaker, since he's an ex-con and she's in law enforcement, and that's where the duo begins to zero in on the source of their issue: What is Mickey's real problem with Manny?

Like the viewers, Morena Baccarin was surprised to learn about Mickey and Manny's apparent history, but she says it was "really fun to uncover a different kind of relationship" on the show. And uncover it they do!

"They start off at odds, not really getting each other, and then through this epic adventure that they go on, they really learn a lot about each other," Baccarin tells TVLine. "They become vulnerable, and you see the possibility of two people who could maybe have a go at it, but it's just bad timing. It was bad timing then, and it's perhaps bad timing now, but you never know."

Friday's crossover — which begins with "Sheriff Country" (Season 2, Episode 5) and continues into "Fire Country" (Season 5, Episode 5) — finds Edgewater's police and firefighters working together to catch a group of escaped convicts against the backdrop of another massive blaze.

"My background is in features before I wrote for television, and we broke it as one continuous story," showrunner Matt Lopez tells TVLine. "There won't even be credits between them. It's like a two-hour movie. I thought last year's crossover came out great, and I think this year's crossover is even better. It's action-packed, it's very suspenseful, and it features some amazing pairings."

One of those pairings is, of course, Manny and Mickey, as well as Bode (Max Thieriot) and Boone (Matt Lauria), a pairing that Thieriot affectionately refers to as Bootie. "They bring such great buddy cop movie vibes to that relationship," Lopez says.

Hit PLAY on the video above for an exclusive sneak peek of Friday's "Sheriff Country"/"Fire Country" crossover event, then drop a comment with your thoughts below. Do you hope Mickey and Manny give things another shot someday?