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Burn Notice: Chad (Billy Flynn) and Julie (Susan Seaforth Hayes) are horrified when a fire engulfs the Horton house.
A peaceful night at the Horton home turns deadly when a devastating fire erupts and the storied house goes up in flames.
Before the blaze engulfs the home, Chad and Julie are putting Thomas and Charlotte to bed, and Julie tells them a story about their family home and its history. “It’s always nice to get to share the show’s history with the audience and new cast, whether that’s on camera or off,” shares Julie’s portrayer, Susan Seaforth Hayes . “I always treasure that.”
Once the kids are asleep, Chad thanks Julie for the help she and Doug have provided him since Abigail’s death, adding that he feels more like a Horton these days. “Julie is very receptive of that,” says Seaforth Hayes. “She reiterates endlessly how hard it has been for him, losing his wife. And Julie is obviously 100 percent looking at him as a new member of the family — a real member of the family and not a DiMera anymore. I haven’t had any snappy lines about Stefano or about being a DiMera, fortunately. So I’ve been able to play that one through line of support.”
Once they finish their chat, it’s, “Goodnight, everything’s fine,” notes Seaforth Hayes. And they both head upstairs to retire for the night.
But as the family sleeps, tragedy strikes. Fortunately, Julie and Chad are quickly alerted to the situation. “They walk downstairs and see the fire,” explains Seaforth Hayes. “They immediately run in various directions, run all over to save the day. Chad goes to get the kids out and to get the fire extinguisher.”
Once Doug, Julie and the kids are safely across the street, they realize Chad is not there. Julie goes back to the house and finds him trying to put out the fire. She tries to extricate him from the dangerous situation, but it looks like they’re trapped by the flames around them. “The fire is going like mad in the living room, in this room they all know so well,” says Seaforth Hayes.
Julie and Chad do make it out alive, joining Doug and the children across the street and out of harm’s way. “There’s a nice sequence outside the house watching the house burn,” elaborates Seaforth Hayes. “[The cameras] pans across everybody looking at the destruction of everything. It looks quite hopeless. There are ashes, smoke and filth… It’s a sad heap.”
The scene hits Julie hard, considering her decades-long affiliation with the beloved house. “Everybody has come and gone and had experiences there,” points out Seaforth Hayes. “This was the [home of the family’s] matriarch and the patriarch. And then there’s Tom’s chair. What will happen to Dr. Tom’s chair?”
Later, Chad receives a cryptic phone call and hears an ominous message: “Maybe next time, you’ll listen,” which prompts him to realizes the fire was no accident: someone deliberately torched the house. Julie has “not a clue,” about this, according to Seaforth Hayes.
Indeed, Julie’s focus is on rebuilding the home and keeping the Horton legacy alive. “Julie’s take on it after is determination to not lose the sense of the house, to not lose what was there emotionally,” Seaforth Hayes reports. “And she’s driving the reconstruction of the house a lot. That has been lovely to play.”
