‘Chicago Fire’ season 3, episode 17 review: Who was fired? Also, Mouch’s revelation

Is the Pridgen era on “Chicago Fire” over already? That is something that we wondered as the new Chief started to get himself deeper and deeper into his psychotic revenge mission, and we saw this play out extensively on Tuesday night’s new episode of the show.

For most of the episode, it appeared as though Pridgen had almost all of the cards as a means to take down Casey over what happened between him and his ex. He sent him on a mission he knew would look terrible to the higher-ups, and he tried to use the divisions in the firehouse in order to ensure that he was properly ratted out. While Pridgen did not count on was Welch having a little bit more of a moral authority than he figured he would. He refused to lie for his boss’ “mistakes” (driven mostly by his thirst for revenge), and was promptly fired as a result.

Also, we learned soon after that Pridgen was relieved of his duties. As it turned out. Boden’s wife actually wanted him to return to work sooner rather than later, so this all worked out perfectly. He gets to be where he belongs, he’ll support his family, and everything will return to normal … or as normal as normal can be. Maybe Welch will be able to come back sooner rather than later.

The B-story tonight was a particularly emotional one, as Mouch learned that he had a son out there who was looking for him. He claimed that he was going to meet him … and then bailed at the last second. Pretty sad, especially since he didn’t have the courage to tell the truth about it. This has to come back at some point, doesn’t it?

With all of these elements in mind, we’d say that this is probably one of the strongest episodes of the series in some time. Grade: B+.

What was your take on this “Chicago Fire” installment? As always, we want to hear from you in the comments! Also, you can head over here to preview more of what lies ahead on the series, or sign up now to get some further TV updates on everything we cover, courtesy of our official CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)