‘Chicago Fire’ season 5, episode 8 review: The good, bad for Dawson, Casey in 100th episode
While we did offer up a brief take on the Dawson – Casey wedding last week, we haven’t gotten around until now to posting our full thoughts on “One Hundred,” easily the most important episode of “Chicago Fire” in some time. It’s a milestone, an achievement, and most importantly to longtime fans of the show, a great opportunity to celebrate the legacy of a show that has become what we consider to be the quintessential network drama in 2016.
The first thing that “Chicago Fire” does that other networks shows do not anymore is offer up some humor, and remind us that not everything is gloom and doom all of the time. In “One Hundred,” much of that came out of the Molly’s story as Otis found himself desperate to throw the bar a celebration for its 100th birthday, not realizing that in doing so he was celebrating a violent legacy. After a reporter came to visit the bar during its celebration, he learned that the previous bar was the site of many brutal killings during the Al Capone era. Not great! Herrmann was understandably furious because of the amount of time invested into making this celebration something big, but in the end, he realized that Otis may have still stumbled onto something: It just turned out that there were countless people who would want to drink at the same bar that Capone shot people. Yes, it is a very demented world that we live in.
For those of you who watch the show for some of the daring rescues, rest assured that there were plenty of those over the course of the episode. Yet, at the same time we wouldn’t consider any of them so memorable that you’d remember them a week from now.
The main event of the hour really was setting up the wedding, which came for the two of them after they realized at the Molly’s party that life was short, and since they love each other (they are trying to move forward as a family with Louie, after all), there was no reason to wait to get to the next point in their lives. Everyone at the firehouse ended up attending the ceremony, which was very much in their personal style. There were few frills, it was personal, and it cemented a commitment further that was really already there. In some ways, the two characters are imperfect; yet, they help to cover and improve those imperfections. They make each other better people, which is one of many great reasons that they are so good together.
The twist – Not everything can be so rosy here in the end. During the closing minutes of the episode, we saw a mystery man, someone who’d been following Casey for most of the episode, reveal that he was actually Louie’s father. This complicates things, since it could make the attempts to keep the child all the more important. It doesn’t mean that the characters are about to lose their new child, but it does throw some further wrenches into their future plans.
Yet, we think they will emerge through this, largely because emerging through tough times is one of the many things that this show does so well. This is a series that is in many ways about heroism, and rebuilding something that has been burned to the ground. Time and time again, these characters fight through physical and emotional fires, and even when things burn, they find a way to rebuild into something beautiful once more.
Congrats, “Chicago Fire” — here’s to hoping to a hundred more! Grade: A-.
To see some further news regarding “Chicago Fire” and the future of the show, be sure to head over to the link here right now! (Photo: NBC.)