Chicago Fire season 5, episode 15 review: Severide and Anna’s moment amidst chaos, tragedy
Our Chicago Fire season 5, episode 15 review kicks off a three-part crossover, and to say that this episode was dramatic was an understatement. Just over the course of one hour, we saw one of the biggest fires in the history of the show, a significant body count, and then also tensions erupting across the city over precisely what happened.
Let’s go back here to set this up, since this crisis is going to be at the center of the entire crossover. A building explosion led to the whole place going up in flames, and while Firehouse 51 did everything that they could to save lives, they could only do so much. There were some people that they just couldn’t get to, and others who had wounds too severe. This may be one of the deadliest accidents of its kind in the history of the entire city, at least within this fictional world.
Here’s where things started to get more personal: One of the victims was Lexi, Olinsky’s daughter. He arrived on the scene frantically searching for her, and this search eventually led to him taking off to Med in order to check on her condition. Will and Natalie told him that they would do everything that they could but there were no guarantees.
The crisis erupts
Unfortunately, here’s where things go from bad to worse, as the owner of said building is mobbed on the street after he apologizes for any role that it played in what went wrong. This whole story feels eerily similar to the one in Oakland that drew headlines last year, where there may have been so many violations that the people within the building didn’t stand a chance. The building owner insisted that he was just trying to help out some young people by letting them stay there, and the building wasn’t meant to have that many people in it.
To make matters worse, the building owner went and committed suicide in the Firehouse bathroom after being reminded of just how many lives were lost. You can argue that Boden really should’ve had someone go in there with him, but we don’t quite blame him for not thinking ahead there. This really isn’t the sort of place where these sort of tragedies occur in-house.
The suicide led to a press conference by Mark Jeffries, which marked your first appearance from a Chicago Justice character on the show.
The central mystery
Who was Kathy? This was someone the team was hunting for, but couldn’t quite find in the midst of everything that happened with the fire. Eventually, her parents turned up and thanked them for helping her daughter.
Our overall take
This was difficult to watch, just because the stakes were so high and the story so emotional. As far as high drama goes, it delivered. This had to be one of the most intense, gut-wrenching episodes of Chicago Fire we’ve seen since Shay’s death. While personally we prefer episodes with some more humor, that doesn’t take away from the top-notch quality that was here.
Oh, and one other important thing worth noting: Anna returned in the closing minutes to check up on Kelly. Not only that, but she decided that she wanted to move to Chicago to be with him. Episode Grade: A-.