Chicago Fire interview: Derek Haas on season 6 finale, Dawsey, Boden, Cruz, and more

The Chicago Fire season 6 finale is coming up on Thursday night and with it being a two-hour event, there could be a number of big reveals. Casey and Dawson, for example, are nearing a big decision on their future; meanwhile, Boden could be making an important choice when it comes to his career. It’s certainly possible that there could be a cliffhanger in the closing seconds of this episode — after all, this is Chicago Fire! It’s hard not to expect something like this to go down.

In the second part of our two-part interview with showrunner Derek Haas, he explains the process of plotting out the finale, what could be coming next for Boden, and also how much planning he is doing at present for the seventh season of the show.

CarterMatt – Are we going to see both Grissom and Boden jockeying for the position of commissioner within these episodes?

Derek Haas – Yes. There are three big stories that we’re going to have going on in these two episodes. There’s the idea that Boden and Grissom are going to battle for the commissioner-ship, amongst other candidates. It’s going to get heated for the two of them.

The second main storyline we’re going to do is Renee coming back, and she needs an expert witness to help her case that she’s bringing against a refinery where some firefighters got hurt. She appeals to Severide’s love for the fire department to help her out. As we get more into that storyline we get more into what we liked about Renee before the craziness of her last couple of episodes. Before that, she was a really good romantic lead for Severide. Now, she’s got a five-year old kid. I’ve used this before, but we do a little bit of a Jerry Maguire where Severide sees how good of a mother she is to this kid and also competent at her job. This is going to come at an inopportune time for Stella Kidd.

Storyline #3, which got teased recently, was Dawson saying that she wants to try and get pregnant again. The ups and downs of trying for another baby are going to dominate the last couple of episodes.

When you come up with finales, is it consciously on your mind to try and do something different than the year before?

I would say 100% we look at what we’ve done before and not just in spring finale, but also those winter/fall finales. The last two finales, if you look at them back-to-back, we had Casey and Severide jumping off of a burning building in the winter finale. Then, before that we had everyone trapped in a building and Mouch had a heart attack while Casey was calling on the radio to say goodbye to his wife.

We decided that we wouldn’t go the spectacle route because we’ve already done it twice in a row, but we are going for some emotional wallops. They’re going to come really fast and furious in the last two acts of the two-hour event. There’s going to be some devastating haymakers thrown at the audience.

As the self-proclaimed head of the Joe Cruz fan club, I always root for him even though he’s been in some messy stuff lately. There’s been a lot going on with him and Brett and if those feelings are still there. Is that explored a lot in these last episodes?

Yes. Cruz’s dalliance with this high school flame rears its head into these episodes. Brett’s sitting there and she had this great, hot-and-heavy romance with Antonio. I don’t know that this is going away but she is looking at Cruz in a new light. He’s a rock. I’m in the fan club — I’m the second fan behind you in the Cruz fan club. He’s a great guy and a great character.

Are you already thinking about ideas and themes in the event the show comes back?

Fingers crossed it comes back. I’m always thinking where these stories are going. I’m not ending this season in such a way where anyone is going to be satisfied. We have thoughts about what next season is going to be. One of the things that I challenged the writers room with before they left for their hiatus is to be thinking about some of those ideas — when you look back at a season, what do you think about? Do you think about those huge episodes or the storyline turns that we tend to do? There are probably going to be new characters next year, so let’s think about some new characters we can add.

Related – Check out some more teases right away for the next new episode

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