Chicago Fire season 7 episode 19 review: The Casey, Brett hints continue
The thing working against this episode is timing, given that this episode had the challenge of airing immediately after another episode featuring a stranger showing up and effectively putting most of your favorites in danger over on Chicago Med. Here, a “firefighter from Detroit” did his best to do away seemingly with a kid who was hiding out at the firehouse after being a witness in a double-homicide. The man at the center of the case saw him get in the firetruck, follow it back to 51, and then pretended to be a firefighter riding out the storm.
At first, we thought that we were going to come into this review criticizing the show for having some of its firefighters continue to be so gullible to strangers — Otis let this guy in and at first, didn’t question his story at all. Yet, they addressed this a little bit later on in the episode — this is just in their nature to be warm, welcoming and to help people and while it may set them up for failure, it also helped them earn the trust of the kid in the first place. He felt safe there, and unfortunately, circumstances dictated that this man was able to follow them and try to infiltrate their ranks to cause some harm. The good news is that Otis caught onto him over time. He was able to recognize that there were parts of his story that didn’t make sense and beyond that, he didn’t even know basic firefighter terminology (a clear giveaway). Unfortunately, Otis was also knocked out before he was able to stop him from causing more problems, but he woke in just the nick of time to help.
It was a team effort stopping Fake Detroit Guy, while Stella protected the kid and Severide tackled him to keep him from shooting the gun at anyone. Eventually, Ruzek then showed up to arrest him (while also having an amusing exchange involving some strong language) and the case was officially closed. All of this was in the middle of a rainstorm, one in which an electrician ended up getting severely hurt, but was saved by Brett and Foster before he was sent off for further treatment.
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The state of some relationships
There were a few little romantic subplots in here … or plots that were at least romantically-adjacent. For Brett, it certainly feels like the show’s playing around with the idea of her and Casey. It’s basically akin to them putting a pinky toe into the water, but not ready to jump in for a deep dive. They showed it tonight with Casey’s idea of going on a random trip wherever there is cheap airfare (which Brett seems to be game for), and then also a few trademark longing looks and Casey going out of his way to pick her up at the police station after she had traveled there with Ruzek and the kid.
Could we see Chicago Fire going somewhere with these two eventually? Maybe, but it really shouldn’t be a this-season thing. Brett’s still recently single and we’re not quite sold on Casey getting together with Dawson’s former partner less than a year after her exit from the firehouse. Maybe this becomes something more, but the writers have a lot of work to do to have us fully buy into it.
As for Severide and Kidd, we consider what we got tonight to be hope for the two — Severide was steering clear of Molly’s because of Foster telling him that he needs to get his you-know-what together before he even thinks about getting back with Stella. He does seem to be listening, but Stella’s not the sort who wants someone (even a fellow firefighter) to fight her battles for her… even if Foster was really just trying to help.
CarterMatt Verdict
The pacing on Stella and Severide’s story is perhaps too slow, and with Casey and Brett, the longing looks are a little too soon. Yet, this episode was a nice return for Chicago Fire to TV, and certainly a reminder of why firefighters are both so trusting and susceptible to bad people doing bad things at the same time. It’s a tough balance that they gotta walk, but we certainly hope they don’t change after all this.
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What did you think about Chicago Fire season 7 episode 19 from start to finish? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments. (Photo: NBC.)