Chicago Fire interview: EP Derek Haas on Stella, Severide, season 9 ideas

Wednesday night’s Chicago Fire season 8 finale was an atypical one, to say the least. It wasn’t planned as the final episode, but there was still some important stuff that went down — Foster seems to be looking towards a different career path, Capp found himself in a little bit of danger, and some relationships seem to be moving forward.

Want some teases on the future of these relationships? Below, executive producer Derek Haas takes CarterMatt through a few different aspects of both the end of this season and the start of next one, including whether or not some of the planned storylines will remain or be changed due to the current health crisis. This is, after all, altering much of the first-responder world as we know it.

CarterMatt – Capp had a big story within this episode, and I rather like it when we get to see these guys who can at times be a little more under the radar. Is there a workshop process that goes on throughout the year to figure out the best plots for a character like that?

Derek Haas – We have a great writer’s room and we are always trying to do something fresh and original.  It felt believable that we might off Capp in the episode since it is harder to make an audience believe it will happen to one of the leads.  That added a sense of danger to the episode that we needed.

Do you plan on mixing in some of your planned-out season 8 stories for season 9, even though the world is so much different now than when they were written?

Yeah, I think we can adapt the storylines we were going to do to the new season. We’ll have to discuss that in June when we get back to the writer’s room.

With Cruz now married (hooray!), could there be any other relationships advancing in the new season? Kidd and Severide seem to be in a great place…

I think that’s a good thing to explore next season.  They sure were making eyes at each other during the wedding ceremony. Come to think of it, so were Casey and Brett.

Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to see more Chicago Fire on NBC this coming fall.

What do you want to see when it comes to Chicago Fire season 9?

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