Season 14 of Chicago Fire ended with a big cliffhanger as the majority of firefighters from Firehouse 51 were trapped in a building when the roof collapsed as they called for help: “Mayday! Mayday!” And tonight, we discovered who survived and who didn’t make it.
It turned out that all the firefighters who were on the ladder when it was engulfed in flames made it through. But in the building, Joe Cruz (Joe Miñoso) was trapped when the ceiling caved in, and he suffered a spinal injury, leaving him unable to walk.
“I think it’s important to honor the real risks that these folks take every day for all of us,” showrunner Victor Teran told Parade of his decision to paralyze Cruz, which means the original cast member will be written out of the series. “I think that’s why we went so hard into the severity of the injury, short of death. This is going to be not as bad as it gets, but it’s pretty darn bad. And this is just the kind of thing that happens. We need to tell stories like this because it’s real. And if we don’t ever do it, I think we can lose credibility.”
While Cruz is awaiting the results of his MRI, hoping that the news will be better, the CFD releases an incident report that implicates him in the death of the two victims who died, despite the fact that Cruz was responsible for saving five others.
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The story got picked up by a reporter from the Chicago Telegraph named Jacob Morales (Carlos Miranda) and it pushed Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney), who is now a Captain and is in charge of Firehouse 51, to put his career on the line to try to get at the truth. Severide, who we all know is one of the best arson investigators, manages to do just that, forcing the Telegraph to run a retraction and to save Cruz’s pension for him. An important thing because Cruz and his wife are expecting twins.
But once Severide found the proof, he wasn’t able to present it himself without — as mentioned — losing his job, so he calls Pascal (Dermot Mulroney) to do it for him.
“Our intention was to close [Pascal’s] arc out last season,” Teran says. “We wanted to bring him back for this last step, partly of course, because we did an immediate pickup [from where Season 14 ended] and he was there at the end of the finale last season. So, we had to have him in the episode.”
Before Pascal leaves for his new gig in Arizona, he does sit Severide down and give him a serious talking to about how he should conduct himself going forward.
“He really was the guy pushing Severide towards this role in 51,” Teran continues. “He really wanted Severide to carry on his legacy. So, he really comes to carry some wisdom and impart it to Severide as he’s sending him into this new role. I think what’s interesting about that scene in the premiere is that he’s seeing something that we’re going to be playing with, which is that Severide is a reluctant leader. We’ll unpack what’s going on with him internally over the first half of the season.”
Also, part of the Cruz storyline is the fact that Herrmann (David Eigenberg), who has been very helpful in obtaining the necessary equipment and manpower to handicap-proof Cruz’s house, hasn’t been able to bring himself to visit Cruz because Herrmann believes that Cruz thinks he was responsible for the accident.
“Cruz certainly would never blame Herman for what happened,” Teran said. “I think that he’s feeling a lot of feelings. And I think that sometimes when people go through difficult things like this, they can misdirect their feelings, their resentments. It takes time to come to a real understanding of what’s going on inside him. And he will do that. That’s going to be one of the most interesting parts of his last arc.”
Also in the Season 15 premiere, Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) gets promoted to training officer, but the four candidates that are sent to her for instruction leave a lot to be desired, and she questions whether she’s being tested.
“I don’t think that anyone among the higher ups was deliberately trying to test her,” Teran says. “Although I can say that because of who she is, she definitely rises to the occasion. And the fact that it is such a challenge is an incredible testament to her as a leader, and that’s not going to go unnoticed.”
Of the four recruits under Kidd’s instruction, not all of them will stay at Firehouse 51, with Teran adding, “I don’t want to say too much about who’s staying and who’s going that’s really meant to be decided over the course of the first five, six episodes. It’s not exactly like they’re vying for a spot because there’s no real spot open at 51 right now.”
Of the four, money is on Da’Vinchi who plays recruit Marcus Burke and Matthew Daddario as candidate McCaffrey to hang around for a while.
Related: Chicago Fire Adds New Series Regular Amid Season 15 Cast Shakeup
It also turned out that there was more to Jacob Morales than he wanted to initially admit. He went to the same high school as Violet Makami (Hanako Greensmith) and part of the reason he was interested in covering the story about Firehouse 51 was to reacquaint himself with her. Once he runs the retraction, Jacob and Violet meet for a drink at Molly’s.
“He’s a complicated character,” Teran shares. “He’s very smart. He and Violet connect on a personal level, not just because of their shared past, but obviously there’s a little bit of chemistry between them, but the position that he has in the world as a reporter and his ambitions and commitment to that job are going to make it real complicated for them to be anything more than friends ultimately. But I think you can see the sparks between them in that scene at Molly’s and that wasn’t your lying eyes lying to you. There’s definitely a little something going on there. I just don’t know exactly what it’s going to be yet.”
Of course, Violet comes with a lot of romantic baggage, having been very unlucky in love in her past relationships, and more of that will be unpacked going forward, as well as other revelations about her life.
She’s not the only one who might have some romance in her future. There may still be hope for Novak (Jocelyn Hudon), who bit the bullet and told Vasquez (Brandon Larracuente) that she was interested in more than casually in the Season 14 finale, and he never responded to her, making their interactions in the Season 15 premiere episode awkward.
“There’s definitely something between them,” Teran says. “It’s just complicated. I think other things happened that night and we don’t know what they are, but we will discover over the course of the first group of episodes, what that was and see where that leads.”
Chicago Fire airs Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Streams next day on Peacock.
Next, Chicago Fire Season 15 Is Undergoing a Major Shakeup Ahead of Its Return
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