The season 9 finale was quite the cliffhanger with Severide (Taylor Kinney), Cruz (Joe Minoso), Capp (Randy Flagler) and Tony (Tony Ferraris) stuck in a capsized boat sinking to the bottom of Lake Michigan with their air tanks on empty—and he isn’t willing to reveal if they live or die! “I’m willing to say that that boat’s going to sink all the way to the bottom of Lake Michigan, and that this call is going to pick up right where we left off,” he tells Parade.com in this exclusive interview. “You know how we go five minutes and then the Chicago Fire logo comes up? That last shot before the logo comes up is going to have everyone ripping up their couch cushions saying, ‘Oh, my God! Did they actually do that?’” And, of course, it is especially poignant that Cruz’s life is in jeopardy. His wife is about to give birth to their first child, a son, and he never will have the opportunity to meet him if he dies. “We did that by design, of course,” Haas says. “In the finale, he’s talking about the shower that he’s going to after this shift ends. And then, of course, we put him in a situation where he may not make it to that shower. These are the kind of things we do on Chicago Fire.” But the season premiere isn’t the only action-packed episode this season. Chicago Fire will mark its 200th episode on the fifth episode into season 10 and it’s going to be a doozy. “Two hundred feels like such a huge marker for us that we thought and talked to NBC about the fact that we usually build to a winter finale, and we were like, ‘Why don’t we build to the 200th episode if you guys will promote it like it’s special? We’re going to give you one of our biggest episodes ever as the fifth one.’ It lives up to its billing. We’re going to make our 200th a show-altering plot.” In fact, Haas says there are going to be a lot of changes this season on Chicago Fire. Here is what he revealed to us.
No. 1: Matt Casey/Sylvie Brett
Derek Haas: The Brett (Kara Kilmer)/Casey (Jesse Spencer) situation picks up where we left off. Now because we are Chicago Fire, we don’t make things always easy for our new couple. So, there’s going to be some obstacles thrown at them, especially from events that take off with episode one and two. Sylvie gets involved in a new program called Paramedicine, which has to do with response times during the pandemic. Because so many non-threatening or non-emergency calls come in with people’s mental health or other aspects of the pandemic that when there actually is a life-threatening call, the response times have increased. So, Sylvie tries to bring this program to Chicago to alleviate some of the pressure on the 9-1-1 call center, and that becomes a major arc. And who she chooses to do this program with is going to be a fun one for the audience.
No. 2. Blake Gallo (Alberto Rosende)/Violet Mikami (Hanko Greensmith)
Derek Haas: At the end of last season we had Ritter (Daniel Kyri) look around at Molly’s Patio and be like, “Herrmann and Mouch have this great business, Casey’s got his construction business, and Cruz has his Slamigan. We, the three of us, should all get in business together.” And because of Violet and Gallo’s competitiveness, plus I would say sexual tension, Ritter’s going to regret having made that suggestion.
No. 3. Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo)/Chief Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker)
Because Haas won’t reveal whether or not the four members of the rescue team survive, he wouldn’t discuss the upcoming potential wedding for Kidd and Severide, but he did talk about her promotion. Derek Haas: There’s going to be major changes at 51 this year. That certainly is one of the things that’s going on, Kidd being taken out of 51. There’s also Boden, who may or may not become a deputy district chief, which would take him out of 51. Other characters on storylines you don’t even know about yet might have to leave 51. So, when I say that this is going to be a very big season for change, I’m not doing a fake-out.
No. 4. Mouch (Christian Stolte)
Derek Haas: We’ve done a Mouch retiring storyline a couple of times and pulled the football back from Charlie Brown, so that wasn’t really where our heads were. We’ve got a big episode coming where, as I would call them, the old dogs teach the new dogs some old tricks. That’s going to happen this season. Chicago Fire returns tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Next, See the First Photos! The Heat Is On When Chicago Fire Returns for Season 10!
