Chicago Fire season 6 midseason premiere recap: A Man’s Legacy
By John Cave
Did Ramon Dawson survive in the Chicago Fire midseason premiere? Here’s what happened in Chicago Fire season 6, episode 7.
Thursday’s Chicago Fire midseason premiere told us whether or not Ramon Dawson survived after being stabbed. It also told us a few things about other characters, too.
“A Man’s Legacy” begins with Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) and Ramon’s daughter Gabriela (Monica Raymund) trying to treat him in the ambulance. Gabby is understandably upset, so Brett tells her just to drive while she does the work.
With no time to spare, Brett is forced to make a tough decision that enables her to decompress Ramon’s chest in the ambulance. They make it to Chicago Med, where obviously we need a trauma surgeon, and you know who that means.
Some time later, Dr. Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell) tells Gabby that her dad will be okay, just moments after Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Gabby’s brother Antonio (Jon Seda) both get to the hospital. Time for an adorable hospital room moment!
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Chicago Fire shifts back to Firehouse 51, where Brett says Dawson will be back on shift despite a “psycho” attacking her dad, Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) apologizes to Brett, and Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) is awkward with Stella since she’s trying to avoid him after their kiss:
"Stella: I really need to get a life."
Meanwhile, Otis (Yuri Sardarov) has brought Lily (recurring guest star Ariane Rinehart) by to talk with the rest of the team about turning her family’s bar into Molly’s North.
He is not only totally smitten with her, but also wanting to tell them all about his “vision” for the new bar. Otis is thrilled when he gets their permission to head up the grand opening, but before he can get too excited, the alarm goes off. It’s time to go back to work, which starts with an electrical short circuit and leads to an elderly man unconscious on his apartment floor.
From posters on the wall, Boden (Eamonn Walker) recognizes the man as a legendary musician named Stoke Porter. He’s also taken to Med, so that enables Dawson to check on her dad and see that his room is full of flowers and cards from throughout the city, as people are thanking him for stepping in front of that crazy dude to stop him. Even Ramon’s now ex-wife has reached out!
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Once the crew gets back to the firehouse, Casey asks Severide why Stella is “acting a little off.” Severide says only that she may have “done some things she regrets” while drunk the other night, just before Stella gets snippy with Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) about the bar opening.
Meanwhile, Antonio invents an excuse to come by Brett’s new apartment, which enables him to kiss her. She resists the idea of more than that until he suggests “a one-time thing,” and that’s just fine by Brett.
"Antonio: When I saw you at the hospital, I knew I was in trouble."
While he’s um, occupied, Otis’s positive attitude has started to dip as things with Molly’s North are not going as planned. Liquor won’t be there on time, and Joe Cruz’s (Joe Minoso) friend now wants $25,000 for cab advertising after Cruz didn’t tell Otis just how much he was buying. A desperate Otis asks Stella to lean on a radio DJ to get him some airtime.
That’s not nearly as sad as watching Boden wonder aloud about “a man’s legacy” as he drinks with Mouch and Casey while listening to Stoke’s albums. Mouch continues to look confused by everything, even as Boden drags them both to the hospital—where he finds out that Stoke died from his injuries.
The nurse even tells us that Stoke’s daughter is there, but she didn’t make it to the hospital before he died. Thanks for depressing us, Chicago Fire!
"Boden: It’s not easy dealing with a hurting parent."
Stella is able to pull off the radio gig for Otis, who is once again over the moon. But as soon as he’s live on the radio, Otis freezes up and can’t even remember the name of the bar. It’s like that scene from Bob’s Burgers only with real people. And Otis winds up getting humiliated by the DJ.
Chicago Fire‘s second alarm of the episode goes off afterward, sending our heroes to a clinic fire that appears to be relatively contained by the time they arrive. But the fire isn’t the problem: Dawson spots a teenage girl running back into the building, and being Gabriela Dawson, chases right after her.
Naturally, just as Dawson grabs her, the ceiling decides to explode. Luckily, we have Severide on hand to help rescue her, while Dawson checks her purse and realizes she was trying to steal from the clinic. Everyone, meet Bria (Quinn Cooke), the new recurring character Dawson will be looking out for.
With just ten minutes left, how will Chicago Fire season 6 resolve the plotlines of this episode? Otis spends two grand on a vintage jukebox, and Chief Boden brings Stoke Porter’s daughter Nina to the bar opening. He explains to her that Stoke was his father’s favorite musician, and that was one of the rare things he and his father could agree on.
While they, Casey and Mouch toast to Stoke, Severide (and we) are surprised to see that Stella has decided to go out with the radio DJ who humiliated Otis. But it’s Otis who may have the last laugh, since he gets a kiss from Lily.
Outside, Brett and Antonio walk into each other outside Molly’s North after their “one-time thing.” Is anyone really surprised that they both decide to skip the opening and go off with each other again? No. No, we are not.
And “A Man’s Legacy” ends with Dawson finally able to pay another visit to her father now that the circus has left his hospital room. Ramon is excited to get out of the hospital in the morning, but he can tell his daughter isn’t happy. She says she wishes she could’ve done more for him; he tells her that she’s the real hero.
"Ramon: I was a mess. Your brother and your mother wouldn’t even talk to me. But you, my love, you were always there. That’s who you are. You’re the real hero. My hero."
While we all melt just a little bit, Dawson hugs her father, and we can all take a second to realize that yet again, no one actually died in a cliffhanger. So what’s next?
It’s best to look at “A Man’s Legacy” as a sort of midpoint for Chicago Fire. Yes, it’s the midseason premiere, but the show is only around for another month or so thanks to the Olympics, so this is more like the start of another mini-arc.
With that being said, it’s a decent start. There will likely be some fans groaning since we had our second cliffhanger of the season in which nothing bad actually happened. But at least Dawson and her father seem to have taken a step forward in their relationship, and Antonio and Brett got their reunion moment (which we all knew wouldn’t be just one).
Meanwhile, it’s always great to see Eamonn Walker have a subplot, Yuri Sardarov is wonderful in Otis’s well-intentioned but not quite perfect plan to launch Molly’s North, and Colin Donnell can turn up whenever he likes. There’s enough going on in the episode to make us wonder what will happen next, and that’s what a season/midseason premiere is meant to do.
Next: Chicago Fire showrunner Derek Haas answers our questions
What did you think of the Chicago Fire midseason premiere? Leave us your reaction to “A Man’s Legacy” in the comments.
Chicago Fire airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.