One Chicago: Every Chicago PD/Chicago Fire crossover, ranked
By Deb Foster
1. “Let Her Go” (Chicago Fire)
The very first Chicago crossover event in history occurred on May 15, 2013 in the Season 1 Chicago Fire episode, “Let Her Go.” “Crossover events” were so new to the television landscape that the second part of the event didn’t even warrant its own title at the time.
Series spin-offs are nothing new, but they usually simply “begin to exist” on their own with characters from an already existing or previous series simply showing up in the new show; however, the creative teams of the Dick Wolf universe took a different approach by having the episode serve as the backdoor pilot to the new series Chicago PD . Chicago Fire set the plot up and helped introduce the characters of the Chicago PD for the second half of the crossover.
Chicago Fire viewers had already been introduced to Detective Hank Voight when he waged a war of intimidation and harassment against Lt. Matt Casey and his then fiancé Hallie Thomas (Teri Reeves). As we soon found out, though, Voight had been released from prison and was now in charge of the CPD Intelligence Unit forcing Casey to team up with his former nemesis to solve Hallie’s murder.
It was a brilliant way of reintroducing Voight as a more complex character alongside the entire team of detectives who would be the driving force of Chicago PD. That team included another familiar face, Detective Antonio Dawson, brother of Chicago Fire paramedic Gabby Dawson, who we’d also met in previous Fire episodes and who helped in taking down Voight. The crossover also opened the door for a potential romantic involvement between Casey and Dawson and that reason is enough to earn it the top spot!
Next: Our Top 5 Favorite One Chicago Couples
This has been a look back at all the Chicago Fire and Chicago PD crossover episodes with a very loose ranking of how they fall in importance. How would you rank each of the Fire and PD One Chicago crossovers? Let us know in the comments and don’t miss new episodes of Chicago PD and Chicago Fire Wednesday and Thursday night, respectively, at 10/9 on NBC!