Chicago Fire season 6, episode 16 recap: The One That Matters Most

Chicago Fire was down an Otis, but who was the new guy and what’d he want with Dawson? Here’s what happened in Chicago Fire season 6, episode 16.

This week’s episode of Chicago Fire showed us Firehouse 51 in transition, with Otis still in the hospital and his replacement making himself at home—so how did the moves shake out?

Thursday’s installment is called “The One That Matters Most” and begins with our newly minted couple Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) kissing. They’re much happier than Otis (Yuri Sardarov) who has now realized he has a Problem. His friends reassure him he’ll be fine, but you can see on his face he doesn’t believe it.

At the house, Kidd realizes the guy she almost hit with her car was Jake Cordova (Damon Dayoub), who’s acting like he’s permanent and not just filling in for Otis. Turns out Jake has a past with Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund), but we’ll have to get into that later because there’s a bakery accident to handle!

Once Bakery Dude is rescued, Dawson confronts Stella about sleeping with Severide while Chief Grissom (returning guest star Gary Cole) offers Chief Boden (Eamonn Walker) a promotion. If he can’t knock Severide up the ladder, why not Boden?

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Grissom also confronts Severide about blowing off their dinner engagement for Stella, though he doesn’t know it was for Stella. He just knows he’s done with Kelly.

"Severide: I want to choose my own path. You can understand that.Grissom: Yeah, sure. You think you know better. You think you are better."

Stella consoles her boyfriend, saying it’s not such a bad thing for him to be on the outs with the guy who wanted to push his career in a direction Severide didn’t want it to go. Is she right? You decide.

Back to Otis, who’s about to have his MRI and he’s understandably fearing the worst. He’s already got himself convinced that Lily will leave him, while concern is mounting at the firehouse, particularly with his BFF Joe Cruz (Joe Minoso). The two topics of discussion are that and how no one seems to like Cordova, who is not fitting in well with the Firehouse 51 crew so far.

Cordova asks for a word with Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer). He wants to make clear that he can do his job, even though he’s the new guy. And his “it’s a no-brainer” line sounds like he’s angling to permanently replace Otis on Truck 81.

But hold your horses, new guy, because the whole team comes to Med to see Otis trying to get back on his feet. As encouraged as everyone else is, he’s still got that look on his face that says he thinks this will take more than rehab. Lily (guest star Ariane Rinehart) tries to cheer him up, but that only leads to him turning on her.

"Lily: I’m sorry if I got in the way."

Chicago Fire brings us back to Firehouse 51 where Bakery Dude’s family has cooked the team a thank-you meal. Unfortunately, it’s terrible. And so we get the cliche moment where Stellaride use this as an excuse to sneak off and get handsy again, after which Dawson rightly warns Stella that their secret will come out eventually. Dawson knows all about firehouse relationships, and people ought to listen to her more often.

Otis hasn’t cheered up when Cruz and Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) come by with dinner and movies but his roommates refuse to leave. Elsewhere, Boden has a peaceful night at home, where he tells Donna (guest star Melissa Ponzio) about the promotion offer. He’s unsure about less action and more paperwork, but she uses the “better chance of surviving to see Terrence grow up” card and points out that Casey could take over as Battalion Chief.

Boden, however, can’t shake the feeling that saying yes would mean his team doesn’t need him anymore.

Cordova’s behavior continues to infuriate Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg), who feels that the new guy is disrespecting Otis. When Cordova smugly comments that Otis has “no shot” when it comes to getting his spot back, Herrmann decks him. Walking it off, Herrmann wanders into an upset Lily who’s come looking for a sympathetic ear. The two of them are able to share their own struggles and console each other, in another of Chicago Fire‘s great David Eigenberg moments.

A rescue mission ends the hour, one that includes Grissom getting off his cranky behind to show up and join his former protege Severide in the risky venture. Give Grissom props for at least being more than talk. (But hey, does anyone else remember when Gary Cole was on a TNT show called Wanted? The man can still kick behind when he wants to.)

Severide narrowly escapes the collapse of the scaffolding, which seems to finally render Cordova almost speechless. Unfortunately, Boden informs the team Otis will have to do a minimum of two months’ rehab, so this guy’s here for awhile. He also blames Cordova for the food, which has the effect of unintentionally embarrassing the poor ladies who tried to cook it and has them leaving in embarrassment.

Afterward, it’s time for another Boden and Casey talk, which makes Casey (and us) think Boden may actually leave, though he says nothing to Casey about the job offer. And Stella is happy that Grissom and Severide have made up through their rescue experience, and the two share a hug.

That’s better than Dawson telling Cordova that they need to inform Casey about their history. He does not want to come clean, because he doesn’t want that to influence Casey’s opinion of him. She reluctantly agrees, but what exactly is their history?! Obviously they were involved (NBC’s promos have revealed that much), but there’s so many varying degrees of involved. It’s vague and a little frustrating.

At least we end on an encouraging shot of Otis in physical therapy, because he needs to get back here pronto.

Chicago Fire gives us two primary storylines in “The One That Matters Most,” with the first being Otis and the second being Otis’s replacement. Both involve how the firehouse reacts to each of the situations.

It’s no surprise that things get worse for Otis before they get better, and it’s a good thing that Fire devotes half the episode to his situation and doesn’t just push it aside. As we discussed last week, there’s a lot of story to be told there, and it looks like the show is going to tell it to some extent.

Although we also hope that doesn’t mean it ends badly, whether it’s physically or with wrecking the Otis and Lily relationship. And how long will two months be in show time? An episode or two? The rest of the season?

The tension comes from the introduction of Jake Cordova. Now, we’ll concede that Cordova can’t be a nice guy, because if he came in and everything was awesome, there’s no drama. But even allowing for a certain degree of jerkiness, he goes past that and to the point where he’s such a jerk you don’t even want to see him on the screen by the midpoint of the episode.

He feels like a caricature right now, but we know Damon Dayoub will be in multiple installments, so hopefully that changes and he’s not simply “the guy standing in Otis’s way and/or complicating Dawson’s life” for a while. Obvious plotlines like that just aren’t interesting. Where’s Jason Kannell when we need him?

Overall, this episode feels less like its own story and one that’s laying groundwork for stuff to be in the end of the season. Like the whole idea of Boden taking a promotion and Casey taking over? It’d be a big change in the tail end of Chicago Fire season 6 (even if the pro-con discussion between he and Donna is another scene you could guess at before it happened).

The Cordova-Dawson story is awkward; it could be nothing or could be an unnecessary attempt at creating Dawsey tension. It’s hard to judge, but this episode seems to be just moving plot points further down the line rather than being memorable individually. We’ll see how we look back on this one in a few more weeks.

Next: The best Otis moments from Chicago Fire

What did you think of this week’s Chicago Fire episode? Leave your reaction to “The One That Matters Most” in the comments.

Chicago Fire airs Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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