Chicago Fire season 1, episode 7 rewatch: Two Families
Look back at where Chicago Fire began this summer. Read our retrospective on the seventh episode as we rewatch Chicago Fire season 1, episode 7.
Over the One Chicago summer break, we’re looking back at where it all began by rewatching the first seasons of our shows—and today we’re revisiting Chicago Fire season 1, episode 7.
If you want to rewatch this episode along with us, you can find Chicago Fire season 1 on iTunes and DVD.
The seventh episode is called “Two Families” but we tend to remember it as the episode in which Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) delivers a baby.
While he’s doing that, Kelly Severide’s (Taylor Kinney) drug addiction is once again at the forefront when the entire firehouse is forced to submit to drug testing.
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Plus, because this episode aired near Thanksgiving, here’s a turkey fire. Just like the Allstate commercial warned us about.
Joking aside, credit is due to Chicago Fire co-creators Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (the writers of this episode) for working in a Thanksgiving theme that is organic to the story.
Many TV shows do holiday episodes every year, and most of those feel corny as they try to force any kind of holiday story into them. But turkey fires are totally something that happens on Thanksgiving, and they are obviously something that Firehouse 51 would be called out for. It’s a perfect fit.
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Let’s go back to Casey for a moment. Easily the best scene of the episode is a slightly flustered Lieutenant Casey realizing that he’s going to have to deliver this baby right there in the middle of a car accident scene. But Casey being Casey, he pulls it off in memorable fashion:
That happy moment contrasts Severide’s story, which is not so happy and pretty desperate. He’s got to find a way to handle this drug test, which makes him face his reliance on painkillers and its effect on him. His story’s a bit different because he’s not addicted to get high; he’s addicted as a way to keep him doing the only thing he really knows how to do.
That lends a certain weight to what he goes through in “Two Families,” because we know his attempts at stalling are both selfish (in terms of self-preservation) and selfless (in terms of trying to stay here so he can continue to serve). Once again, Taylor Kinney delivers the dramatic material.
Plus, what starts his problem is utterly bewildering: a meth lab hiding at a daycare center?! It still sounds so ridiculous to say, even six years later. It could be a plotline on Chicago Med, except that show didn’t exist yet.
“Two Families” may technically be a Thanksgiving episode but it doesn’t feel like one and it has a few memorable moments for several characters therein. Give it a second watch yourself on iTunes and DVD.
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Join us every Thursday this summer for our Chicago Fire season 1 review. For more Chicago Fire related news, follow the Chicago Fire category at One Chicago Center.