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Chicago Fire season 6: 3 moments we’d change

By Brittany Frederick

CHICAGO FIRE -- "Down Is Better" Episode 606 -- Pictured: Miranda Rae Mayo as Stella Kidd -- (Photo by: Elizabeth Morris/NBC)
CHICAGO FIRE -- "Down Is Better" Episode 606 -- Pictured: Miranda Rae Mayo as Stella Kidd -- (Photo by: Elizabeth Morris/NBC) /
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CHICAGO FIRE — “It Wasn’t Enough” Episode 601 — Pictured: (l-r) Kara Kilmer as Sylvie Brett, Monica Raymund as Gabriela Dawson, Joe Minoso as Cruz, Eamonn Walker as Wallace Boden — (Photo by: Elizabeth Morris/NBC) /

2. The season-opening cliffhanger

We’re going to sound like downers saying this, but the Chicago Fire season 6 premiere didn’t quite deliver on the previous season’s massive cliffhanger. The show gave us some of its highest stakes ever in “My Miracle” and then…well, nothing happened, really. It was essentially much ado about nothing.

Not that we wanted anyone to die—we love every member of the cast—but it was a huge stretch of plausibility to put that many characters in a life-threatening fire and have everyone make it out okay. Particularly Mouch (Christian Stolte), who was having a heart attack in the fire. But he was taken care of off-screen, and his health issues were never spoken of after the season 6 premiere.

It felt like we wasted a lot of time and energy worrying for no reason, and it set an unfortunate tone for the rest of the season where there were multiple cliffhangers that had no serious effects. Chicago Fire is a show that’s historically been unafraid to write out characters (see: Leslie Shay, Jimmy Borrelli), but when it really should have, it didn’t.

There are just so many other ways this could’ve been handled. The show toyed with Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund) being emotionally shaken after almost losing her husband, but that could’ve been explored deeper than it was, or even have Casey shaken up a bit by it. Mouch’s health could’ve continued to be an issue, even for just another episode or two; there’s no shame in exploring what it means to be a firefighter later in one’s career.

Or for the perfect example of how a death can change the living, look at what Chicago Fire did at the end of the season with Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg). Now imagine that kind of powerful arc as the start to the season, rather than the Hope stuff, and you’ve got yourself a big story. We want everything to turn out okay, but this is one of the times we would’ve been fine if it didn’t.

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