Chicago Fire season 6 had its best moments, and its not so great moments. Here are the Chicago Fire moments we would have changed this season.
As we continue our look back at Chicago Fire season 6, it’s time to get into the stuff that we’re still scratching our heads about. Every TV season has those moments—the scenes or plot points that, for whatever reason, don’t quite make sense or that the fans simply aren’t fans of.
Those moments are almost as important as our favorite moments. They give us a chance to look back and think about what could’ve been done differently, or at least break those moments down and try to understand why the show did what it did. They inspire us to think critically about our favorite show and sometimes in doing that, we come to understand it even better. If nothing else, we get to vent our occasional frustrations!
So that’s what this slideshow is for. We’re clocking the handful of qualms we had with the latest season of Chicago Fire, and discussing what we would’ve done differently instead. There’s always room for improvement. These moments from season 6 aren’t our favorites but could they have been if one or two things were changed?
Click through the below slideshow for the three moments from this Chicago Fire season that we would do differently, and let us know your thoughts on these moments in the comments.
3. The arrival of Hope
Hope Jacquinot’s name proved to be a bit ironic, because the character did nothing but cause a lot of trouble when she arrived on Chicago Fire. Despite an excellent performance by recurring guest star Eloise Mumford, Hope took up far more screen time than she should and opened the season in an odd direction.
There was nothing wrong with Mumford’s performance, and even the idea of exploring Sylvie Brett’s (Kara Killmer) past through a childhood friend was great—our heroes can use more friends outside of Firehouse 51, and backstory is almost always useful. But where the show went off the tracks was making Hope the season’s first antagonist, having her sleep with Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and then plot against Severide’s existing love interest Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo).
That would’ve been a great plot for a Lifetime movie, but not so much for Chicago Fire. And it was a little more frustrating because that was the ongoing storyline for the first block of the season. It didn’t feel like something that deserved that much attention, especially to kick off a new season when the storylines could’ve gone literally anywhere.
Ultimately, this was a plot point that could’ve been scrapped entirely, or at least reinvented. It did not contribute anything meaningful to Chicago Fire season 6; Stellaride had plenty of bumps in the road well after Hope left, and we still didn’t learn that much about Brett. Why not just have Hope be a normal, supportive friend—perhaps who could’ve helped Brett sort out all the personal stuff she had to go through this season? She certainly needed the help later on.
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.
1. Gabriela Dawson’s exit
The departure of Gabriela Dawson from Chicago Fire will be the single most talked-about moment from season 6, even though it hasn’t actually happened yet. The show set up a cliffhanger for our favorite paramedic, before Monica Raymund confirmed that she won’t be renewing her contract.
That makes what happened on-screen a bit muddled. The mere existence of a cliffhanger shows that the writers were aware there was a chance she wasn’t returning. But since that meant there was also a chance she could come back, they had to play both sides with the season finale. And well, they only half succeeded.
Regardless of what Monica Raymund actually decided to do, Dawson’s story felt like it exploded in the last episode. Having her burn seemingly every bridge, whether it was Brett going off on her or more drama in the Dawsey marriage, felt a bit extreme. Why not just have Dawson still thinking about going into private work? That was a decent idea the show played with at midseason, and it wouldn’t have required causing all the upheaval in her various relationships.
Now Chicago Fire‘s in a weird corner where it’s sending the character to another country and she may or may not come back. It’s created all kinds of questions that next season has to answer. We can’t help but feel like there had to be an easier way to do this, and one that would’ve been more satisfying for the audience that invested so much into Dawson as well.
Which Chicago Fire moments would you have changed from the most recent season? Let us know in the comments, and click the above link to check out our favorite moments from season 6.