Chicago Fire season 7 premiere takeaways: A Closer Eye

What should fans take away from the Chicago Fire season premiere? Learn more about this week’s episode with our Chicago Fire season 7, episode 1 review.

What did One Chicago fans learn from last night’s Chicago Fire season premiere? Here’s what we took away from this week’s episode, “A Closer Eye.”

“A Closer Eye” saw Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) try to adjust to life on his own, before Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund) made a surprise appearance. Plus, Firehouse 51 got itself a babysitter and a new paramedic.

If you missed any of last night’s episode, or just want a refresher on the events that we’re going to discuss, you can catch up with our Chicago Fire recap.

Below are our takeaways from this week’s episode:

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1) Bureaucracy bites

Chicago Fire season 7 picks up two months into the Grissom Era, and unsurprisingly, he’s terrible as Fire Commissioner. His right-hand man Jerry Gorsch (new recurring guest star Stephen Boyer, a long way from NBC‘s Trial & Error) isn’t any better.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: why does almost every white shirt on this show seem to be a terrible person? There’s maybe a handful of times that a higher-ranking figure has done something good for Firehouse 51.

Obviously there’s more drama that way, but come on, they can’t all be this bad. It’ll be great when these two finally get what they deserve—at least we hope they will.

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2) Dawson’s farewell was kind of awkward

First of all, it’s fantastic that Monica Raymund came back to Chicago Fire to wrap up her character’s story. And of course Dawson wasn’t going to stay, because Monica wasn’t staying.

But did anyone else feel like her goodbye scene was missing something?

Dawson tells Casey that she was asked to take a permanent position in Puerto Rico, and judging by how she’s standing there with her luggage, she’s already said yes. Now one of Dawson’s things is that she makes decisions without always considering Casey (that’s what they fought about), but even for her, that’s a bit much.

Shouldn’t she have asked her husband before making a permanent life change? And then she suggests he could come with her, which feels like an empty offer; she knows that he can’t leave Chicago, or at least she should. So the sentence, while well-intentioned, just feels weird.

And while they say a lot of nice things to each other, there’s not one “I love you” in there. Maybe they feel they don’t need to say it, but for Chicago Fire fans at least, it would’ve meant something to hear it.

This was the best that Chicago Fire season 7 could do based on the way the previous season left Dawson (which Derek Haas admitted could’ve been done better). It was never going to be that perfect ending. But it still had some room for improvement.

3) Connie’s sendoff was absolutely perfect

Chicago Fire worked in a tribute to DuShon Monique Brown on Wednesday, explaining where her character Connie had gone to while also recognizing how great DuShon was in real life. Connie was said to have left Firehouse 51 to take over the counseling department at a magnet school—a nod to DuShon, who was a counselor when she wasn’t acting.

It was a perfect way to say goodbye to both character and actress, because it gives us the idea that as sad as we are that DuShon is no longer with us, Connie is still out there, and she’s helping kids and doing good things in the world. Bravo, Chicago Fire, you handled this sad situation with class and grace.

What are your thoughts about this week’s episode of Chicago Fire? Let us know what you took away from this episode in the comments.

Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.