Chicago Fire season 7, episode 8 takeaways: The Solution to Everything

What should One Chicago fans learn from this week’s Chicago Fire? Look closer at last night’s episode with our Chicago Fire season 7, episode 8 takeaways.

What did One Chicago fans learn from this week’s Chicago Fire episode? Here’s what we took away from this week’s installment, “The Solution to Everything.”

“The Solution to Everything” featured Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) unable to open up about his father’s death, while Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) admitted he had a new crush. And someone almost got crushed under a collapsing chimney.

If you missed any of this week’s episode or just want a refresher on the events that we’re about 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) Stella has a jealous streak

Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) is an easy character to love, but not this week. Not with how she behaved about her boyfriend.

It’s understandable for Stella to be upset that Kelly is talking to Emily Foster (Annie Ilonzeh) and not to her. But she took it out on Foster, like that woman who finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her and gets mad at the other woman instead of the guy.

Why not just straight-up tell Severide she saw him with Foster and ask why he felt more comfortable opening up to Foster? Or even ask Foster herself and maybe there’s some advice Foster could’ve given to Stella, like she did to Severide?

Instead, Chicago Fire left us with Foster turning down Severide’s invitation for a drink and telling him that he needed to lean on Stella instead. That sent a wrong message, as if Severide was only allowed to open up to Stella and no one else.

What if Severide wanted to talk to somebody that he doesn’t have a ton of history with, and get himself right before he tried to explain it all to Stella, who’s already had to deal with a lot of his drama? Or what if Foster had said we’ll go get a drink, but first, maybe you should also try talking to your girlfriend because that would mean a lot to her?

There were other ways to play this than Foster essentially walking away from Severide in favor of Stella. Stellaride may be Chicago Fire‘s primary ship now, but that doesn’t mean they have to orbit around each other all the time.

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2) Dawsey is dead, apparently, now

Was there a time jump between episodes? It wasn’t explicitly referenced but there had to be, or the words coming out of Casey’s mouth at the start of the episode didn’t make any sense.

Casey told Naomi Graham (recurring guest star Kate Villanova) last week that he wasn’t sure if he and Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund) were divorced or just separated. Then in “The Solution to Everything,” he told Severide that they signed divorce papers “a while” ago.

So Dawsey is officially divorced. And either it happened between episodes—which A) could have made for a dramatic scene to show the audience and B) throwing in a line about how much time has passed would’ve been a huge help—or Casey is just that scatterbrained.

Nobody thought Dawsey was going to last that long this season. But considering it was such a huge part of this show for six seasons, showing Casey signing the divorce papers would’ve been a good way to definitively show the audience the ship had sailed. If nothing else, at least say “It’s been x weeks/months” and then viewers have context rather than throwing us right into the Naomi story.

3) Does anybody miss Jerry Gorsch?

That feels incredibly odd to say. As a character, Gorsch (Steven Boyer) was insufferable. But in his absence, Chicago Fire is missing some dramatic tension. There’s not an on-screen antagonist for the audience to hate, and worry about, and further an ongoing storyline.

Instead, we’ve got drama that’s mostly about romantic relationships—whether it’s Stellaride or Casey playing detective with Naomi and buying her dinner. And that’s just not as compelling (but in fairness, part of that has to do with wanting both those storylines to be presented differently, as we just went through above).

We don’t need another Gorsch to make us want to punch our TV screens, but having another common goal or common challenge for Firehouse 51 could inject some tension back into the show as we head toward the midseason finale. It could even be a positive challenge, like trying to help some cause or some other group in need. But there’s got to be something else going on because right now, it just feels like there’s a piece missing.

For the latest Chicago Fire season 7 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Fire category at One Chicago Center.