Chicago Fire season 7 midseason report: Matthew Casey

What’s next

Chicago Fire wants us to believe that there’s a chance Casey dies in the apartment fire, which feels spurious at best. Technically, it’s an option, but remember that Jesse Spencer agreed to a one-year contract extension during the offseason. He’s contracted for the entire season.

And even if he had decided this would be his last, is dying in an apartment fire at midseason really the kind of sendoff either he or the writers would want for their main character? Having Casey written out like this would only compound the frustration started by Dawson’s departure. None of it makes sense.

So let’s assume that Casey survives; he has a lot of work to do in the second half of Chicago Fire season 7. At best, he needs a new place to live and he’s about to have lost a bunch of his stuff, and he’s sleeping with a woman who has a target on her back.

Which is exactly why we’re not optimistic about his future with Naomi. Derek Haas is on record as saying it shouldn’t be considered his next great romance, and how will they get past this? Naomi is the reason Casey is in trouble. Can he really go off and be happy with her when he’ll recall that the first night they spent together, somebody burned down his apartment and almost killed him? That sounds like it’d be a problem.

He’ll be even more determined to stop the trailer company, of course, but after that Casey’s life has been pretty much dismantled. The next 13 episodes are for him to pick up the pieces and to figure out who he wants to be now.

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