Chicago Fire dug up an old mystery and a new romance in Try Like Hell. Find out what happened in our Chicago Fire season 7, episode 20 recap.
This week’s Chicago Fire started a potential season-ending storyline and finally owned up to what fans have been suspecting for months now.
Wednesday’s installment “Try Like Hell” saw Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) investigating another fire that looked suspicious, except this time Severide was arguing for someone’s innocence rather than trying to prove their guilt. As he embarked on his latest crusade, Chicago Fire dropped a hint that this plotline could continue all the way to the season finale.
Meanwhile, if One Chicago fans still had any skepticism, this episode also confirmed that the show is pushing toward a new romance between Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) and Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer). But, at the same time, it already introduced a hurdle that they’ll have to get over if they are really going to hook up.
Click through this slideshow to find out what happened in the latest Chicago Fire episode for each of your favorite characters, starting with:
The burning salon
Chicago Fire kicked off with Severide explaining to Joe Cruz (Joe Minoso) that he had just finished clearing out his father’s house after it was sold. He still had to get Benny’s cabin squared away, leading to Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) questioning how much this was messing with her ex-boyfriend’s head.
On the apron, members of Engine 27 accused Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) and the gang of not returning a nozzle that belonged to them. They threatened to report the crew to the battalion chief if it didn’t turn up, despite Cruz’s assertion that it had already been brought back. Luckily, a fire alarm broke up the argument.
Our heroes rolled to a salon fire, which they had to evacuate from in a hurry thanks to some exploding cans. What is it with things exploding on Chicago Fire? After that blew over, the team rescued one woman who had taken a nasty fall and Severide had to comfort a woman whose dog had likely just died in the fire. Seriously, show? Was it necessarily to kill a dog, albeit off-screen?
Returning to the firehouse, everyone was confronted by Chief Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker) holding an invoice for the missing nozzle. He wanted to know where it was yesterday. Upon hearing the crew’s pleas, Boden called the other chief and stuck up for them while throwing the invoice in the trash. But, um, they weren’t actually proven right yet…
Brett and Emily Foster (Annie Ilonzeh) wound up at Chicago Med, where they ran into Kyle Sheffield (resurfacing guest star Teddy Sears). Foster made an excuse to leave Brett and Kyle alone so Chicago Fire could have the obligatory awkward moment between exes. Kyle was quickly called away while Brett looked on sadly.
Blind date awkwardness
The show then cut back to Boden, who asked Severide and Casey to give statements because the salon fire appeared to be arson. Severide was arguing against arson for once, even though the investigator Captain Hubble (guest star Erin Breen) said the place was losing money, and invited himself along on the investigation.
It was jarring to go from that to see Cruz gushing over how he was getting to take home Benny Severide’s George Foreman grill, and not a huge shocker to see Otis (Yuri Sardarov) uncover the nozzle that the whole team swore up and down that they had returned. It had been left behind a storage crate, leaving our team looking for a way to avoid being caught in a lie.
Severide and Hubble interviewed the salon owner while she was visiting the fall victim at Chicago Med. She claimed the building was on fire when she got there, and showed security camera footage that abruptly ended a half hour before the blaze broke out. When she realized she was being accused of arson, she got indignant and insisted that they find the real culprit.
Meanwhile, Casey and Brett shippers got a scene where Casey found a mopey Brett hiding in a corner of the bunk room. She told him how weird it was seeing her ex, and about how Kyle never came around the firehouse anymore. Casey said he felt responsible for their break-up, since it was Casey’s reaction to Kyle that prompted Kyle to dump Brett. Brett, however, called it “a bad idea from the start” and said it was “time for me to move on.” Possibly with him, as she handed him the flowers she’d gotten for the common room?
Ambulance 61 rolled up to Brett’s gym, where they found a girl fallen off an exercise bike with a terrible head wound. After they treated her and got her into an ambulance without any help from the man nearby, Brett had a brief conversation with one of the other women there about the lack of “real men in Chicago.”
Where was the rest of the crew? Trying to use corny codenames and walkie-talkies to sneak into the other house and return that nozzle. Of course, they got caught, thanks to their inability to shut up and Mouch’s cold. Herrmann and Stella left their colleagues to bribe the firefighter who’d caught them to keep his mouth shut—Klinginpill, the guy who’d briefly filled in for Ritter. His price? A job at Firehouse 51.
At Molly’s that night, Brett told Casey “we should totally be dating,” which threw him and Chicago Fire fans for a loop. She clarified that she wanted to set him up on a blind date with the woman from her gym. Meanwhile, Stella continued to worry about Severide, who was poking around in the ruins of the burned salon along with Boden and Hubble.
The burning truth
Severide realized the security cameras were still connected, so why didn’t they have complete video? A guy sniffing around for a lawsuit dropped a key piece of information: that there had been a power outage before the fire started. The trio found proof that the power box had been tampered with, and Hubble located…the dead dog. Yep, Chicago Fire not only killed the dog, it had to show us its corpse.
The next morning, Severide brought all of his evidence to Casey for a second opinion, swearing the two had seen a case like this before. He decided to go through the house’s old arson files, as Boden correctly sussed out everyone else’s nonsense about the nozzle. Boden called the other chief and promptly sold his team out, while also sending them over to do cleaning work at the other house to make up for their mistakes. As he should.
Chicago Fire then abruptly cut to game night with almost everybody else, Lily (Ariane Rinehart) and Casey’s blind date. TV geeks probably felt old when said blind date was confused by the existence of a TV show called Emergency. Luckily, the show pivoted back to Severide, as the salon owner came to the firehouse to once again plead for his help – because the fall victim was now paralyzed.
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The show jumped to another morning, in which Herrmann and the others served their punishment…although they did get a thanks from Klinginpill, because he now had a permanent job because of them.
Brett’s friend told her she should date Casey (“You were meant for each other”), while Casey asked Kyle about his breakup with Brett and if he was avoiding the firehouse because of it. Casey wanted Kyle to come back around and the two had an awkward conversation about how great Brett is that just screamed “future love triangle.” Way to not be subtle at all, Chicago Fire!
Last but not least, Hubble had found the timing device used in the salon fire, which further convinced Severide that he was on to something, although he didn’t find out what until that night…when he went to his father’s cabin. The connection wasn’t to a case Firehouse 51 had worked, but one that Benny Severide had worked. Severide told Boden the arsonist was “someone my dad was hunting for 15 years.”
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