Chicago Fire season 7 character review: Wallace Boden

Our prognosis

The next season of Chicago Fire is wide open for Boden. He didn’t have a personal storyline that’s unresolved, and professionally everything is kind of vague. After all, Grissom was his nemesis, but the later part of season 7 made Grissom out to be more of a reluctant bad guy. So is the threat of Grissom messing with Firehouse 51 over?

If it is, will somebody else come in to give Boden a headache and continue the pattern of higher-ups who want to take him down? Or will Grissom turn sides again to cause more trouble during the eighth season? Since no one knows, it’s also impossible to know what direction next season could take the Chief. There aren’t any clues.

Hopefully, the writers will come up with different ideas for him, though. Getting him out of the office and into the field is always worthwhile, and more scenes with his officers like Herrmann and Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) would be fun. Seeing Casey learn from Boden as more of an equal has been one of the most interesting things about Casey’s promotion to Captain.

But in general Chicago Fire needs to find ways to make Boden more prominent that don’t involve someone from his past coming back into the picture. Eamonn Walker is too good of an actor to be stuck doing paperwork or sorting out other people’s disagreements. He has a lot to offer, and it seems like right now, the show is struggling to find out the best use for him.

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