Chicago Fire season 8 character preview: Emily Foster

What should happen

Foster is one of the easiest characters to brainstorm about, because she’s new and so there’s still a lot that hasn’t been explored with her. There are all kinds of directions she could go in, while the audience still gets to know her and becomes more attached to her.

The biggest thing we know about Foster is her sexuality, and while it’s great to have an LGBTQ character in the main cast again, that shouldn’t be all we know about her. She made reference to losing a family member when speaking to Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) this season—how about introducing more about her family life?

(And let’s be clear, by “more about her family” we don’t mean the One Chicago trope of bringing in or bringing back a family member as a victim and/or to ultimately kill them off. Let’s not go down that road again.)

Chicago Fire spent a lot of time this past season with Foster adjusting to how things are done at Firehouse 51, so it’d be cool to see her have some kind of big issue and how she responds to that mistake. With the exception of overstepping her bounds once, she came out looking pretty good during season 7, which made sense because obviously the show wanted fans to like her and root for her.

But the eighth season is time for character growth, and growth often comes in the form of giving a character adversity so as to show other sides of them. Foster can face a challenge and rise to it in this new season.