Chicago Fire season 8 character preview: Joe Cruz

What will happen

It’s a bit tricky to predict Joe Cruz’s future, because of one big off-screen development: Joe Minoso has another TV series. News broke recently that Minoso has a recurring role in the upcoming third season of EPIX‘s Get Shorty, which drops in October. That’s left everyone asking what that means for his time on Chicago Fire.

It’ll be impossible to tell—we don’t know when Minoso filmed/is filming his episodes, and being recurring could mean for as few as two or three Get Shorty episodes. So it could mean time away from Fire, and less screen time for Joe Cruz, or it could not. But if fans see less of him this season, there’s the probable reason why.

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Don’t get too down yet, though. The good part about Cruz not being a major character on Chicago Fire is that it provides Joe Minoso with a lot more schedule flexibility. It’s easier for the writers to work around him if necessary. So viewers might not even notice anything different, or if they do, it might be something as simple as “Cruz took a sick day” or “Cruz went on vacation with Leon.” It’s not that hard at all.

Given those two things, expect Joe Cruz to continue to be a supporting character this season, and be mostly used for comic relief. He has a ton of potential, but logistically, this wouldn’t seem to be his breakout year; that might have to wait a little while longer.

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