Chicago Fire season 8, episode 3 recap: Badlands

Spinning their (ferris) wheels

After a surprised Stella agrees to the leadership conference, the paramedics decide to visit Isaac’s mom only to find out she thinks it’s better he gets beaten up in a correctional facility than shot on the streets. “Isaac made his mistake,” she says. “He’s on his own.” No wonder why she doesn’t work at Chicago Med anymore.

Chicago Fire cuts to everyone handling a collapsed ferris wheel. Of course there’s one kid still trapped at the top, because this is Chicago Fire and we specialize in the most outrageous scenarios possible. And who gets to be the hero this time? Yep, it’s Gallo, since he’s still the new guy and needs to keep winning over the viewers. He and Casey save the kid, while the rest of the crew tends to an injured work.

Once they get back to Firehouse 51, Gallo explains that he chose to become a firefighter after one of them rescued him from a fire when he was 12. Boden overhears and goes to tell Casey that he’d better be sure Gallo doesn’t think he’s “living out some comic book fantasy life here.”

Meanwhile, thanks to a tip from Chicago PD‘s 21st District, Brett and Foster have tracked down Isaac’s former lawyer, who is more interested in his coffee than listening to them. Luckily, Isaac’s social worker Ryan is nearby and actually helps. He says the correctional officer they suspect has a reputation for bad behavior, and offers to look into the situation.

The action shifts to Casey and Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) having a chat, before we realize that yes, the tech rep was hitting on Casey. We know that because he asked her out on a date and here she is. She takes his beer and chugs the rest of it, and within seconds we get a cut to them getting naked in Casey and Severide’s apartment. It gets momentarily weird when she admits she Googled him, but when she’s taking her shirt off in front of him, he’s not that turned off.