Chicago Fire season 8, episode 4 recap: Infection, Part 1

A malicious fire

The call goes out for Chicago PD‘s Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), who’s now found out the mystery dude is a student named Stuart Anderson. So where did Stuart get infected? What does he have in common with this deceased couple? As the paramedics return to the firehouse, Foster has become germaphobic. Brett, however, is finding out that Cruz is proposing to Chloe.

Cut to Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati), who finds the fourth victim at a local gas station. The woman and her baby die at Chicago Med, causing the CDC to be called in for what seems to be a “new and virulent” strain of staph infection. That’s in the news in about 30 seconds, causing a citywide panic. So it’s a great time for one of the mayor’s aides to show up to discuss Oktoberfest plans!

Luckily, Boden can leave him there when everybody gets called out to a structure fire. That would be Central Chicago University, which is the same place Stuart was attending before his gruesome death. There are people trapped in the basement of the science building, though the administrator is more worried about her precious research on the second floor. Maybe because the fire started in a secure lab? The kind of lab that might hold a lethal bacteria?

Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) notices that the lab belongs to BRT Health Industries; that’s the same acronym that Stuart mentioned. While he uses an argon tank as a battering ram to save the people trapped inside, the crew in the basement also realizes there’s something hinky going on. You don’t see green flames every day. Stella briefly catches fire, but Casey is there to smother the flames, and everybody gets out of the building.