Chicago Fire alum Charlie Barnett open to returning as Peter Mills
Charlie Barnett is currently starring in The CW’s Arrow, but recently said he’d love to return to Chicago Fire as ex-firefighter Peter Mills.
When Charlie Barnett starred in Chicago Fire, his character Peter Mills was the new kid at the firehouse, and eventually written out when storylines for him began to dry up.
Barnett’s career has since exploded. He is a series regular in Netflix‘s critically acclaimed black comedy Russian Doll, and has also been a main cast member in The CW‘s Valor and the second season of ABC‘s murder mystery Secrets & Lies.
Now he’s portraying the future version of supervillain Deathstroke on Arrow, making life difficult for the next generation of heroes in the CW show’s 2040 timeline.
He was named a series regular for Arrow season 8, so he’ll continue to mix up trouble presumably all the way to the show’s final episode.
But even though he’s moved on to other opportunities, Barnett has declared that he’d be up for a return appearance on Chicago Fire.
“Tell them to call me!” he exclaimed to TVLine during a recent interview to promote Arrow, adding, “I should give [showrunner and co-creator Derek Haas] a call.”
It would certainly be easy to bring Peter Mills back; he was one of the rare One Chicago characters to be written out without dying, being injured or otherwise having something terrible happen. He’s just in another state working at his family’s restaurant, as far as we know—Mills was only briefly referenced since his departure in season 3.
But what would be the reason for his return? The One Chicago universe doesn’t usually bring characters back just to say hi; they have to be part of a storyline.
And Mills’ story was sort of wrapped up by the time he left. He’s not in the fire service anymore, and he had a brief and quite clearly temporary romance with Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund), but she’s gone too, currently in Puerto Rico.
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Having said that, if the show could come up with an idea that would pull Mills back into Firehouse 51’s orbit, it’s worth exploring. Charlie Barnett has grown tremendously as an actor in the four years since he left the show, and it would be interesting to see his take on Mills now. Presumably the character has grown up a bit as well.
Fans will have to wait and see if he resurfaces in Chicago Fire‘s future. Until then, you can catch Charlie Barnett in new episodes of Arrow, airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on The CW.
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