Chicago Fire season 8 midseason report: Kelly Severide

What’s next

Let’s get the obvious part out of the way first: it is highly unlikely Severide dies in the cliffhanger, unless Taylor Kinney has decided that he’s not renewing his contract after this season. Severide is strong enough to fight the arsonist, eventually somebody will hear the struggle and give him some backup, and the show would just be stupid to kill him off given his ongoing popularity.

Eventually, Severide has to come back to Firehouse 51. Whether it’s in the midseason premiere  or an episode or two later, he’s not going to stick around OFI. If for no other reason than the logistics of writing Chicago Fire when one of your characters is completely separated from everyone else. It can’t keep having OFI stories for the rest of the season just to accommodate him.

So what happens after that point? Where does the drama come from for him next? Hopefully not another season of Stellaride ups and downs. That’s been done. So what that leaves is some other kind of professional problem or challenge.

What might be interesting is an episode where Severide uses his newfound experience at OFI in some way that helps his Firehouse 51 team. If he’s going to have spent several episodes there, it’d be nice to see that be good for something beyond him. What form would that storyline take? That isn’t so clear.

But if Severide is going to grow and move forward, this has to be step one of a whole journey, not just a diversion before we get 12 more episodes of dysfunctional Severide again.

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