What will Gianna Mackey bring to Chicago Fire season 9?

What will Chicago Fire’s new paramedic bring in season 9?

Chicago Fire answered its biggest question last week, when it announced who its new paramedic will be. But now that we know who, what does that mean for the flagship One Chicago show?

Adriyan Rae, formerly of SyFy‘s Vagrant Queen, has been cast as Gianna Mackey in the upcoming ninth season. She is being billed as a series regular so she’ll appear in most, if not all, of season 9.

According to the casting description Gianna is somewhat of a troublemaker but she also treats those around her like family, which should fit in well with the workplace family that is Firehouse 51. But what will make her different from her predecessor Emily Foster, and what will make her stand out to One Chicago fans?

Here are the questions (and ideas) we have about Fire‘s new addition:

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1) What kind of personality does she really have?

The description of Gianna Mackey is a lot of words, but they don’t really say much. At first read it all sounds pretty vague and typical—she’s tough but mischievious, is loyal (treating people like family) but also likes chaos.

We’ve seen these “tough but funny” types before, not only on this show but on a lot of other TV shows. You could have described Emily Foster (Annie Ilonzeh) the same way—she was a tough character on the job but also funny and loyal to her firehouse family. Nothing about Gianna makes her sound that different from Foster, or even Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund).

But obviously Gianna Mackey has to be significantly different from Emily Foster. If Chicago Fire had wanted a Foster-like character, they would have just kept Annie Ilonzeh on for another year. So where’s the big change going to come from?

Will it be her background, like how Foster’s biggest talking point was her sexuality? Will Gianna have some kind of an issue she has to overcome, such as Darren Ritter (Daniel Kyri) finding his confidence? Something has to interest fans into watching Gianna as a character and not just because she’s part of Ambulance 61.

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2) Will she be able to build friendships outside of Brett?

The biggest issue for Foster didn’t have anything to do with Annie Ilonzeh. It was that the character didn’t really develop that much more in her second season, and we never saw much of her with anyone who wasn’t Brett.

Of course the paramedics working together every day will get a lot of screen time together; if they weren’t friends, that’d make it hard for them to be an effective team. But Gianna can’t only be the next BFF for Brett (who, by the way, should probably have issues since she’s now had two friends and partners leave her). She has to have other relationships on the show.

Remember when Foster started to bond with Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and then that wound up becoming about Stellaride, with Foster telling Kelly that he needed to talk to Stella instead of her? That can’t happen with Gianna. She has to integrate with the whole firehouse so we can see more dimensions of her and of Adriyan Rae, too.

3)  Is she going to bring unique skills to Ambulance 61?

Foster distinguished herself early on by being able to perform different medical procedures in the field, owing to her background as a former med student. Her surgical training came up more than once in her two seasons on Chicago Fire, even earning her praise from other characters.

What will Gianna Mackey’s skills be? Is there anything, training or experience-wise, that’s going to separate her from a normal, run of the mill paramedic? If she’s going to be a main character—and more importantly, if she’s going to last on the series for more than a season or two—there has to be something that she contributes to the ambulance and the firehouse.

Whatever that is, it’s not readily apparent from the details that have been released about her so far.

For the latest Chicago Fire season 9 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Fire category at One Chicago Center.