Chicago Fire has confirmed that Sam Carver will not be returning for season 14, and the actor who plays him, Jake Lockett, broke his silence with an emotionally charged Instagram post that made it clear he loves the character as much as we do. The part that caught us off guard, though, was when Lockett revealed that he's as unsure of his character's final story arc as we are.
The actor posted a video montage of himself alongside the rest of the Chicago Fire cast. It was all smiles and dances, but the caption made it clear the seemingly sudden exit has been bittersweet. "While I don’t exactly know what the future looks like," Lockett asserted. "I do know that it won’t be exactly what it was and I am going to miss the hell out of that. So much pride in this journey."
It's still unclear when Carver will leave the show
Lockett could be speaking broadly, and claiming that he doesn't know what the Fire writers plan to do with his character in the long term (i.e. bring him back at some point). He could also be referring to the idea that Chicago Fire is still determining how to best write the character off the show.
Chicago Fire wrapped production on season 13 a day before it was announced that Lockett and Daniel Kyri would not be returning for another season. This suggests that there was technically still time to pen a few scenes in which both actors' characters were given proper farewells. If there was not, however, and the writers learned about the exits too late to incorporate into the show, then we could be looking at instances in which the heavy lifting will have to be done off screen.
Carver and Ritter will not appear in season 14
We've seen major exits occur offscreen in One Chicago before. Just recently, we saw Dr. Crockett Marcel (Dominic Rains) undergo a tragedy during a Chicago Med finale, then be missing in action by the time the next season aired. The actual "exit" was handled in between episodes, with a character simply filling in the blanks via exposition.
We're sincerely hoping that Lockett and Kyri's characters do not befall similar fates. They have made a big enough impact on the show (especially the latter) that they deserve a proper, onscreen farewell. We don't know what the future holds, similar to Lockett, but we will maintain hope that the season 13 does right by two characters that are going to be missed for the duration of the show's history.