Heading into the Chicago Fire season 15 premiere, we knew the episode would be the final episode for one actor and the beginning of the end for another.
Ahead of the season 15 premiere, it was announced that Joe Minoso would be exiting Chicago Fire early in the season and that Dermot Mulroney would be leaving the show after the season premiere. Because their departures were announced ahead of the season premiere, we knew to expect that the show would pave the way for their departures in the first episode of the season. What we did not anticipate was that another key character would be written out of the show off-screen.
Warning: Spoilers ahead from the Chicago Fire season 15 premiere.
Fans will recall that as Chicago Fire season 14 came to an end, the writers threw an unexpected twist Stellaride’s way when Isaiah showed up at their doorstep asking to move back in with them.
As Isaiah explained to the pair, his mom has come a long way in her recovery, but she can’t take care of him, which means he’d have to live with Lydia. The problem is he doesn’t want to live with Lydia in Cleveland; he wants to live with Severide and Kidd in Chicago. This reveal seemed to set the stage for Isaiah to return in season 15 and potentially move back in with Severide and Kidd, giving Stellaride fans the chance to see the group back together again as a family unit.
Instead, the Chicago Fire season 15 premiere essentially acted as though that storyline never occurred, with a quick throwaway conversation to explain why Isaiah wasn’t in the episode and living with Severide and Kidd.
The Chicago Fire season 15 premiere writes Isaiah out of the show… again
Despite bringing Hero Hunter back as Isaiah in the season 14 finale and making it seem as though he’d return in season 15, we don’t actually get to see Hunter on-screen in the Chicago Fire season 15 premiere. Even more disappointing is the fact that the show seems to have written him out of the series once again, rather than following through on the season 14 finale storyline or even giving fans closure to the storyline via a cameo from Hunter.
Following the three-month time jump that came after we saw the aftermath of the season 14 finale warehouse fire, Severide catches up with Kidd before shift, and we learn via a conversation between the pair that Isaiah is back in Chicago, but he’s living with his mom.
“Isaiah seems happy. He’s got a big room, and he’s only a block away from the blue line so he can come over whenever he wants,” Severide informs Kidd when she asks how the new place Isaiah and his mom moved into is after Severide visited them off-screen.
After Kidd asks how Isaiah’s mom was doing with everything, Severide remarks, “I think she seems glad she changed her mind and moved back; I mean, they both are.”
The conversation moves on from there, and there is no further mention of Isaiah in the rest of the episode. It’s also never made clear whether he was living with Kidd and Severide at any point during that three-month time period we skipped over with the time jump, making it hard to know whether he went back to Cleveland during that time or lived with Kidd and Severide temporarily until his mom moved back.
Hopefully, with the tease that he’s close, we’ll get to see Isaiah pop back up at some point in season 15; however, given the sudden way in which the writers wrote him off and chose to resolve that storyline, we have to wonder if they truly have any plans to bring Isaiah back. What we do know is that the handling of the Isaiah storyline was more than a little disappointing and made that season 14 finale cliffhanger pointless in the end.
Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC and is available to stream the following day on Peacock.
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