One Chicago fans are growing accustomed to their favorite characters missing an episode here and there, but the latest episode of Chicago Fire took things a step too far.
The episode wasn’t just missing one major character. It wasn’t just missing two, either. No, the episode essentially wrote out half of the show’s cast and the worst part was, the show didn’t even acknowledge the absence of certain characters in the episode.
Chicago Fire season 14, episode 6 was without a whopping five key cast members with Herrmann, Mouch, Cruz, Capp, and Tony all sitting the episode out. This left the show with just six main characters to lead the episode, which focused in on Chief Pascal, Severide, Kidd, Vasquez, Novak, and Violet.
So where were all of the missing characters?
Early in the episode, Kidd walks into the kitchen at home and is surprised to see that Severide is in uniform. The reason is that Squad is apparently off this shift, a quick comment she drops before Severide reveals that Pascal has called him in to shadow him for the day, and the conversation moves along.
The comment served as a brief explanation as to why Cruz, Capp, and Tony did not appear in the episode, as they’re all members of Squad and therefore had the day off. However, it did not help to explain what Mouch and Herrmann were up to in the episode, as there was no mention of Engine also being off for the shift, though it seems that was the assumption we were expected to make.
This left Firehouse 51 with quite the skeleton crew, with background actors on hand for the episode’s calls which mostly put the focus on the few members actually around on shift. It was certainly great to see Kidd, Vasquez, Violet, and Novak getting center stage in the calls, but it definitely felt off for nearly half of the firehouse to be just randomly off for the day and absent in the episode.
We get that the move was likely due to the budget cuts, which results in series regulars missing a few episodes throughout the season. Typically, though, it’s just one or two characters who miss an episode, not half of the cast. It was definitely jarring for so many of the show’s characters to be missing without any real explanation, after all, did anyone think we wouldn’t notice Cruz, Capp, Tony, Mouch, and Herrmann were all MIA?!
Thankfully, most, if not all, the characters will be back for the Chicago Fire season 14 fall finale coming on November 12. However, that episode will be without another major character after Kidd left town in episode 6, heading to Cleveland with Isaiah to help his mom settle into the new rehab facility that Goodwin helped her get into. It’s unclear how many episodes Kidd will be missing, but she mentions being away for a few weeks, so unless there is a time jump coming, we could be without Kidd for the next few episodes.