Chicago Fire promo photos prove Severide is not coming back (yet)

Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) is gone and we all know the deal. The Chicago Fire mainstay is back on the road, working with the ATF on a high-profile arson case. He's really taken a shine to investigation in the last few years, but he did promise that he would be back in Chicago within a week.

A week didn't seem that bad, especially given that Chicago Fire took a week off between new episodes and aired a rerun during Valentine's Day. The thing is, the plot synopsis and the promo photos have been released for the upcoming episode, and Severide is nowhere to be found.

Severide doesn't appear in new promo pics

The episode, titled "On the Hook", appears to be a medic-focused story in which Sylvie Brett (Kara Killmer) has a mishap occur in the field, and is forced to deal with the consequences.

All the usual faces appear in the promo photos, including Brett, Violet Mikami (Hanako Greensmith), and firefighters like Mouch (Christian Stolte) and Carver (Jake Lockett). We get a decent glimpse of pretty much everybody... except Severide.

Related: Chicago Fire needs to figure out its Severide problem

There's a couple reasons as to why this could be. One, it could be an instance of NBC being cagey with Severide's return, and purposely withholding photos in which he's present to keep the fans on their toes.

Severide said he'd only be gone a 'week'

The second reason, however, could be that Severide didn't come back when he said he would, and is still in Arizona with the ATF. It wouldn't be the first time, as Kidd mentioned in the season 12 premiere that she basically had to track Severide down and bring him back home from his previous ATF sojourn.

Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman confirmed that Severide will play a major role in season 12, so there's not a concern that he will be gone for the rest of 2024 so much as a concern that he will fall into the same behavioral pattern that led to issues with him and Kidd in the first place.

This is speculative, of course, since the issues between Severide and Kidd largely played out in the six month gap that took place between seasons 11 and 12. Everything fans know about this period has been relayed in passing, so we may be looking at an instance in which it happens again, only in real time for us to see.

Either way, Severide better come back soon.