Severide is starting to feel like an afterthought on Chicago Fire

Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) was pitched as the main focus of the episode "Something About Her." He was the first character mentioned in the synopsis, and he can be seen in action during the NBC promo. We were expecting a Severide heavy storyline, which was exciting given that the character has been MIA for a handful of season 12 episodes.

Well, we got a Severide story in the most technical sense. Sure, the character had plenty of screen time, and he got to solve a case involving a fire at a recording studio, but he didn't really have any bearing on the emotional subplots that made the episode memorable. If anything, he was the one holding down the expositional side of things, while characters like Violet (Hanako Greensmith) and Mouch (Christian Stolte) provided the memorable stuff.

Severide has been relegated to arson investigator

This has been a trend throughout season 12: keep Severide involved, but not when it comes to the personal lives of the characters. It's feeling increasingly like the character is detached from the rest of Firehouse 51, in terms of how he's written and how his stories rarely intertwine with everyone else's.

Severide has an obvious emotional anchor in Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo), but even she has gotten more to do, and more emotional depth to play with in recent episodes. In "All the Dark", Kidd and Sam Carver (Jake Lockett) had to confront a situation in which their mentor had fallen ill. It was a small part of a larger story, but it lent a dramatic weight that made everything else more engaging.

The show isn't sure how to use him right now

Severide has been stripped of this weight. He just clocks in, solves an arson case, and calls it a day. It's understandable that Chicago Fire writers want to play it safe and avoid investing too much in the character if the actor who plays him decides to take another leave of absence, but it's making one of the most exciting characters in the show's history and making him seem inessential.

We don't know what's in store for Severide as the show approaches its season 12 finale, but we really hope there's more for him to do than investigate.