Chicago Fire's creative team certainly threw fans an unexpected curveball with the penultimate episode of the season.
Going into Chicago Fire season 14, episode 20, we anticipated that the episode would further the ongoing tensions between Severide and Hopkins to help pave the way for the storyline's climax to come in the season finale. We were fully expecting things to get worse before they got better, but, to our surprise, the show ended up resolving the Hopkins and Severide storyline before the closing hour of the season.
After Lucy helped Kidd and Severide get their hands on the incident report connected to the fire that resulted in Benny suspending Hopkins and reporting him for conduct unbecoming, he dove into the case hoping to get to the bottom of things. His investigation would end up clearing Hopkins' name once and for all while revealing that it was Hopkins' friend and colleague Jean Williams who had stolen the watch and allowed his career to be derailed by lying about her actions.
Once the truth came out, Hopkins pulled the internal affairs request that led to the case being officially dismissed and allowing Severide's captain promotion to finally be pushed through. Hopkins then packed up his things and returned to Firehouse 20.
It seems that Hopkins' time on the show has come to an end and Severide's job at 51 is no longer at risk, but fans are still worried that Taylor Kinney could be leaving the show—and understandably so.
While Severide is no longer at risk of losing his job now that the IA investigation has been dropped, his future at 51 is very much up in the air. This is because in the midst of the IA investigation being filed, Captain Hargrave suggested that Severide take over as the head of OFI. At first, the job offer semeed like a backup option that could help Severide get out of the IA investigation; however, it's become clear that Severide is serious considering the offer.
The Chicago Fire season 14 finale will likely see Severide making a big decision about his future in the CFD and that future could very well include him leaving 51 to take the position at OFI. It's a natural career step for Severide to take next given his passion and expertise for working with OFI over the years, and if he does take that position, we'd imagine that could result in Severide having a decreased presence on the show. After all, would the show really want to dedicate a lot of time to OFI storylines when 51 is the heart of the show?
Severide taking over as the head of OFI and succeeding Van Meter would be an amazing storyline for the character, but so would Severide moving into the Captain position on Squad 3 and overseeing the firehouse on the. day-to-day as its most senior in-house officer.
We've watched how far Severide has come over the years, and it would be really special to see him become the highest-ranking officer at 51 and run the show. This would allow for exciting new dynamics as the rest of 51 adjusts to Severide being in charge, and also for Severide in adjusting to taking on a bigger leadership role.
There have been no indications that Kinney is leaving the show, so no matter whether Severide takes the OFI job or not, fans should expect to see him back in action when season 15 premieres this fall!
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