Heading into the Chicago Fire season 14 winter premiere, we had a bad feeling that Van Meter might not make it out of the fire. While he did not die in the fire, he did sustain serious injuries which sent him to the hospital and left him fighting for his life.
After the winter premiere ended with Van Meter being put into a medically induced coma, we thought that we’d see him finally come to in episode 9. Instead, his condition remained relatively the same with no real progress and his fate left in limbo still by the episode’s end.
On one hand, we appreciate that the show didn’t have him make some sort of miraculous comeback. Too often in shows we see characters injured and knocking on death’s door, only to then be fully healed without any sign of injury the following episode.
We applaud the Chicago Fire writers for not having Van Meter make some overnight recovery and be right as rain after his brush with death. He was severely injured, and we respect that the show is playing this out in a very realistic manner rather than jumping ahead a few weeks and acting like the fire never happened with Van Meter back on the job.
That said, the show does need to make a decision about his fate soon rather than dragging this out for too long.
We’re now two episodes removed from when Van Meter was taken to the hospital, and his condition hasn’t changed much within those two episodes. We did learn that his breathing was improving slightly, but the show didn’t give us a major update in episode 9, with things still looking grim still as the episode drew to an end with Severide at Van Meter’s bedside crying.
Now that the arsonist has been caught and we’re moving on from the investigation, we need the show to make a decision on Van Meter’s fate within the next episode or two. We don’t need to see him make a full recovery, but we don’t want to see him hang in limbo for an extended period of time. What we need is for the show to make a decision on Van Meter’s fate and make it known before the show signs off for its next break timed to the Winter Olympics beginning in February.
Our hope is that Van Meter will pull through and make a full recovery, but if that won’t be the case we don’t need to drag his death out. We don’t need to watch Severide sitting by his hospital bedside for episodes to come watching his friend slowly wither away.