For the first time in over five years, the One Chicago franchise has finally staged its first three-show crossover event which brings together the casts of Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, and Chicago PD.
The “In The Trenches” crossover event will bring together our favorite characters from all three One Chicago shows as the first responders of Chicago come together following a catastrophic gas explosion and fire at a city government building. Fans can expect some really exciting pairings as well as the One Chicago crossover debut of several actors who joined the franchise since the last crossover event in 2019 and it’s going to be one of the biggest crossovers in the franchise’s history; however, there will be a few notable faces missing from the crossover including a major member of the Chicago Fire cast.
While the One Chicago crossover will feature the series regulars from all three One Chicago shows, fans are likely to notice right away that Joe Cruz is not among the members of 51 who respond to the fire.
Cruz is not in the 2025 One Chicago crossover
Fans watching the 2025 One Chicago crossover event are going to likely notice immediately that Joe Minoso does not appear in the episodes, and sadly this was by design. In the lead-up to the crossover, we saw Cruz facing the demons of his past when he was forced to confront the role he played in the death of Flaco Rodriquez, a gang leader way back in season 1.
It all began when gang leader Flaco’s cousin and fellow gang member, Junior, was released from prison and quickly sought Cruz out. From the moment Junior arrived, things went from bad to worse. After first threatening Cruz, Junior eventually used the intel he had to blackmail him into helping to rob a stash house and things ended in a dangerous shootout.
As the storyline came to a head the week before the crossover, Cruz finally came clean about the actions of his past and the many – and we mean many – questionable choices he had made after Junior came to see him. While Cruz did not face any criminal charges, he was suspended for two weeks for conduct unbecoming. That story choice resulted in Minoso missing the crossover event which was something that the creative team did not take lightly.
"He's the one character who's not in the crossover,” Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman confirmed to One Chicago Center ahead of the three-part event. “[He has to pay] the cosmic price for what happened. It's so funny, because it really felt like, when do we suspend him? As we were building over the course of the season, it's like you don't get to be in the crossover. What you did, you were bad. It makes sense."
Honestly, as much as we hate not seeing Cruz in the crossover, it makes sense that there had to be consequences for his actions. It would have been easy to chicken out of the suspension by having Cruz called in given the scale of the accident at the heart of the crossover, but we respect the show stuck to its guns and didn’t reverse the suspension just to allow Cruz to appear in the crossover event.
What will be interesting is to see when Cruz might be back as we don’t yet know whether he’ll miss the next episode of the show as well, or if he’ll return for episode 12. Given he did not appear in episode 11 there is a good chance the suspension could carry over into episode 12, meaning Minoso might miss two back-to-back episodes.
The good news is that Cruz is not going anywhere and will be back soon, and hopefully for the remainder of the season!