[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Chicago Fire Season 12 premiere “Barely Gone.”]
“51 is truly unique,” Boden (Eamonn Walker) says at the end of the Chicago Fire premiere. “Nothing stays the same forever. Change is inevitable. People will come and go from this firehouse and from our lives. There will be welcome backs, there will be hellos, and there will be goodbyes. Anyone who’s a part of 51 will always be a part of 51, and that we can hold onto, no matter what else is changing around us.”
The good news: While 51 does say goodbye to Gallo (Alberto Rosende), Mouch (Christian Stolte), after that very bloody shrapnel injury in the Season 11 finale, is alive! The premiere plays with that a bit in the beginning, with a firefighter from 17 (visitors after a fire at their house) going to take his name tape off his locker and Herrmann (David Eigenberg) reacting in such a way that Mouch could be dead (“That name is never coming off that locker. You hear me? Never!”) But the veteran firefighter is very much alive and in great shape after six months of rehab. What doesn’t help now, though, is firefighters being targeted in the premiere (the arsonist had a bone to pick with 17 after the CFD cut him, and his life spiraled).
Going forward, “Mouch is a changed man after what he experienced, and his all-new approach to firefighting will cause some surprising events in the next few episodes,” executive producer Andrea Newman tells TV Insider.
But now we’re worried about another veteran member of 51! In the course of the investigation into the arsonist, Herrmann is the one to find the bomb outside of the firehouse (since they had firefighters from 17 at 51) and gets it as far away from the others as he can. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get out of the blast zone before it goes off, and while he insists he’s fine after, we do have to wonder about his hearing — it does look like he makes sure to look at anyone talking to him after (Daniel Kyri‘s Ritter and Boden during his episode ending speech).
All Newman would tease is, “Change is the theme of the season, and Herrmann has his own upheaval both mentally and physically coming off that heroic save. The question is, can Ritter get him to confront the truth of his struggles, or will Herrmann end up getting himself or someone else hurt by not dealing with it? And how will that dynamic affect the Herrmann/Ritter relationship going forward? Wait, who’s asking the questions here???”
As for Gallo’s aforementioned exit, he moves to Michigan with his aunt. It was the hardest decision of his life, and he’s going to miss his family at 51, but his mother had cousins he never met and now has the chance to get to know; he shares when he stops by to say goodbye. Boden put in a word with the chief in Detroit for him. Violet (Hanako Greensmith) and Ritter are, of course, the last ones to say goodbye, and while they may try not to, they do get emotional.
Meanwhile, as the photos already showed, Brett (Kara Killmer) and Casey (Jesse Spencer) are engaged, but what they don’t reveal are her plans as a result. The wedding is a month and a half away in Chicago, and Brett and Julia (the adoption went through!) are moving to Oregon to be with Casey and the boys (the sons of his late best friend). She was originally going to wait until the fall, but she and Casey talked it through, and they’ve waited long enough to be together full-time.
Adrian S Burrows Sr/NBC
(Taylor Kinney) is back, and he and Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) are still bringing the heat (in the shower to kick off the episode!) — though his working an arson case does test their relationship. She reminds him that she had to fly to Alabama and basically drag him home in handcuffs because he gets so caught up in arson cases that it’s like a drug. She didn’t even know where he was on the last case, and it took them six months to even try to build back real trust.
With lives at stake with the latest one, Severide does work with OFI on it, and in a conversation with Van Meter (Tim Hopper), it’s revealed that the lieutenant took his name off the national investigators list, a pretty prestigious group to be in. Van Meter reminds him it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then, near the end of the episode, Kidd tells Severide she’s proud of him, and he admits it felt good to be on the arson beat again. He wants to keep it in his life somehow without pushing the two of them apart. As much as she wants to tell him to go for it, it still hurts, and the time he spent away left deep scars that won’t go away just because of this one case.
The good news? With Severide “front and center” this season, as Newman told us he is, there’s plenty of time for them to work on their relationship.
Chicago Fire, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC
