The Chicago Fire season 15 premiere kicked off with a blast, a hectic scene and a mayday call leaving one firefighter’s future up in the air.
Warning: Spoilers below from season 15, episode 1 of Chicago Fire.
“We’re going to see knock-on effects from this call pretty much for the rest of the season,” showrunner Victor Teran exclusively told Us of what’s to come this season. “Because it’s such a beloved and central character that is impacted by what happens. It has tentacles into everybody’s life ultimately.”
He teased, “And so we’ll keep feeling the echoes of it rippling out for the whole season, mainly though, you know, as relates to Severide.”
During the Wednesday, October 7, premiere, the cameras picked back up as all of Firehouse 51 responded to the season 14 finale’s warehouse fire.
Fans watched as Truck 81, led by Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo), called for her team to evacuate the roof before it caved in. The group made it onto the firetruck ladder as a blast of fire followed, but all survived.
After regrouping, they heard a call from inside the building from Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) asking for help to extricate Squad 3 and Engine 51, who were trapped.
Amid the chaos, Joe Cruz (Joe Miñoso) heard screams and realized that seven people were still in the building behind a stone wall. He started to break down part of the wall to give the victims a hole to crawl through.
Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) arrived to help, but Cruz told him to get the people out as he crawled under the wall to find the two unconscious victims. As soon as Cruz started to crawl, part of the roof and beam came down seemingly crushing Cruz.
“Mayday, firefighter down,” Herrmann screamed.
It was eventually revealed that Cruz survived, but was paralyzed (at least temporarily) after the accident.
During his three-month check-up, Dr. Dean Archer (Steven Weber) told Cruz and his pregnant wife that he felt activation in his quad, suggesting that the fractured portion of his spine could heal depending the MRI results.
“In this case, I thought it’d be more interesting to deal with the acute phase of [Cruz’s injury] and really dig into it and use the tragedy to tell some really interesting stories, and I think that’s what we did,” Teran told Us, revealing that they did consider killing off the character but decided to explore how his injury would affect the group instead.
The showrunner explained that Cruz is “obviously the most affected” by the accident, confirming that the writers plan to tell the story “through Cruz’s eyes” as well as the rest of the firehouse.
As the episode progressed, viewers learned that while Cruz was cleared of any wrongdoing at the fire — he was accused of being responsible for the deaths of two civilians when the beam fell — his MRI wasn’t as promising as he’d hoped.
“They got the MRI results. There’s like a sliver of healthy tissue across the fracture,” Cruz told Herrmann. “Even if I get out of this chair at some point, I’m never going to be a firefighter again.”
As Cruz grapples with not being a firefighter ahead of his exit from the series, the gravity of the situation will plague everyone he works with. (News broke earlier this year that Miñoso, 47, is leaving the show mid-season after 14 years.)
“In terms of the long tail of this event and who it’ll affect in our world going forward in the deepest and longest lasting way. I would say it’s Severide,” the showrunner told Us. “He made some choices based on it, and he will be struggling with that probably through the whole season. And anything that affects Severide so deeply affects Kidd, of course, who’s got her own journey.”
Teran also teased that with a spot open on Squad 3, a new face could be joining the group — or someone could be promoted from within.
“I don’t want to tell you just yet because I think there’s some story to tell there,” he confessed. “I can tell you it’ll be cool and surprising.”
Chicago Fire airs on NBC Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
