The Chicago Fire Season 14 Finale left us with a cliffhanger we’ll be chatting all summer about.
It’s reminiscent of the Chicago Fire Season 7 Finale, which saw Firehouse 51 trapped inside a burning building’s basement as the boiler exploded.
In that case, Season 8 opened with a heartbreaking death, and it’s been some time since we’ve lost a member of Firehouse 51 like that.
So, it almost seems a given that someone isn’t making it out of the building fire from the Chicago Fire Season 14 Finale alive.
The Focus Was on the Wives
As the episode came to a close, there was a lot of focus on Cindy, Trudy, and Chloe, the wives of Herrmann, Mouch, and Cruz.
Given the way we saw them living their days, not realizing the danger their husbands were in, it almost seems inevitable that one of them will get the phone call no firefighter’s spouse wants to receive.
However, all three male characters have major storylines, and it seems unfair to suddenly cut their lives short.
Of course, that’s the way firefighting is. Lives are cut short, and firefighters never know when their last shift could be.
However, this is also TV. We get attached to the characters, and the writers owe it to the characters to see their major plot points develop.
Herrmann is currently rebuilding his home, and he has just renewed his vows with Cindy.
Mouch has a publisher for his novel, and we got to see Trudy open the first page, ready to read it — likely for the first time, considering that was an arc from way back on Chicago Fire Season 5!
Then there’s Cruz, who, along with Chloe, finds out they’re expecting twins, opening up a world of intrigue and storylines as he balances family and work.
Good writing means great foreshadowing, and that’s exactly what these clips in the finale offer.
It leaves us talking all summer long about who could be the next casualty.
If one of those three characters isn’t killed off, there is another way that the show can put those clips to good use.
For the longest time, the series has focused on death. It’s that ultimate sacrifice, but there is another arc we could see instead.
What if one of them was severely injured? This could open the door to seeing how a firefighter rebuilds their life after an injury that puts them out of work.
During Chicago Fire Season 14, we saw them do that with Van Meter, showing that he moved into consulting after realizing his lung capacity wouldn’t be sufficient to pass the physical test.
But he was already happy with being behind a desk for much of his career. It’s not that big of a shift to go from leading OFI to offering his advice and expertise on some of the trickier arson cases.
If it were someone like Herrmann or Mouch being forced into retirement due to an injury, it would lead to a much bigger conversation.
How do they deal with no longer being in the field, forced out of a job they weren’t ready to retire from?
It would be even harder for Cruz, who is still in the prime of his life.
Should Severide make the switch to OFI, it only seems reasonable for Cruz to move up the career ladder and become a lieutenant, as that spot on Squad 3 opens.
However, if he was injured to the point he could no longer be a firefighter, that’s his whole life in limbo. Firefighting is all he’s ever known, so what does he do after that?
How does he feel about having his chance of becoming a lieutenant completely removed from him, just as his family is growing?
The Chicago Fire Season 14 finale wasn’t just teasing that someone might die.
It was also hinting at how easily a character we love could lose everything they’ve built so far in a single moment.
That sense of loss can come through death or something else, but those final scenes made one thing clear: someone at Firehouse 51 is about to lose their future in one way or another.
Agree? Disagree? Have a theory?
Let us know in the comments, or share this article with someone who will want to argue about it with you. That’s what makes it fun.
