Five seasons in Chicago Fire is always searching for new, intense stories to tell. Because the franchise is the firehouse, most stories center around it and the job. That doesn’t mean that once in awhile they can’t pull out a tale that has nothing to do with fighting fires. Some of the best, most relatable plots are the ones which could happen anywhere, at any time. It just so happens that firefighters are trained to handle high pressure situations, so the likelihood of impulsive moves driven by panic goes down significantly. During a hostage crisis, where you want to be is in a room with men and women trained to keep cool.
That’s not to say that Firehouse 51 isn’t caught completely off guard when they are taken hostage by gangsters hiding from their enemies. With Dawson and Brett gone on a call, it’s up to Stella to take care of the wounded gunshot victim. She tries her best to help, but she has only so much equipment and training to work with. The young kid guarding her believes she is doing her best, but his crazy friend gets twitchy. He stops Stella from trying to help, then threatens her friends if anything happens to his. It is a stroke of luck that Severide happened to be taking a shower when all of this started, so he was able to get to a radio to call for help. They are so close to getting out when Dawson and Brett come back too early. Casey has to run to waive off his wife, gets shot in the process, and everything blows up from there.
Stella can’t contain her anger, and she’s lucky she’s only knocked out when she dares punch one of the gangsters. Dawson has to talk Otis through a procedure to on Stella’s patient so bullets don’t start flying.Then of all things Herrmann has a heart attack! Don’t panic, he was faking it. He needed to do something to get out and tell the SWAT team the layout of the hostages. If you ask me, he was a little too pleased with himself on that one. Herrmann’s layout, coupled with the plea from the mother of one of the hostage-takers, makes a significant difference in the way this plays out.
Thankfully, Casey and Stella are the only ones hurt in the struggle. Severide gets to Stella before the twitchy one can shoot her in the head. The one young kid whose mother pleads with him to stop the violence listens. Young J.B. risks everything to save Boden when the leader puts a gun to the Chief’s head. J.B.’s bravery is rewarded with a ricochet bullet to the neck, but because he saved the Chief’s life, Dawson makes a risky decision to remove the bullet. Then everyone looks around like “Hey, we are all in one piece.” Admittedly this was not as scary as the terrorist lockdown story from last season, but the stakes were high enough for us to worry.
Were you sucked into Chicago Fire‘s non-fire related story this week?
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