Chicago Fire - The Last One For Mom - Review

“You choose a job like this, you learn to live in every moment.”

Detective Holloway’s dangerous drug case is still at trial, so JJ is back at 51 with Severide. While hanging out with the crew at 51, JJ has the house help with his “A Day in the Life of” video for school. This was an A+ move by the writers for me. We’ve now been with this cast for four seasons, seen them in life and death situations on the job (and off the job), fight for each other, fight with each other, and now to see them talk about why they do what they do is so simple and yet so brilliant.

Dawson talked about her brief desire to be a doctor before finding herself in firefighting, Casey talks about his dream to be a firefighter beginning when he was a kid (not surprising), Boden shows his pride in the job and the people he serves with, and Capp can’t string two coherent thoughts together (love him, can we please see more of him?).

Midway through the first video (Dawson’s), a handful of cop cars show up and Severide is informed that Detective Holloway was shot and is headed into surgery. JJ doesn’t know, and the house works on his video extra hard so he won’t find out. And of course, it’s clear that something is brewing between Holloway and Severide.

“She likes you…She calls you Kelly. Ever since my dad died, she calls almost every guy nitwit. But you’re just Kelly.”

So she can’t die, right? She can’t leave that adorable child, right? Wrong. So wrong. During Herrmann’s video, Severide is called back into Boden’s office and receives the news that Detective Holloway didn’t survive the surgery. What’s worse is Severide can’t tell JJ, at least, not until JJ’s aunt Mary from California arrives.

Seeing Severide and Mary break the news to JJ was devastating. Tears were flowing, I won’t lie. It’s a testament to the writers for introducing a minor character only a few weeks ago and turning it into a story that had a powerful effect on the viewers (or at least, this viewer). The full-on sobbing started when Severide gave (permanently?) Pouch to JJ. Dogs are the best friends to have in time like that.

“Since Pouch is part of this family, that means you are too. Come back anytime you want, okay? You wanna talk, you call me.”

Does this mean we’ll see JJ again? I certainly hope so. I love who Severide is with JJ; that’s the Severide I want to see more of.

It’s too bad Severide seems so opposed to the whole monogamous, marriage, family-man idea because he would be fantastic at it. Seeing him with JJ this episode was heartbreaking because of the circumstances, but also made me hopeful that we’ll see this in his future (please, writers, enough with the endless rotation of meaningless hookups for him!). It also reminded me of his plan with Shay a few years ago to have a baby, and no, I’m still not over that never happening.

Elsewhere…

On the first call of the hour, the smoke is dense enough that Squad goes in with a rope-assisted search. Inside, Cruz is just feet from the victim, but can’t reach him while attached to the line. So naturally, he unclips, grabs the guy, and can’t find the rope. Everyone makes it out alive, but Cruz takes a verbal beating from Severide for breaking protocol.

Apparently, if Cruz had stayed on the line, everyone would have made it out sooner. I’m not familiar with how it would work in the real world, but I’m surprised there was nothing but that lecture from Severide. Shouldn’t Cruz have been reprimanded in some way? It was a nice touch for that woman to bring Cruz a Native American artifact as a thank you, but I still feel like he got off easy.

Political consultant Susan Weller is back to encourage Casey to run for…something. And though Casey and Dawson are putting on a united front, the relationship is fractured after their disagreement over marriage. What a convenient time for Susan to enter the picture…Danger! Danger! Susan is about to swoop in and attempt to sink her claws into Casey. I can’t really blame her (hello, he’s incredible), but Susan, he’s taken!

But when Casey receives a mysterious box of money, he finds himself in hot water. An annoying man from the board of ethics, Alan, questions Casey about the money. He passive aggressively chastises Casey for not calling him first about the bribe (Casey turned it into the cops) and somehow, it seems Casey could be in real trouble. After calling Susan, Casey learns Alan is close with Becks, so it’s no surprise he’s making things tough for Casey. But Susan waves her magic wand and all is taken care of. Too bad she can’t wave her magic wand and disappear, because if you think she’s not going to stick around for a while, I’d be willing to bet you’re wrong (sadly).

Sylvie and Jimmy arrive on scene at a dance studio, where a young girl is not responsive. Turns out she drank hand sanitizer, so she’s in bad shape. They take her to Chicago Med, and that’s really it for these two this episode. Nothing really interesting between them (unfortunately), let’s hope for something more in the next episode.

Otis is ignoring the fact that he needs to have bloodwork done by arranging for the house to travel to Las Vegas for some firefighter conference. Otis! Get it together! Sylvie asks Otis about the bloodwork, but Otis lies. Thankfully, Sylvie’s no dummy and after a call, she checks in with Will at Chicago Med, who encourages Sylvie to push Otis to get checked out.

This story isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Could something be seriously wrong with Otis? Call me a pessimist, but if the writers are arcing this story across three episodes at least, something has to be wrong, right? You don’t drag a story on for it to amount to nothing.


What did you think of the episode? Will we see JJ again? How will Otis’ medical story be resolved? Is Dawson’s relationship with Casey in jeopardy? Share your thoughts below!

About the Author - Meghan Reynolds

A Colorado native, Meghan was born a raised a Denver Broncos fan. Aside from football, she loves television and some might say watches too much of it. Some of her favorite shows of the past and present include Galavant, The Blacklist, The Office, Veronica Mars, The 100, and Gilmore Girls. She reviews Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med for SpoilerTV.