Previously on Chicago Fire, Severide found out he had a sister, Cruz let Flaco die to help his brother, Boden told McLeod to take his retirement and shove it, Shay continued to make questionable choices after Dawson blamed her for a guy’s suicide, and Casey choked when he had a chance with Dawson.
Casey and Dawson are packing up the last of the Darden boys’ crap to ship to Florida. She tells him that aside from breaking Ben’s G.I. Joe he did a good job with the kids. She’ll miss coming by to hang out with them. He says she could come hang out with him and she says, “Yeah no, you choked buddy and I’m shit with forgiveness, just ask Shay.”
Speaking of Shay, over at the ShayverOtis loft of sex and dorks, Devon walks down the stairs without pants. Otis is indignant that she doesn’t have to pay rent. Buddy, you get to stare at her ass, so zip it. Devon notices a helmet from Battlestar Galactica and she and Otis speak geek to each other while Severide gives Shay crap for not being ready for work. I don’t know, that kimono totally looks standard issue. She tells him she’s transferred and doesn’t work at 51 any more.
Cruz is walking with his little brother Leon and chatting about HVAC. Watching daytime TV gives you all sorts of access to ITT Tech ads. A little girl on a bike rides by and a second later shots ring out. The Cruz brothers run to help and find the little girl shot along with another guy. Cruz starts CPR. Cruz sends the little girl off in the ambulance and for his trouble he get to talk to Voight. Ugh, this guy again. But it’s all right because he’s brought along Sophia Bush who is playing Detective Hairporn.
Mills is waiting to get coffee and looking like he just finished his paper route. Isabella walks up to ask him out. Apparently, she didn’t mind being called Dawson when they were making out. Maybe it gave her some pleasant flashbacks of that one time in college. He tells her he doesn’t have a tux, but she says she can take care of that for him. Looks like Pete’s going to prom.
Severide is having (breakfast? brunch?) some kind of meal with his newly discovered sister. They talk about their d-bag dad and their real families. She says she doesn’t always want to be a sous chef but would like to have her own catering company. He wastes no time asking her for a favor and says why don’t you get your ass in the 51 kitchen and cook for a bunch of people you’ve never met? He sells it as practice for being a caterer. Classic older brother bullshit. Like saying “how fast can you brush your teeth and fall asleep? I’ll time you.” Katie you’re too old to fall for it, but she says sure anyway.
Herrmann and Otis are chatting about Zoya who, sadly, has to go back to Russia. Herrmann’s not too sad since he thinks having a bartender who speaks the language might be a good thing. Cruz walks in and the poor guy just can’t win. First she sleeps with Severide, now she’s getting shipped out? Herrmann asks Cruz why Voight was calling and Cruz tells him about the shooting. But Hermy can tell he’s not getting the full story. Elfin dentists have a sixth sense.
Boden walks into the common room and announces that Shay transferred out of 51. Dawson asks, “Wait, transferred, like she’s gone? Like she’s not coming back? I don’t understand, you blame a girl for a suicide one time and she just leaves?” Boden introduces the new guy whose name Chout (rhymes with shout), but he looks like Nazi Rolf from The Sound of Music. He walks right up to Dawson and pumps her hand like he’s Percy Weasley meeting the Minister of Magic. Ugh Weatherby, buzz off already. Dawson wants Severide to explain. The answer lies within, dumbass.
Boden finds McLeod waiting outside his office. She’s not so happy. She blows smoke about how they played fair before. Yeah, having a mole in the department is totally fair. Boden is calm and it drives her batty. She tells him that she can’t wait to show him what she’s capable of, in bed. Honestly you two, just get it over with and make out.
Outside, Pouch runs over to meet Clarke’s beard, Lisa. Otis, Mouch, and Herrmann say hello too and then Herrmann asks how things are going. Clarke say they are giving it a try. She was seeing a guy for a while after he got back from Iraq, you know around the time he and Mills were flirting over heavy machinery.
Casey asks Cruz what Voight is investigating. Cruz tells him to relax, it’s totally not about that time I let a guy die in a fire, it’s about a regular old shooting. They can’t finish their heart to heart because they’re called out to a car accident. Casey hops into a minivan with a mom and calls for Dawson to come help. She sends Chout to help the squad guys. When he arrives Severide starts barking at him but the driver starts pressing the gas and Severide has to haul him out. Severide yells for Chout to stop being useless and to get something to sedate the driver. Chout jabs the guy in the ass with the needle and Severide can’t believe that he lost Shay for this moron. Meanwhile, Dawson gets a boost into the minivan where she evaluates the patient and gives Casey a bonus straddle. They get the lady out just before the car goes up in flames. Casey, opportunistic guy that he is, covers Dawson’s body with his body. The guys knock down the flames and Casey does a forward roll out of the side of the car. I give him a 8.7 for the landing. He checks on Dawson who is a little shaky but amazingly unscathed.
Jonathan Lipnicki is driving the ambulance and telling Dawson all about how the human head weighs eight pounds, and how he likes to go spelunking and totally would have jumped in to save her except–thank god Dawson told the moron to shut it.
Clarke stops at his place with a box of cannoli and finds his wife chilling with Hayes, Tate Donovan‘s more menacing, ginger, little brother. Hayes says Lisa owes him money. Clarke tells him to get out. Lisa tries to explain to Clarke but he’s all leave the wife, take the cannoli. Severide says, “Doesn’t look like it went well,” but Capp’s says, “Nah, he always looks like that.”
Boden is a man with a plan. He’s going all Erin Brockovich on this shit and enlisting Mouch to help him. They can sue to keep the firehouses open. Maybe pasty boy Sullivan will help. Mouch is skeptical.
Mills wants to know if Shay is serious about leaving. Severide tells him that she;s gone and the Herrmann yaps about women folk and their menses and how it makes them do crazy stuff. The 1800’s called, they’d like Herrman back. While the Jack Russell yaps, Voight stalks into the firehouse. Cruz and Casey share a meaningful “we’re covering up a murder” look. Voight’s reptilian brain has a plan and it involves putting Leon back in the gang that way they can find the shooter and Voight doesn’t have to go looking into the fire that killed Flaco. Cruz tries to say he knows nothing about Flaco’s convenient demise but he’s a worse liar than my four year old.
Dawson finds her way onto Casey’s bed. Well it’s just the one in the office but we can see where this is headed. She misses Shay. She worries she was too hard on her (you were), and that maybe if she had handled the suicide call differently Shay would still be around (she would) and then she could look into those crystal blue eyes and everything would be so much better. Girl, you have it bad for Shay, we get it. Casey wants to punch his ticket to the big dance in her pants so he says she did the right thing. She thanks him for saving her life and he gets mushy about how indispensable she has been and how he doesn’t know where he would be without her. Chout pops his head in and says, Tthey’re after me Lucky Charms” and Dawson nearly maims the dude.
Casey is working out some of his frustration on some ladder drills and the rest of Truck 81 effing hates him for it. The guys bitch because they’re hungry and Katie hasn’t shown up yet. What’s that, an unreliable Severide? Shocking! Otis says she better be a stripper chef popping out of a vat of pasta. On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese… Anyway, Katie’s not coming because feeding a bunch of doofs for free as a favor to her brand new big brother was not high on her priority list.
Mills and Isabella are at the political event. She wants to make a good impression because she’d like to run the state senator’s next campaign. Mills is more interested in canvassing Isabella’s pants. She leads him to the state senator, who just so happens to be African American. She says “Hi, I’m Isabella, let me introduce you to my black boyfriend.” Mills is a miffed enough about the whole thing to take a cab home.
Cruz and Leon are having a meeting with Voight and Detective McHottie. Cruz says Leon doesn’t want to go back into the gang. Voight snarls and gets in Leon’s face. Det. Lindsey sends him out of the room and unleashes her secret weapons: her face, hair, and a voice forged by angels to drive lesbians insane. She tells Leon that the little girl is dead and they are going to get the guy who did it, but they need his help. Please like he was going to say no to this face.
Mouch shows up at Greg Sullivan’s den of arrogance and receding hairlines. Sullivan won’t touch the case because he doesn’t want to piss of McLeod and he could give a shit about 51. Mouch closes the door and tells Sullivan he’s got plenty of dirt that he didn’t use during the election but won’t hesitate to use now to save his friends. Sullivan laughs and dares Mouch to go ahead. Mouch breathes the name of Sullivan’s mistress (seriously, this guy had a wife and a mistress? Aim higher ladies). We have a case.
Cruz finds Casey and spills everything that has been going on with Voight. He says Leon is going back into the gang and it seems like everything he did to get him out was for nothing. Ingrate! Casey says, “You know that Voight is a totally stand up guy so I’m sure it will all be OK.” Right.
Dawson runs up to Severide because she thinks she might murder Chout. She wants Severide to convince her to come back. He says you broke it, dude, you fix it. Dawson says she’s tried but Shay only wants to ride around with Captain Underpants. Dawson, I think if you and Devon did an undies off, you would win. I volunteer to judge.
Dawson and Chout get called out. They find a lady who accidentally stuck a fork in her neighbor’s chest. Oh lord. The fork is all the way into the guy’s heart so Dawson asks for a bundt pan. In a scene straight out of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, she and the lady go back and forth “a bundt?” “a bun?” The lady finds the pan and Dawson MacGuyver’s a way to transport this Thanksgiving turkey to the hospital.
When they get to the hospital, Chout yips at Dawson’s heels and tells her she’s so great and generally is the most annoying. He asks what happened with Shay and then makes the mistake of suggesting Shay couldn’t keep up with Dawson. “She’s pretty amazing,” Dawson says. Why are you not at her house with a boombox over your head, Gabriela Dawson? Then he asks her out. I mean really? Just no. She tells him she’s taken. “In your eyes…”
Back at the firehouse, Mouch goes into see Boden who tells him an injunction is in the work against the closures. Severide is in the kitchen with Katie strumming on the old banjo. She tells him that she met Benny when she was ten and then didn’t see him for another 11 years. She likes her life just fine without worrying about Severides who can’t keep their promises. Severide tells her he’s not Benny but leaves anyway.
Leon walks into Cruz’s kitchen wearing his gang gear. Cruz looks heartbroken but tells Leon that he’s proud of him. Clarke opens his trunk and Hayes is in there. Just kidding, he reaches over his rifle and pulls out a coat before walking into Molly’s. At the other end of the bar Cruz is drinking and Zoya comes to sit next to him. They share their misery and then he asks her to marry him so she doesn’t have to leave. A toast to heteros protecting the sanctity of getting married for a green card!
Otis and Severide come home to a house torn apart. Otis races over to where his Battlestar Galactica helmet was while Severide rushes to look for Shay. Nice priorities, Brian! Shay is distraught in her room. “I gave Devon a key,” is all she says. Hey, Chicago Fire, I thought we had a deal about not making Shay cry. And with this your UHauling PSA complete.
Dawson is sitting at home, drinking wine, and checking her phone every three seconds. She looks insanely gorgeous in a T-shirt and ponytail. But she’s got a plan. She puts on a little black dress and heads for the door. Every lesbian thinks “FINALLY, SHE’S GOING TO GET SHAY!” Waiting on her front step, looking a little creepy, is Casey. He finally makes a move and kisses her and they make out in the entryway with the door open like a couple of the Liars, just hoping to get murdered. My wife cheered at this point. I thought, to be fair, I should mention it since I don’t ship these two, but she does.
So, lesson learned, don’t give out your keys to women who don’t wear pants.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
