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“Chicago Fire” recap (1.18) “Hey bruiser”

Previously on Chicago Fire, Benny Severide arrived straight from his trip to New York where he shot a Senator, framed Peter Burke, and disappointed his son Neal. Wrong show? Right. OK, he popped in from his beautiful hobo camp to grill Shay about her sexual orientation, and stir up trouble at the fire fighter prom. Dawson and Mills made the decision to come out as a couple, Casey did his best Finn Hudson and told Mills to “treat her right,” and Shay decided the best way to get over her ex was to get under several hot ladies. No? Damnit. She decided that the only way to fill that Clarice and Wesley shaped hole was to fill it with some sperm.

We start the episode with Dawson standing alone along the side of the road holding two coffee cups. A black SUV pulls up and it’s the Chief. This scene reminds me of the time Arizona had to stand up the Chief Weber but kept crying. Dawson looks like she would like to vomit since all the normal rules of behavior our out the window when they aren’t on duty. She wishes she could scrub the conversation between Benny and Boden from her brain but instead she is stuck in a guilt spiral where she totally knows a secret about Mills’ mom and the Chief and it makes her feel awkward and itchy. She tells Boden that Peter is super interested in knowing what really happened with his dad so if the Chief could just clue him in that would be great. The Chief lays the smack down by telling Dawson that while being dogged in her investigation is a huge asset as a paramedic it also makes her pretty insufferable the rest of the time so she should just knock it off. She should also dissuade Peter Mills from trying his hand at his best Jessica Fletcher impression. Dawson is worried that Benny is going to tell Peter what happened but the Chief stops her and tells her that Benny is no longer welcome at 51.

Benny’s making breakfast for Severide and tells him that despite being a giant pain in the ass he’s been offered a teaching post. Can you imagine this guy in the classroom? Anyway, he just needs to meddle one more time at 51 and then he and Severide can hang out like bros every couple of weeks when he stops hunting for Sasquatch and returns to civilization to impart knowledge and stock up on beer. Severide asks what’s up with Boden and his pop and Benny says this is their usual love-hate relationship and they’ll be breaking up and making up at least seven more times that week so don’t worry about it. In the meantime he’d like Severide to tell Boden that Benny will be stopping by around noon. Severide remains unconvinced but his dad promises he’ll be like a mute choir boy on his last visit. What could possibly go wrong?

The next scene is the crew fighting a restaurant fire. The owner comes up and tells Severide that he’s been getting threats from a union rep and that he thinks the fire was set on purpose. Meanwhile Casey and Cruz are inside checking the ceiling for hot spots when down comes the rain and washed the spider out. No? Sorry. Casey gets doused in what turns out to be gasoline and is on fire. He barely notices the heat since his loins always burn this hot for Severide. Cruz pounces and he and Casey crash through a window. Hands up everyone who wants to throw Casey from a window every week? Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, out they go, Casey’s pants on fire get put out and he and Cruz share a nice moment. Casey is spoiling a perfectly good Shawson moment by getting himself checked over by Dawson in the ambulance. In the words of Olivia Wilde, put your fucking shirt back on. Seriously, hero-boy it’s not always about you. Fine, this time it is since he was actually on fire, but I’ve got my eye on you cock blocker extraordinaire. He’s all, “’tis but a flesh wound.” Shay uses her superior lesbian fingers to find the hole – in his coat. Jeez, out of the gutter ladies and announces that “three more seconds and you would have been a toaster strudel.” Otis walks up and confirms that there were fire bombs in the ceiling. Fire bombs in this case are not the name of the signature drink over at Molly’s. Severide talks to Boden about his Pop coming by the station to screw everything up and Boden is about as pleased as if Severide suggested a colonoscopy. Boden tells Severide that his dad is one of the guy who can’t do anything after retiring except tearing everything down. He says Benny’s got a story about how Mills’ dad died and that it’s untrue and Boden won’t let him come into the house and try to hurt Peter. Severide’s not really sure what’s going on between these two but calls his dad and tries to sell him on going to a different house.

Dawson saunters in to chat with Mills who is jabbering about how he buttered some lady up with baked goods and got her to send him the records of the fire that killed his dad. By lady I am pretty sure he means Ezra Fitz and baked good he means a bundt cake and a doe-eyed teenager with questionable fashion sense. Fitz has taken a break from being a terrible father to Rosemary’s baby long enough to send Mills all the documents he needs to drive himself entirely loopy. It turns out that not only did Henry Mills snuff it in the fire but another guy died too. That guy had a pregnant wife at home (who was, presumably, not schtupping Mills’ mom). Everyone is hanging out in the common room waiting for something to happen (spoiler alert: Tino’s never going to show up). Shay asks what “ebullient” means and no one knows but Otis who is the resident smarty (except for Dawson who might be trying to go to medical school or that might be a plot line that got dropped). She says that one of the sperm donors used it to describe himself and Casey says “well you don’t want no sperm donor who is so interested in book learning.” Casey, repeat after me, help me, help you. Stop being a dolt. Why on Earth would anyone want a smart kid? They’re such a pain in the butt, with all the questions, the reading, the wanting to go to college. Mouch wanders over and tells Shay he admires her “gumption” for feeling so free to peruse the gallery of contenders to be her man juice suppliers. She doesn’t see why it involves gumption or why she should have to hide her search since Herrmann posts ultrasound pictures every time he accidentally gets his wife pregnant. Not that I’m thrilled on the Shayby storyline but why not ask Herrmann, that dude’s sperm swims like freaking Michael Phelps. Mouch says he doesn’t think Shay needs to hide what she’s doing but he still admires her “gumption.” Call it hat you like, darling. We like her *ahem* gumption too.

Heather Darden shows up in her Jeep to chat with Casey. She asks if he found an earring in his truck after they made out like a couple of teenagers after the firefighter prom. Then she asks him out to eat and he’s just too nice to shut her down. Severide sees them talking from inside the fire house but before he can get a grip on what’s going on there’s a call over the P.A. that there’s a smoke eater in the house. It’s B-B-B-Benny and do-nuts. He sashays past Severide and Boden, neither of whom is thrilled to see this joker in the house. Boden glares at Severide because that’s his natural state and Severide shoves his hands in his pockets and stomps after his dad. Benny makes himself comfortable and starts telling stories about the good old days and this secretary who had no personal items on her desk. The only thing she had was a sign that said “If you can’t do anything about it, don’t worry about it.” Turns out the sign wasn’t hers either, it was there when she got the job and she never took it down. All along Benny thought Ruthie was the Oracle at Delphi when really she was just lazy.

Boden is not amused with the trip down memory lane and asks to talk to Benny somewhere out of sight where their screaming match will be heard by everyone anyway. Boden bellows in the locker room about Benny not being welcome in the house. Benny’s mad because this was his house for years. Severide walks in and tells dad and papa that their idiotic plan to fight with the door open has blocked exactly zero noise from the rest of the house. Casey bounces in like the annoying apple shiner that he is and says there is someone waiting for them downstairs. Boden threatens Benny, Benny sasses back, and Boden just leaves shaking his head. Severide asks his dad to stop being such a jackass and at least respect the firehouse.

Waiting downstairs is the charming union rep who may or may not have set the fire at the restaurant. He’s a jerk and he yells at Severide, Casey, and Boden before leaving them with a rude gesture. Charming.

Shay is sitting on a bunk and screening more donors while Dawson is busy folding clothes on another bunk as she does at Firehouse 51 Fluff and Fold. Dawson is about to tell Shay about how she knows something about Mills’ dad that he doesn’t when Shay slams the cover on her iPad and gets a goofy look on her face. Dawson grabs the iPad and her eyes almost fall out of her head. Sitting on the screen in all his glory is Mouch’s headshot. We’re going to need to see some of that. Shay scurries off to confront Mouch. He’s mortified that his realtor headshot is still on there since he thought he aged out of the least anonymous sperm donor registry in the history of the world. Shay’s a little freaked out but now she realizes she’s got an inside man and she’s going to pump him for all he’s got. Ew. I mean, she wants to ask a few questions. He wants to know who else knows. She says “no one.” He says, what about Dawson? She revises “just Dawson.” Yeah, everyone knows that if Shay knows it, so does her hetero life partner.

Before she can get any answers they are called out to another restaurant fire. A bus driver called it in because she saw a man on fire (not Denzel) run out of the restaurant. They go in thinking it will be a recovery but don’t find anybody inside. Instead they find a badly burned homeless man under a pile of pallets behind the restaurant. They call for Shawson who are hopeful for a second before the guy dies. The fire is the same M.O. as the last one and they tell the arson investigator that it’s the union guy. Turns out he’s got an alibi. Whoops. Severide and Casey harumpf around the Chief’s office and he lets them out to go investigate as long as they take Benny with them. Severide protests but Boden grudgingly admits that Benny is a great arson investigator.

Benny is poking around the kitchen looking for some ring-dings to eat when Mills walks in and asks if he can cook something for him. Benny says no and then Mills starts asking questions about his dad and the other firefighter who died. Benny is trying to behave but he makes a remark about how it’s sad that the other guy never met his daughter and how it didn’t need to happen that way. Mills asks more questions but Benny claims that it’s actually really hard to talk about and not the only reason he’s still skulking around the house. Mills calls him on it and says that he thinks Benny has something he wants to say. Before Benny can talk Severide tells his dad to come investigate an arson with him. Is this the firefighter equivalent of “let’s go throw a ball around in the backyard?” Shay is ready to get answers. She wants to talk sperm and how the sperm gets from a man to the little test tube. Shay, this is why the internet was invented. He is happy that he doesn’t have any contact with any of his potential offspring. Shay is a little disillusioned by the entire process. Mouch cheers her up with a heartwarming story of a little girl conceived with donor sperm and how much her parents love her. She asks if that’s why he decided to donate and he laughs, tells her that for $125 per donation he was happy to use his “renewable resource” for beer money or whatever. Shay ends the conversation by saying that it’s all a bit impersonal for her and that she wants to figure something else out. Maybe start with a plant, or a nice cat. Or, better yet, something else could involve a beautiful woman and a long weekend filled with “baby making” practice. A girl can dream.

Casey, Benny, and Severide are having a cozy little chat about how great it is that Casey is looking after Darden’s widow. Severide looks slightly less pleased. Benny tells his son that he’s not so sure about teaching since he thinks everyone in the house is a dillhole and that back in the good old days men were men and fire was hot, or some such shit. While he’s busy spouting off he Hercule Poirot’s some rubber on the floor and deduces that there was a second burn victim. Whoever set the fire left some sneaker behind and oh, look the door was jimmied from the inside so it’s not actually arson but an inside job. Hooray, Benny saves the day with his curmudgeon’s power of detection.

Through a process evading all HIPAA regulations Severide gets access to the burn victim, coaches him not to tell the cops part of the story and determines that the owner wanted the restaurants torched. Another heartwarming obstruction of justice storyline.

Back at the house, Cruz and the guys show a genuine interest in Shay’s quest for all the sperm that’s fit to swim. She snaps at them and says she’s regrouping. Mouch looks at Dawsona and she gets really interested in the ceiling. Yeah, I can’t get the image of him as a sperm donor out of my head either. Otis plops down and asks Dawson and Mills how they got together. Dawson gets twitchy and gives some bullshit but Peter Mills so so proud of the fact that Dawson asked him out that he lays out all the details. Casey stares at Dawson, all mad that he kissed her on the cheek when she looked devastatingly hot. You blew it, buddy. Mills gets a message from Ezra about his dad’s fire and rushes off to view it on his computer. While he’s gone the Chief tells Severide and Benny that they did a good job with the arson investigation.

Shay nabs Severide and hauls him into the locker room. She starts blabbing about sperm donors and how it’s weird and that she wants her baby to have a father who is a good man and who is smart and caring and hot enough that even lesbians notice. She speeds through the talk, like her mind is trying to get her to the end, to get to the point. Except that her mind realizes that there is a monster at the end of this conversation. Then she throws in a thousand more words than necessary, just to stop from having to ask the question, to stop from having to admit to her best friend that she wants something from him that could change both their lives and that could end a friendship. So she speeds and she stalls and finally she gets to the monster. She finally asks Severide if he will have a baby with her. Thankfully she makes it clear that she just wants his sperm not the rest of him. He looks about like someone might when asked to father a child with his lesbian best friend. He starts several times to try to talk but she won’t let him answer. Instead she fills the space between them with her eyes half full of tears and reassurances that if he says no they will still be bros to the end. It’s sort of sweet in a horribly misguided, stupid idea kind of way. Look, I hate this story line. I think it’s tired and boring and the best way to put Shay into a relationship that looks pretty darn heterosexual. But, this scene, Shay’s terror at asking a favor so big that it could either be the beginning of her best adventure or the end of her best friendship, feels true. So, yeah, I wish she had gotten a dog or a plant or gone on a hot lady shagging spree instead of the tired story but I have to say that this scene felt truer than the rest of this silly storyline has thus far. I’m still hoping this all ends without a baby and a whole lot of lady-loving but what looked horrible in the promo wasn’t.

When Mills comes out of the computer lab Benny is saying good-bye. Before he does Mills starts asking questions. He wants to know why everyone signed off on his father’s nomination for the highest honor, but Benny didn’t. Benny says that the medal was for valor and that Mills’ father panicked in the fire, took off his mask and when the other guy tried to put it back on they both got killed. He wasn’t going to give an award to a coward. Mills hauls off and decks Benny and a melee breaks out. Testosterone levels usually only found in one-nutted professional cyclists fill the room. Boden and Dawson hover nervously at the edge as Benny starts to tell Mills that Boden was hooking up with Mama Mills but instead Benny holds that card for later.

Boden sends Mills home indefinitely. Dawson hurries after Mills and tells him that while she respects his feelings he can’t just go slugging people whenever he feels like it. This is hilarious coming from the lady who kicked a frat boy out of her rig with the sole of her boot and who has an frequent visitor punch card for the disciplinary committee.

Dawson sits on the Chief’s couch while he talks about Mills and Mills’ father. He slept with Mills’ mom while she and Mills’ dad were separated. But after a month they got back together and Boden backed away. Mama Mills says that Boden broke her heart and if Dawson wants Mills to know all that he says he’ll go tell him after the shift ends. Dawson asks if Benny was telling the truth about the fire and Boden says not from where he was standing.

Heather is cooking for Casey and it’s clear she’s having a rough go. She talks about how it’s silly for both of them to be alone in their houses and how sad it is to come home to no one (umm doesn’t she have a bunch of kids?). She does her best to make a move on Casey but he shuts her down with the whole your dead husband was my best friend and frenching you in the front seat of my truck is as far as this is going, OK? She’s fine with it and they watch a movie and she falls asleep on the couch. He sweetly covers her up. Dawson shows up at Mills’ house and says “hey bruiser.” Gabriela Dawson could make a fight between two goalies at center ice sound sexy. She takes off her coat to reveal a sweater from the Emporium of Bi-Curious Clothing where Liz Lemon also shops for shoes. Mills is petulant and Dawson lies and tells him that Boden said nothing of interest at all, nope nothing about boning his mom and breaking her heart. Basically he was a mime. She tries to tell him that what Benny said wasn’t true but he throws some shit and storms off to his room to play xBox.

Benny and Severide are chatting and Benny’s being a prick, per usual. Which is says is fine because since he can’t change it why should he worry about it. How about you just stop being an ass to everyone around you? Severide tries to tell him that Mills has heart but Benny’s too busy talking about how lacking everyone around Severide is and that maybe there’s something wrong with Severide if he can’t see that. He leaves after apologizing for causing a ruckus.

There’s a knock on Mills’ door and it’s Severide. He’s all ready to be as different as he can from his father so he tells Mills to take the classes he needs to get on Squad. Severide even offers to help pull strings if he has to. Mills looks happy and so does Dawson, even if she’s worried that there are still too many secrets floating around. Who knew that the fastest way to get on Squad was to punch a boss’s dad?

Here are some of our favorite #ShaycagoFire tweets. You guys crack me up.

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