Previously on Chicago Fire Severide went down a rabbit hole to try to save an old dude who instead gave him a Joni Mitchell CD to so he could continue his “emotional education.” Dawson continues to pine for Lt. Casey which her brother supports by singing a round of “Dawson and Casey sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” Severide got yelled at by the dad of the engaged office lady who seduced him in the equipment room, while humming this song, because she learned how to keep it classy from the cast of The Jersey Shore.
Our favorite lesbian paramedic continues to be awesome, shagging Miss Alabama, making the world a better place with her toned ass, investigating cases of missing yogurt, activating the lesbian bat signal to help her injured roomie, and rocking the shit out of her uniform. Lt. Casey continues on toward becoming America’s Next Top Firefighter by facing down the week’s challenge: a confrontation with a dangerous, dirty cop who tries to intimidate Matty into changing his story. Casey’s been paying attention to what Tyra has been trying to teach them, so he tooches, smizes, and tells dirty cop to go to hell. The episode opens with the reason we watch, Shawson. I am over shipping these two, not that they don’t have lingering glances and more touching than is strictly necessary, but this episode proved that these two are friends in a way we don’t often get to see ladies be friends on television. They are, for lack of a better word, bros. It only seems natural that we start with Dawson giving Shay crap for not calling some girl back. We get a U-Haul joke and quip about Shay’s commitment issues before Shay shuts the conversation down by channeling Baby “I carried a watermelon” Houseman and lugs an immense pumpkin into the firehouse. Dawson hides some Halloween candy from the boys and does some mild flirting with Candidate Peter Mills over the use of cooking spices. These two are cute but really, a bay leaf is going to get you laid? Before we can ponder that little bit of absurdity they crew is called out to a warehouse fire. Here is the big disaster of the week. An abandoned warehouse is on fire, the team rescues a few squatters but the Chief calls everyone out before Candidate Peter Mills can rescue one person left inside. He argues with the Chief outside before the place blows up and some bystanders catch the whole thing on their phones. The next day the victim’s brother is on the television playing the phone footage and talking about how if his brother were rich he would have been saved. There is a lot of nonsense around this story involving the Chief, Mills who feels bad for not saving the guy, and a city attorney who looks like one of my first year law school professors. In the end the city settles, the Chief’s job is safe, and Mills gets a pat on the back from the Chief.
Casey’s still thinking about testifying at the hearing for Det. Voight’s son. In a shocking turn of events his car is vandalized and a bag is stolen, right in front of the firehouse. Gasp! Voight shows up later with some kid in the back of his car saying he magically caught the guy and found Casey’s bag which is a little heavier than when it was stolen because of the wad of cash Voight slipped in. Casey doesn’t take the money, and they stare at each other, paw the ground, and flare their nostrils like the bulls in The Story of Ferdinand. Things escalate at the end of the episode when Hallie’s car is also vandalized. Hallie’s confused about why it’s such a big deal because Lt. Casey spends all his time talking about this issue with Dawson and not his fiancée. Mostly I’m surprised Hallie’s actually at work because she has the most ridiculously cushy residency schedule of any doctor I have ever met. I am looking into transferring my wife to Hallie’s hospital because her current residency does not allow for off-site lunches, mid-day runs, or quickies in the firehouse.
Kelly Severide, I have been hard on you, but this week you traded in your Goofus for Gallant, we all knew that subscription to Highlights would pay off, and stood up for a cute, grandmother type. Severide notes that this lady has been the victim of two fires in two weeks but she’s not telling him why. But when she gets a Molotov cocktail through her window Severide convinces her to tell him what’s going on. Severide intimidates a couple of gang bangers by telling them if they ever go near nice grandmotherly lady again he’ll break their kneecaps and plant drugs on them. As if that wasn’t enough to win me over, when the overly friendly office chick shows up channeling Spencer Carlin in a trench coat and nothing else, he tells her he was engaged once too and sends her packing. Bon voyage Nikki! Drunk Shay approves. Now finally, the part we actually care about. So we start the episode with that line about Shay the commitment-phobe and then we learn why. Shawson is called out to a check on a chef who has cut his hand badly in the middle of preparing food for a baby shower. Apparently at the sight of the blood the mom-to-be got a little dizzy. When they go check on the mom, she looks familiar. “Hello, Clarice.” It’s Shays ex-girlfriend who is pregnant, married, and weirdly not unenthusiastic about seeing Shay. Apparently, when she turned in her lesbian card she kept the need to be friends with her exes as a free gift with purchase. She gave Shay her card in the ambulance under the guise of returning some records she still had. When Shay and Dawson returned to the firehouse Dawson announced who they treated and all the guys in the house whooped. It seems none of them thought that Clarice was the type to stick around but none of them had the guts to tell Shay.
It’s obvious that Shay is shaken by the sight of her ex-girlfriend seven months pregnant and we get all the backstory as she sloshes tequila all over the counter at her apartment. Clarice appears to have won the break-up. She’s moved up from a crappy apartment she shared with Shay to an apartment out of The Real Housewives and has moved on from cheap beer to fancy wine. Severide, who is also growing on me as a hell of a lesbro, listens as Shay recounts her three years spent with Clarice. Shay, generally the voice of reason or humor in the episodes to this point, is sad to see so vulnerable. Dawson catches Shay about to call Clarice and stops her with a “Leslie Elizabeth Shay” that would make any mom proud. She reminds Shay what it was like to be the one to scrape her off the floor with a spatula when Clarice broke Shay’s heart the first time around. The episode ends with Severide offering to take Shay out drinking, dancing, or to a strip club. When a tearful Shay tells him that she thought Clarice was “the one” he decides that the strip club will have to be the medicine for this particular ailment. I am impressed with the show’s handling of Shay’s storyline. She’s not Casey or Severide, who are clearly going to dominate the plot most weeks, but her character is far from an afterthought. We’ve seen her be funny, flirty, sexy, tough, capable, and this week we saw her be vulnerable. We learned the why of the commitment issues that started as a punch line at the top of the episode and got to see that her friends care for her in the way that real friends do. They tell her when she’s about to screw up, they remind her that married, pregnant, exes are off limits, and know when tough love needs to give way to a hug and trip to a strip club. There are more than few things that seem unbelievable on this show (I may never get over the absurdity of Hallie’s work hours) but the Shay-Dawson and Shay-Severide relationships ring true to me.
What did you think of this episode? Are you still pulling for Shawson or have you jumped that ship with me?
