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“Chicago Fire ” recap (1.9): “Slam it home”

Previously on Chicago Fire, Clarice broke Shay’s heart, Severide followed the bro code and got Shay’s permission to hook up with her ex, Dawson still loves Casey, and Severide took Billy Mack’s advice and became a pop star so they’d give him the drugs for free.

The episode starts with Chez Shay and our heroine is sitting eating her non- post coital yogurt and looking amazing in her blue plaid shirt. What are the chances that Leslie Shay is a succubus because her eye color is just this side of the blue-eyed Bo? Excuse me while I lose ten or a thousand minutes pondering the lovely of her eyes. OK, let’s get back to this scene because it’s a really cheeky nod to the last time Corinne was in the apartment.

First we have the roomie who didn’t hook up sitting alone having breakfast. Then we have Corinne pop down the circular staircase and stop at the breakfast bar to say goodbye before giving a goodbye kiss to her partner who has just come down the stairs. Yep, they did the whole scene exactly the same except with Shay and Severide reversed. The only thing I am really missing is the banter about Severide eating the mythical post-coital yogurt. Instead we get him showing his meathead side with a dumbass comment about Corinne not being “one hundred percent lesbian.” Ugh. Don’t worry Shay’s got the eye roll covered for us. And, as a consolation prize we see that she’s only wearing the plaid shirt. Excuse me while I ponder some more. The teams are called out to a fire that appears to have started in a dumpster. Creepy kid Ernie is lurking on his bike as they search for people inside. They pull a guy out of the factory and then we see Vargas up on the roof. Something flashes inside and the smoke from it envelopes Vargas. Severide calls for help and they bring Vargas down from the roof so our favorite lovely ladies can tend to him. Severide’s head nearly exploded when he goes after Ernie and then turns on the Chief. They scream at each other like the big boys they are while the rest of the house looks on. At a meeting later the Chief announces that Vargas has been sent home but that he has damage to his lungs. The Chief calls Severide to his office and yells at him for going after the kid and after the Chief earlier. Severide gets pissed about the kid being a firebug and tells the Chief he’s got to do more to stop him.

Severide stomps off to the locker room where he pops a double dose of the pills his pharmaceutical rep friend gave him. Could Severide’s drug problem be escalating? Hmm let’s go to the video tape: anger problem, moody, taking extra pills, impatience. Either it’s the drugs, he just has his period, or maybe Corinne insisted on being the small spoon and he had his heart set on being snuggled.

We get a rare Shay and Casey scene. Shay tells Casey that Dawson’s got a crappy landlord who won’t fix her window and she tried to fix it herself but you know girls they can’t do anything right so now the thing won’t open. How silly! Now, if she had just called Shay over to help she could have flashed her lesbian card and had that thing fixed in a jiffy. Shay tells Casey that Dawson doesn’t want to ask him for help so she’s asking instead. Shay positively beams when he agrees to talk to Dawson about it. Casey tells Dawson he’ll come put in a new window and gives her crap for not just asking him to help. She flirts back about how she doesn’t like to ask for favors and he’s all “good thing you didn’t have to.” Obvious points for Shay for being such a good wingman but the subtext feels pretty familiar. Show of hands all you ladies who ever helped one of your friends, who you were not at all in love with, get a guy? Oh Shay, you’ve got it bad for Dawson.

The Chief shows up at Ernie’s door and kid is his usual dodgy, twitchy self about the fires. The Chief offers to help and gives him until 2 p.m. to show up at the fire station.

After another daring rescue involving an elevator, Cruz gets a call that he needs to come bail his brother out of jail. Upon arriving at the jail, Cruz yells at his brother and tells him that he is going to come live with him. Leon tries to pretend that he has a new family and his brother calls bullshit on that. Later Cruz confronts Leon’s gang leader who tries to charge Joe Cruz ten thousand dollars to let his little brother walk from the gang. Cruz doesn’t have that kind of cash and in the end the gang guy relents. At the end of the episode a bruised and battered Leon gets dumped from a semi-moving car in front of Cruz’s house.

Dawson swishes her way up to Casey after he saves elevator man and asks him hypothetically what a friend would get another friend who was coming to replace a window for her. She knows that if they were in high school they would pass a note from Shay to Severide and then ignore each other at lunch time before making out behind the chapel at check in. The best part of this interaction is when Dawson busts out her Spanish to offer to make him “arroz con pollo picante” and everyone’s brain goes “wait if her mouth can make words sound like that, imagine what it can do to….” Casey has to take a moment to ponder that and tells him he’ll bring his own beer and she can cook him anything she wants as long as she brings her tongue that makes the words sound like that. Shay is waiting behind the ambulance to spur Dawson on in her quest to bed the fair maiden Casey. She asks how long it has been for Dawson, who admits it’s been awhile because she doesn’t live at Shay and Severide’s casa de shared sex partners. Shay, letting her gay flag fly high in the air, pulls out a basketball metaphor and I swear stops just short of drawing actual an X’s and O’s Kama Sutra on the side of the rig. She tells Dawson to “pick up the rebound and slam it home”-I am not making that up, that was actual dialogue. Dawson walks away and Shay smiles and she ogles Dawson’s ass and ponders slamming her own rebound. Bad news, Vargas has COPD and will be placed on permanent disability. He’ll get seventy-five percent pay but he won’t be a firefighter anymore. After Vargas leaves Casey asks about Severide’s shoulder. Severide growls that it’s fine and Casey presses until Severide lies about having his doctor say the shoulder was fine. So when Kendra said “you have a broken neck” Severide heard, “rub some dirt on it and you’ll be fine.”

What’s this? It’s a single car accident and who is that driving? Oh it’s none other than the delightful Sarah Shahi. Say hi to the lesbians Sarah, we missed you. Her car has live wire on it and gasoline dripping from the car. In the end she’s fine and fully smitten with Severide for saving her. She shows up at the firehouse with gifts of chocolate and to ask him on a date. He says no because clearly he’s into some sort of Speed role playing deal where he’s Keanu Reeves and is all “Ma’am they say that relationship formed under intense circumstances never last.” She’s a little surprised but then remembers she’s supposed to be Sandra Bullock and says “well then we’ll just have to base it on sex.”

Mills is playing racism Scrabble with Mouch when Shay and Dawson come in. Mills leaps up to grab the food he saved for Dawson, lest she have to eat a sandwich. Shay smirks and gives Mills crap about how she doesn’t need any food because she ate two whole sunflower seeds in the rig on the way back to the house. Have I mentioned that I love Shay and her smart mouth? The firehouse gives Vargas his fire helmet with messages written all over it before they say good-bye. The poor guy is having a truly rough go of it and the Chief asks Severide and Casey to keep an eye on Vargas.

There is a quick scene with Casey and Dawson picking out a new window for her apartment. Casey asks her about the window on the computer screen and when she says she likes it he tells her it’s a crap window. She replies that she thinks the window is “cute.” I found this really frustrating because Dawson is a badass. She kicked a dude out of her ambulance for being belligerent, she breaks rules to save lives. Yet, here she is talking about windows being cute and playing the helpless girl. Plenty of chicks talk like this, plenty of girls are like this, but it feels out of character for her. So, either the writers are trying to show us how different she is (and stupid) around Casey, or this is what flirting looks like. I don’t love it. It only solidifies my love for all things Shawson because Dawson doesn’t pretend to be bubble headed or incapable while she eye-sexes Shay. Shay runs into a snarling Severide in the hall and asks if he’s still taking drugs. He gets all moody teenager and says she should stay out of his business and maybe he’s just happy. She tells him that it’s no joke what he’s doing before giving up and telling him that he’s got a visitor again. When is Shay going to stop being the one taking care of everyone else? Get this lady a lady already. I hear Dawson is still available. Renee Royce (Shahi) is back and she’s not leaving without Severide. He agrees to have dinner with her but he brings along Vargas who has spent the episode having a really hard time with not being able to work anymore. When Vargas leaves Severide tells Renee he’s sorry for bringing Vargas but Renee kisses Severide like a slobber mouth for being such a good man.

The Chief goes reports Ernie to fire HQ even though he has misgivings about putting him in the system. But wouldn’t you know it, there’s another suspicious fire and there’s Ernie on his bike. The Chief finds out that the kids checks are getting sent to a home other than the one where his grandmother live. The Chief finds Ernie and his “Uncle Ray” who is creepier than the kid and who gets in the Chief’s face. Before you know t both the kid and Ray are out the door. Turns out Ray’s got a prior conviction for arson. Well what do you know? So is it the kid learning the tricks of the arson trade or is he hanging around Ray’s handiwork?

We see Dawson’s cute apartment and Casey’s got his caulk out and is finishing the window. While Dawson checks the food he lingers over pictures of her niece and nephews before getting jealous of a picture of Dawson with Mills. Dawson’s a genius because the quickest way to Casey’s heart is to show just how much you love kids. She gives him a taste of her cooking (not a euphemism) and he decides she needs a picture of the two of them for the wall. He takes the picture and they are about to kiss when his phone buzzes and he’s called to the firehouse. All the Shawson shippers can take a deep breath and relax, at least for this episode. Vargas is on the roof and Severide is trying to talk him down. Casey reminds Vargas that even if he can’t work he’ll always be a part of the house and they convince him to get down off the ledge.

Next week is the cliffhanger episode Lauren German tweeted about earlier this fall. The previews show Severide and Renee getting naked, some serious firefighting, and some more Dawson and Casey moments. We’ll have to wait and see what happens and if Lauren German was just messing with the lesbians or not.

What do you think the Shawson cliffhanger is going to be?

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