Chicago Fire welcomed back Boden under very intense circumstances during Wednesday’s episode, which kicked off with one of 51’s own in the hospital and fighting for their life.
As Boden grilled Chief Pascal and his officers — Severide, Herrmann and Kidd — to find out what went wrong, the identity of the injured firefighter remained a tantalizing mystery. And there were a few probable candidates: Carver, who just returned from furlough after 30 days, which made Boden question if he was ready to get back to work. Then there was Cruz, who hadn’t slept well the night before. But while viewers wondered who had been left behind in the disastrous house fire, Boden was tasked with finding who was responsible.
Pascal, Severide, Herrmann and Kidd each detailed the many ways in which things went wrong, from the lack of traffic control ro an inability to access water quick enough to Cruz’s tank malfunctioning. When Pascal saw that the house was about to collapse, he ordered everyone to evacuate. Herrmann counted six firefighters in and six out, but an alarm signaled that someone had been left behind. Herrmann questioned the chief’s call — if they had more time, maybe nobody would have been hurt. But Herrmann was glad he didn’t have to make that call, and when Boden brought it up to Pascal, the latter accused Boden of trying to push him out so Herrmann could climb the ranks. But Boden also picked up on Herrmann’s potential reluctance to step up the ladder, telling him, “You’ll think of calls differently when you’re chief. You’ll see — if that’s still what you want.”
It was Boden who finally put the pieces together and figured out what happened during the incident: There was a seventh firefighter inside the house. Stella had ordered Carver to retreat, but unbeknownst to her, he saw Clarence fall through the collapsed floor and went in after him. Meanwhile, Severide mistook Carver for Damon, who had gotten separated from Clarence and made it to the attic, where he was crushed under the weight of the roof. While he made it out of surgery, Damon suffered internal bleeding and smoke inhalation so bad that his scans showed evidence of lung breakdown, leaving him to worry that his days as a firefighter might be numbered.
As for Boden, he took his findings to the committee, who demanded to know who was at fault. This was “the kind of call where everything that could go wrong did,” he said. And yet, 51 saved four lives on borrowed time against the worst circumstances because every firefighter operates at the highest caliber under a strong leader.
“I wouldn’t have done it any differently. Chief Pascal and his officers made all the right calls,” Boden concluded. With that, 51 was cleared of any wrongdoing, and Boden and Pascal exchanged some short words of respect (“Keep up the good work. I’ll make sure that you do,” Boden told Pascal).
In another moment that showed how far Pascal has come with the firehouse, Stella went back to Boden because she didn’t feel good about saying that things with the new chief have been “tricky.” She explained that Pascal is a very capable chief who has shown up for everyone at 51, including her, and she hopes that he knows she also has his back.
