Heading into the penultimate episode of Chicago Fire season 14, we expected that the episode would be building towards a final showdown between Severide and Hopkins for the finale. What we did not expect was that the episode would bring the showdown to an end before the final hour of the season.
In Chicago Fire season 14, episode 20, we learned that Benny had written up both Hopkins and Williams back in the day after an expensive watch went missing when their firehouse responded to a fire at a jewelry store. With this information, Severide began looking into the case to try to solve the 30-year cold case and get to the bottom of what really happened.
The investigation took Severide down a few avenues, including one in which he feared that Benny was the one behind the robbery and that he used his position of authority to pin the blame on Hopkins and Williams. As Severide and Cruz worked the case, they’d come to find that not only was Benny indeed in the clear but so was Hopkins. We’d come to find out that it was Williams who stole the watch in the fire, a piece of news that made Hopkins realize it was his longtime friend who had actually derailed his career by allowing him to take the fall for her actions.
After learning the truth, Hopkins pulls the complaint against Severide, which ends the IA investigation, and apologizes to Severide for his actions and for making the wrong assumptions about who he was. Not only did Hopkins back down, but he also revealed to Severide that he was going to be leaving 51 and returning to his office at Firehouse 20.
The storyline appeared to be an exit for Hopkins, which aligns with comments actor Rob Morgan made in our exclusive interview in which he hinted to One Chicago Center that he would not be coming back for season 15.
When One Chicago Center asked whether we might see Hopkins in the show’s recently ordered fifteenth season, Morgan danced around the question and encouraged the fans to make it known if they want to see more of the character in season 15.
“You have to write some emails to the writers and let the writers know we want more Hopkins [and that] we want more of this guy to shake [things] up and bring fire to the firehouse. [You’ve got to] keep the viewer on the edge of their seats. The viewers might have got a little too comfortable there for a minute,” Morgan remarked.
Given that Hopkins has buried the hatchet and made nice with Severide in realizing the errors of his ways, and left Firehouse 51, it certainly seems that we’ve seen the last of Hopkins, at least for now. We’ll have to wait to see whether Hopkins might make a return in season 15 and what storyline the writers would cook up to bring him back into the mix now that his feud with Severide has been resolved.
After seeing Hopkins as such a villainous character during his arc, it would be nice to see more of the character on the show working alongside Severide and the team at 51 in a supporting capacity instead of as an adversary!