The fundamental issue with “Ride the Blade” is that it feels like an episode comprised of subplots, as if Chicago Fire wanted to push all its personal stories along so it put them all into one hour. There’s very little here that has any long-term impact, save the idea of Damon being transferred out of the firehouse. It is a wonderful thing to see Christopher and Cindy Herrmann’s marriage take center stage in a story that doesn’t involve something terrible happening, but Herrmann running around trying to identify a scent comes across as just needing to find some comic relief and knowing that David Eigenberg can always make that happen. The funniest person in the episode is actually Jocelyn Hudon as Lizzie Novak, because the writers have finally found an almost surgical way to apply Novak’s lack of filter.
The best news is that Violet reaches out to Carver, who seems to be having second thoughts about his hard-partying fling with Tori from high school — because as quickly as the show put them together, it’s taken its sweet time letting them actually be a proper couple. Both characters deserve a good step forward. But aside from that and Damon’s fate, there’s not much in Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 2 that audiences need to remember. It’s the rare installment that One Chicago fans will forget before the end of the season, when they’re focused on characters and plot developments that matter a lot more.
