What’s next for the good ship Stellaride?
Chicago Fire fans weren’t left hanging back in May on a life-or-death kind of cliffhanger that they know very well after more than 250 episodes, but there were definitely emotional cliffhangers that will soon be paid off. Along with the other two series of One Chicago, Fire returns for Season 13 in the 2024 TV schedule on September 25, and showrunner Andrea Newman spoke with CinemaBlend about revisiting Severide’s desire to start a family with Kidd as well as that bombshell reveal about Damon from the end of Season 12.
In the Season 12 finale back in the spring, between emotional speeches for Boden and Severide learning that Benny Severide had yet another secret child, the longtime Squad lieutenant suggested to Kidd that they should start their own family. For her part, the Truck lieutenant looked completely taken aback at what he said… although that could have had something to do with him dropping it in the morning when they were getting ready for work.
To his credit, Severide immediately acknowledged that starting a family would be a bigger decision for her than it would be for him. When I spoke with Andrea Newman about the upcoming season, I noted that was something I really appreciated from Severide and asked if we’d see more of it playing out. She responded:
Absolutely. Part of their journey as a couple is this issue and exactly what you said, which is we like the idea of exploring how different it is when the male firefighter decides, ‘Oh, I want to start a family,’ and when a female firefighter decides that. Just how much those two are separated in what they’re going to have to go through to get to that family, and just where Kidd’s head is at. It’s a fun issue for both of them, because they both have tortured family backgrounds and pasts, and they don’t have great role models for parents in their lives. Can we start from scratch? Can we do this? Do we even know how? And what will it mean for Kidd, particularly?
Chicago Fire has dealt with firefighters as parents plenty of times over the years, from the Herrmann brood to Dawson and Casey’s struggles to Cruz and Chloe having a baby boy and adopting Javi. What we haven’t seen is a pair of CFD officers weighing the decision to start a family and all the complications that would be involved. After all, Stella Kidd has been crushing as Truck lieutenant since she earned the promotion. The showrunner elaborated:
Does she want to stop being Wonder Woman for a little while, or can she do everything? You know, those are all the questions.
It should also be interesting to see how much time passes before we learn the latest on how Kidd and Severide are each feeling about starting a family. On the subject of a time jump from the very end of the Season 12 finale (which is currently streaming via Peacock subscription) with Damon’s bombshell reveal that he’s Severide’s half brother, Andrea Newman shed some light:
We don’t want to go too far past that. We wanted to stay in the urgency of that and Severide’s reaction to that and how he would tell Kidd. We’re keeping that time frame to the moment, like right after that. We get a little bit of time there, but then we jump ahead six weeks, which is where the other shows are jumping ahead to so we’re all around the same time. We get a brief moment with Severide and Kidd to live in the fallout of Benny Severide’s son, and then we jump forward.
So, while the three shows of One Chicago will more or less be in sync with each other by the ends of the upcoming premieres (with new Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald saying the same for the medical drama), Fire is going to spend a bit of time in the immediate aftermath of last season’s cliffhanger. Andrea Newman previewed:
It’s a really kind of critical moment for Severide, when he’s thinking about having his own family, and then all of a sudden, he’s got this half brother that shows up that he feels responsible for in a lot of ways, because he was not close to him, didn’t know him, and Damon was so eager to get to know him, but Damon played it in this way by keeping it secret that created tension with Kidd, who’s his boss. So there’s a lot of conflict to resolve between Kidd and Severide about Damon, and then Severide and what relationship will be with Damon is what we get to explore in the first few episodes.
Would it really be Chicago Fire without some complicated family and firehouse dynamics to go along with the various crises of the week? The show has been running for thirteen seasons for a reason! While the good ship Stellaride often needs to navigate some rough waters, their journey regarding the idea of starting a family sounds like a highlight of Fire starting this fall.
