Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 10, “Chaos Theory” is a hard episode to put one’s finger on. It does provide a satisfying end to Joe Cruz’s storyline with Flaco, Junior and the Humboldt Park fire, but not in the best way. The rest of the show is indeed chaotic as other characters feel like they’re present just to be accounted for. And knowing that the One Chicago crossover is ahead, the episode has a sense of clearing the slate just to set up the big event.
“Chaos Theory” mainly focuses on Cruz again, as his erratic behavior naturally comes to the attention of Firehouse 51. Meanwhile, Stella Kidd is back in action when a community center is accidentally affected by tear gas and pepper spray from a police academy, but another one of the main characters is missing. And the comedic subplot may as well not exist. The episode has its highs and lows, but there’s also a lot of potential left behind.
Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 10 Gives Cruz Resolution
Joe Minoso and Taylor Kinney Take Center Stage
“Chaos Theory” picks up exactly where Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 9, “A Favor” left off, with a wounded Joe Cruz having to decide if he’ll come forward about the shooting that killed Junior Polanco. The way Cruz’s storyline plays out is satisfying from a character standpoint, but it’s relatively bland in terms of entertainment value. It’s great to see actor Jeff Lima return as Leon Cruz — but he only appears in one scene. It’s also a smart idea to have Kelly Severide using his arson investigator experience to look into the Humboldt Park fire in which Junior’s cousin Flaco was killed. Plus, assigning Severide to the task at all is another reminder of how Chief Pascal is not Chief Boden. Boden wouldn’t have taken such a drastic measure.
However, the audience feels more of Cruz’s panic and disappointment in himself than any real sense he could lose his job and/or his freedom. The wrath of Pascal is the only on-screen threat, and “Chaos Theory” drops its most important scene: when Cruz decides to confess everything to Chicago PD‘s Kevin Atwater. The empathetic and quotable Atwater is the perfect person for such a scene, too, but the episode skips ahead after Cruz is shown going up to the Intelligence Unit. Instead, viewers get to see a brief meeting with a random State’s Attorney — not even one the viewers already know — and watch the man tell everyone Cruz won’t be criminally charged. Even the two-week suspension Pascal metes out feels weak, because unless actor Joe Minoso is getting the crossover off, fans know Cruz won’t actually be gone.
Joe Cruz (to Kelly Severide): I know what I did. And I know what I’ve got to do.
So Cruz’s storyline is more satisfying because of what Minoso and Taylor Kinney put into it, and what it means for Cruz as a person. The bond between Cruz and Severide is such a great relationship, and Cruz opening up to Severide is the show’s best moment. Kinney sells the important idea that Severide isn’t just defending Cruz because it’s his friend — but because that’s what the evidence proves. And Minoso is very clear in illustrating how this experience has once again prompted Cruz to grow and be better. That doesn’t make up for skipping over seeing Cruz face his fears, but at least Chicago Fire leaves fans feeling that this is something Joe Cruz will carry with him for the rest of his life.
Chicago Fire Leaves Much of Firehouse 51 Standing By
Stella Returns While Mouch Gets the Week Off
Much like “A Favor,” this feels like an episode where Chicago Fire had its main storyline plotted out and then didn’t put quite enough effort into the subplots. Every installment has plotlines that are more important than others, but generally the show seems more cohesive than this. With Stella Kidd returning after a week off, it’s no surprise that Miranda Rae Mayo is given the B-story, in which Stella convinces a teacher not to quit her job after a community center is hit by tear gas and pepper spray. But the idea never fully blossoms because Stella only has two scenes with the character of Amy, and neither of them last long enough for the audience to feel the characters have connected.
Along similar lines, Christian Stolte is absent from this episode. Longtime One Chicago viewers know that the franchise reduced the number of episodes individual actors appear in back in 2023, and Mayo and Stolte’s brief departures feel like another part of that cost-cutting measure. It’s notable, even as Mouch likely wouldn’t have had anything to do. The comedic C-story involves Daniel Kyri’s character Darren Ritter getting fed up with having to drive Christopher Herrmann around, calling him a rideshare instead, and assuming that Herrmann tanked his user rating. This is a brilliant idea executed in the wrong way. Herrmann is exactly the character who would do that — and David Eigenberg is the perfect actor to pull off a rideshare meltdown. Fans would love to see another Herrmann rant. But instead of just going for it, the script opts for a fake-out where Ritter’s actually to blame.
Lizzie Novak is only present to be a foil to Ritter, while the only other thing of note is minimal movement in the love triangle between Violet Mikami, Sam Carver and Violet’s boyfriend Flynn. This is the expected plot point where the two rivals awkwardly run into each other, which fans have seen happen in other One Chicago romantic subplots before. “A Favor” accounts for almost everyone in the Chicago Fire cast, but most of the characters don’t have any memorable moments.
Chicago Fire Episode 10 Feels Like Crossover Prep
The Storylines Don’t Have Much Left Hanging
The underwhelming aspects of “Chaos Theory” might be attributable to the fact that Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 11 is the start of the One Chicago crossover, which NBC promoted heavily during and after this hour. With crossover episodes always being massive stories, the plotlines of each individual show wind up taking a back seat — simply because the writers don’t have time or space to carry anything through into the crossover.
That’s why Cruz’s suspension feels so anticlimactic, because logically viewers already know that they’re going to see him, as well as pretty much everyone else, in the very next episode. And that’s why his storyline has to end right here, because it wouldn’t make much sense to have Cruz going through a life-defining crisis, forget about it in order to handle whatever giant problem is going to affect the whole city of Chicago, and then go back to worrying about Junior and Flaco. Unfortunately, knowing those logistical constraints doesn’t change the fact that it makes this particular episode not as great as it could have been.
Joe Cruz: I want to be the man my son thinks I am.
But audiences get to enjoy more fantastic work from both Joe Minoso and Taylor Kinney. They get to know that Cruz as a character has gone through something very deep, even if the show wound up truncating his storyline at its biggest moment. Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 12 is still worth the watch because viewers feel the emotion in it, regardless of the plot coming up more than a little short.
