Every long-running show eventually finds that character, the one who was once a fan favorite but slowly becomes a lightning rod. For Chicago Fire, that character is Stella Kidd.
On paper, Stella is everything you’d want: a passionate lieutenant, leader of Girls on Fire, married to a legacy character in Kelly Severide, and central to Firehouse 51’s culture. But ask around in fan spaces and you’ll see a very different tone.
Some long-time viewers have flat-out called her “the worst thing to have happened to Chicago Fire,” arguing that making her the constant focus has almost ruined Kelly and pulled too much oxygen away from the rest of the ensemble. Add in seasons where Stella-centered arcs dominated screen time while other characters exited abruptly, and frustration has built up.
Here’s the core issue heading into 2026:
- Too much gravity: The show keeps orbiting around Stella’s promotions, mentoring, and personal life. It’s not that those stories are bad, in fact they are good, it’s that they keep crowding out everybody else in fan’s eyes.
- Stellaride fatigue: The Stella–Severide relationship was once a huge asset. Now, some viewers feel like it’s been stretched and twisted so often that it’s stopped feeling organic. Especially the pregnancy storyline. The opener in season 14 did Stella no favors as fans nearly revolted in unison.
None of this means Stella needs to be written out. In fact, she’s still one of the few characters with the history and gravitas to help bridge old-school Firehouse 51 with whatever 2026 looks like.
What Chicago Fire needs to do is recalibrate:
- Let Stella be a leader without making every major plot about her.
- Spread the emotional heavy lifting across the rest of the house again.
- Give Severide and the younger firefighters arcs that don’t always run through Stella by default.
There are reasons to be optimistic.
The risk is simple: if 2026 feels like another year when everything revolves around Stella while other characters spin in place or vanish, more fans will quietly drift away.
Stella Kidd isn’t the problem by herself. But right now, she’s the symbol of a bigger issue: Chicago Fire has to remember it’s an ensemble show. If the writers get that balance back, Stella can go from polarizing back to essential.
Maybe the time away with Isaiah can help both fans and the show find a new way to view Stella in th new year.
