“Not Everybody Wants That”: ’Chicago Fire’s Eamonn Walker Teases Boden’s Reaction To Herrmann’s Hesitance To Become Chief

When Boden (Eamonn Walker) returns to Chicago Fire, things will be a little different than he left them. For one, there is a new chief who took over from him. However, Boden had blessed longtime Firehouse 51 member Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) as his successor should the latter choose to pursue that path. After trying, Herrmann was not convinced this was his path and the new chief noticed Herrmann’s desire to withdraw from pursuing the position. “That same thing that Pascal (Dermot Mulroney) picks up on will be a discovery for Boden within this episode, I can give you that. But there’s no resolve to it, because growth is painful, and you don’t just one day pass an exam and all of a sudden you know how to do the job,” Walker told TV Line of Boden’s realization that Herrmann might not be interested in the position.

“No, now you’ve got the paperwork, and now you have to discover what the job is… There’s a learning curve. Boden knows both Herrmann and Mouch (Christian Stolte) will have to go on their learning curve to make up their mind about who and what they really are. But the lessons should be coming for them all the time, not only from Boden, but from Pascal, too,” the actor added, teasing a significant challenge for Herrmann, who is trying to climb the CFD ladder with Mouch. Walker continued:

Everybody goes, “Chief, chief, chief, chief, chief,” and they don’t really know what it means. What it means is you’ve got everybody in that firehouse, you have their lives in your hands, and anything you say, you make one mistake, which is what’s happened in this episode, a person dies, and that’s pretty heavy. Not everybody wants that.”

Is Boden Returning to ‘Chicago Fire’ Permanently?

Boden is now a deputy commissioner in the CFD and his role does not allow him to return to Firehouse 51. Also, the position is new for the character. “He’s in a learning curve of what it is to be deputy commissioner, being at the beck and call of the commissioner, but also to have the whole Chicago Fire Department to be taken care of,” Walker said of where Boden is in his career. “And it’s not like taking care of a firehouse. It’s a very different animal, and so he’s been learning. By the time you meet him in this episode, he’s pretty good at it,” he continued and then added:

“He comes into this episode, under this heightened situation because a firefighter had been left behind in the fire and nobody knew until the PASS alarm went off, to investigate his old favorite firehouse, and his old friends and people he loves, and with the potential of him firing [someone]. It’s pretty heavy.”

Watch Boden’s return when “Post Mortem” airs on NBC this Wednesday.