‘Chicago Fire’ Boss on Wedding Bells for Casey and Dawson, Severide’s “Dilemma”

“It’s a Chicago show, it’s a heartland show, there’s something sweet about them together,” showrunner Matt Olmstead says of the decision to reunite Casey and Dawson.

Chicago Fire has never shied away from shaking up its core ensemble, but one of season four’s forthcoming additions will truly change Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Dawson’s (Monica Raymund) lives forever. That’s because when the show returns Dawson is pregnant with the on-and-off couple’s first child.

“Of course there’s going to be conflicts, but just the idea of breaking them up and having them date other people full-on just felt like the center of the show was starting to dissipate a little bit,” showrunner Matt Olmstead tells The Hollywood Reporter. “They’re really the core of the show.”

Olmstead also spoke with THR about Severide’s (Taylor Kinney) “dilemma,” his new romance and a “shakeup” at Firehouse 51.

The original NBC fall schedule delayed the return of Chicago Fire until November even though you have fairly regular crossovers between that and P.D. How much of a concern was that for you?

I don’t know a lot about scheduling. I don’t know a lot about budgets. I just stick to stories and scripts and let other people worry about that stuff, but scheduling does affect us and does affect me. Even with the crossovers, like we have one planned that looks like we’re going to do in the first week of January, but that was going to be November then it floated. You’re having writers on hold of when you’re slotting people in so you can ride the wave a little bit but at a certain point, I need to know the dates. Because we’re going to get jammed up if we don’t. Luckily those dates have been locked in at this point. I think now that we know the dates, we’ve been able to schedule what episodes are going to happen where and what writers are going to do what. You definitely have to be light on your feet early on and then in case anything gets thrown your way, you can adjust to it.

The Fire finale introduced a huge curveball for the Dawson-Casey relationship. What was behind that decision? What can you say about their relationship going forward?

It’s our most important relationship on the show. They’ve been together off and on since the beginning, and we hit the veritable fork in the road: Are they going to stay together? But what’s left for a couple that’s been through everything that they’ve been through? Are you thinking of marriage and grandkids and all that stuff? Or do you break them up and have them start fresh with other characters? We explored all avenues, but our feeling is — and it was definitely reinforced by testing — they love the characters as individuals and love the characters as a couple, so you know what? Let’s go for it. There are certain things you can’t come back from, but there are certain things that can complicate. We just didn’t want an official breakup all of a sudden and now she’s dating a lawyer and he’s dating [someone else].