
“A Coffin That Small” Should Never Be in ‘Chicago Fire’
“A Coffin That Small” sees the squad flushing fire hydrants when a neighborhood kid calls them to his apartment complex. He leads them to an old laundry chute, where his brother is stuck. The team cuts the boy out of the wall, alive but severely injured. He’s sent to the hospital, pausing his story as Fire carries on with storylines involving a stolen ambulance, Shay (Lauren German) and Severide (Taylor Kinney) making plans for a pregnancy, and gunfire hitting the station as a result of a gang being angered after losing drugs, stashed in fire hydrants, being flushed away inadvertently at the start of the episode.
What Makes ‘Chicago Fire’s “A Coffin That Small” So Heartrending
What is it about “A Coffin That Small” that is so heartrending? There’s no single definitive answer as to why, but a mixture of elements creates the “perfect storm,” if you will. The most obvious is the tragic loss of a child. Children’s deaths on television aren’t necessarily taboo, but they are rare, and rarer still are those that actually have related events on-screen, be it the death itself or, as in this case, a funeral procession. You don’t even need to have a child of your own to understand just how tragic that loss would be. Then, there’s David Eigenberg’s Herrmann. I’ve long contended that Herrmann is the beating heart of Chicago Fire, a man who wears his emotions on his sleeve, and when he turns around after looking at the picture, the look on his face, a mix of grief and determination, is right there, setting the scene for the funeral procession to follow (it’s a sin that Eigenberg hasn’t been recognized for his work on the show). And anytime that Station 51 comes out to support the community en masse, another element that separates Fire from Med and P.D., it’s a stirring reminder of why we feel so strongly about them.
It’s fair to say that what one person finds to be the most heartbreaking may not be the same as another, so what makes “A Coffin That Small” wrenching for me is at a deeper, personal level. I have been to the funeral of a child, a sweet girl by the name of Hope, who died shortly after her first birthday. Her whole, brief life was a fight to the end, a literal medical miracle that she lived as long as she did, and her story was followed by hundreds. Still, nothing can prepare you for seeing a “coffin that small” in real life. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever witnessed, and I think it’s safe to say I wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Your story is different, and that’s what makes Chicago Fire so engaging. No matter where you are in life or what you’re feeling, Fire seems to hit them all, even the most tragic.