What is it with Chicago Fire and deadly finale cliffhangers?
Last night’s Season 5 finale ended, quite literally, with a bang. Following the trend of past finales, “My Miracle” started out as just another regular episode.
Normal calls to the firehouse, car crashes and bizarre people doing weird stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary.
What was out of place, however, were the two conflicts that started last week — Dawson and her father and Cruz blaming Mouch for his suspension — and these two plots drove the episode until the very last minute.
Now, I get why Joe was upset, but he was overreacting just a little bit, don’t you guys think?
Of course, the situation he found himself in was unfortunate, but he couldn’t blame it all on poor Mouch. During the episode, there were a few scenes that I just wanted to shake him really hard and yell him to stop being such a baby about this.
After all, he was the one with the CFD tattoo that allowed the drunk guy in the club to identify him as a firefighter.
Mouch may have handled the situation poorly and was not really prepared to back him up, but that doesn’t mean Joe gets to shame him in front of everyone at Molly’s.
Cruz was trying to place the blame where it didn’t belong, when it was ultimately his own fault that he found himself in this situation.
Poor Mouchie is feeling so bad about this, that he decides that it’s time to retire and he even finds a new job.
So when they arrive at that massive structure fire and he tells Herrmann that this is his last shift, I just knew something really bad was about to go down.
The fire is intense and all consuming and it seems to be the final straw on Mouch’s already overworked heart.
He goes down hard and Herrmann nearly panics when he realizes Mouch is having a heart attack. The fire quickly surrounds them and they soon find themselves trapped.
Joe absolutely panics and begs Chief Boden to allow him to go inside and help, but when they are about to go in, the fire covers the entrance and it looks like all hope is lost.
I sure hope Mouch isn’t actually dead. Even though he’s not really one of my favorites, he is Trudy’s husband — and how can anyone not love that woman? — and that would absolutely destroy her.
I have no idea if Christian Stolte’s contract has been renewed or not, but here’s hoping that a miracle happens and Mouch makes a full recovery.
While all that was happening, things on the Dawsey front were strained at best. Ever since Gabby took her Dad in, the man has been an absolute pain in the ass. C
asey can’t stand him in his house anymore and Dawson just can’t bring herself to tell Matt why she needs to help her Dad.
Add that to the fact that Matt is stressed out about the accusations one of the other aldermen is throwing at him about his first responders bill, and things escalate very, very fast.
The final straw is when they are at Molly’s and Casey has nearly convinced the other Alderman to give up his witch hunt, when a drunk Ramon shows up and starts swearing at the guy, effectively destroying any possibility of a deal.
Matt is justifiably pissed off and doesn’t go home that night, deciding to crash at Severide’s.
The next morning, Casey and Dawson still argue a lot and he gives her an ultimatum — he needs a date for her Dad to leave. He can’t just stay indefinitely.
They fight some more and things are still bad when they last see each other at the Firehouse.
Dawson leaves with Brett when they get a call, and Casey goes over to City Hall to show the public that the other guy was wrong and that he would never do anything to jeopardize his career as a firefighter.
Then he promptly announces that he is stepping down as Alderman and appoints Tamara – his political consultant — to take his place.
The next time Matt and Gabby see each other is right before Casey is about to go inside the building on fire.
When they look at each other, it felt like they knew — deep down — that something was about to happen.
He gets separated from the team when he changes his path to save someone and gets trapped inside, fire surrounding him and absolutely no way out.
He tries as hard as he can to break down a wall, anything, but it looks like this is it.
When he asks the Chief to put Gabby on and takes off his mask, my heart was already in pieces for them.
These two have fought so hard and overcame so many obstacles to just be able to live happy, normal lives together, that it doesn’t seem fair that this is how they are going to end.
So our last shot of the season is Casey telling Dawson he loves her, resigned to the fact that he is not going to make it out alive; Mouch is in cardiac arrest in a burning building, with a desperate Herrmann trapped with him; Severide and Kannell, and Kidd and Otis are all MIA, and the rest of the team panicking outside.
This is going to be a long summer.
Chicago Fire has been renewed and will return an all new season in the Fall.