'Chicago Fire' Boss Teases Severide Putting His Career on the Line in Season 13 Finale (Exclusive)

The Chicago Fire finale is full of baby news, broken relationships, rekindled romances, and putting your all on the line for someone you believe in, and showrunner Andrea Newman spoke to Parade to tease all the juicy details.

At the end of the penultimate episode of Season 13, Chief Dom Pascal (Dermot Mulroney) was perp walked out of Firehouse 51 for the attempted murder of Robert Franklin (Matthew Collins) and taken to the police station for questioning. The evidence against him is very damaging, but for some reason Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) is willing to put his career on the line to ensure that Pascal gets a fair shake.

“The beginning of that bond was the Bishop [Keith Kupferer] storyline, where both Kidd and Monica had been threatened – Severide and Pascal's families – by Bishop, and then, Bishop's garage was suddenly on fire,” Newman explained. “Pascal implied that he had done it. And Severide in that moment was looking at him like, ‘This guy's a little shady, but also, I can relate to this guy. I can relate to the fact that he'd do anything for the people he loves.’ That's a quality that Severide has, too.”

But it’s more than that. Their bond is also due to the fact that Severide has daddy issues. His father Benny (Treat Williams) had been demanding and difficult, and when he died, Severide looked for someone else to fill that role.

“He got a little bit of it in Van Meter [Tim Hopper], and now, a little bit in Pascal, too,” Newman said. “I think he's willing to do almost anything to help Pascal, even though Severide himself has questions. Did Pascal do this? How that story plays out is going to be a big part of Severide going forward, how he trusts people around him.”

 

And speaking of daddy issues, there’s the fact that Severide and Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) are ready to start a family, but Stella has said she doesn’t want to get pregnant and would rather adopt. Severide was good with that, and just when they thought they had been selected by a birth mother to adopt her baby, in an emotionally charged story, she changed her mind. They were devastated, which could put them off of adoption.

“Coming out of that process, I think they feel stronger than ever as a couple, and I think that means that they're open to anything at that point,” Newman said, so adoption is still on the table. “At the end of that episode, they have a little bit of back and forth, and are on opposite sides for a moment, and then they come together. I feel like at the end of that episode, for the first time, you really see what Kidd looks like as a mom, and Severide looks like as a dad, the way they're reacting and the way they're looking at that baby. I think they come out of that stronger than ever, and more determined than ever to start a family in whatever form that may take for them."

 

Also struggling with personal issues is Violet Mikami (Hanako Greensmith), who broke up with her boyfriend Flynn (Steven Strait) when he tried to push her into attending medical school and becoming a doctor, and in so doing said aloud for the first time, “I’m in love with someone else.” That someone else, of course, is Carver (Jake Lockett), and he’s been announced as leaving the series at the end of the season. 

So, where does that leave Violet?

“There's a lot that isn't going to be played out completely,” Newman admitted. “There's a lot that's going to be abbreviated to some degree, but I think it'll be surprising. They have a little journey to go through themselves. They're not done yet, but they have come, over the course of the season, to really get to know each other. This is a huge move for Violet, being able to say, ‘I love you’ after everything she's been through. That she got to this place, that in and of itself, is a beautiful journey for her.”

Carver has put in for a transfer to the Denver, CO, fire department, feeling that he needs a new start and that there are too many triggers in Chicago for him to stay there and stay sober, and Violet could very well be one of them.

“For Carver, it's all about, can he juggle trying to heal, trying to stay clean, and also engage in a relationship, or is that going to be the thing that brings him down?” Newman said. “If he takes his eye off the getting sober part of it, is that going to cause him to backslide, essentially? Is Violet the best thing for him right now, or is Violet maybe the thing that's going to push him over the edge? That's the question.”

 

As for why Violet reacted so strongly when Flynn set up a meeting with her and a woman who facilitates getting paramedics into medical school, it has a lot to do with her feelings about doctors talking down to her.

“She's used the phrase ‘docsplaining’ when doctors talk down to her,” Newman explained. “She gets a lot of tension with the doctors when they treat her as less as a paramedic. This is a real dynamic that's out there in the field between paramedics and doctors. They're in the wild, and doctors are safe and sound in the hospital, with all the equipment they need.

“For Violet, she's always felt like the paramedic job is the one she loves. It's more the getting your hands dirty, getting out there. All the crazy things that can happen, she can handle it, and when doctors talk down to her, she hates it. She loves her job. It's a little bit of a sore spot, obviously, for her, because she feels that this is what she wants to do. Why can't anyone accept that that's the goal instead of becoming a doctor?”