“It’s kind of like people’s past ghosts coming back,” showrunner Andrea Newman says.
Goodbye, Boden (Eamonn Walker) … hello, Dom (Dermot Mulroney).
When Chicago Fire returns for season 13, there’s a new chief at Firehouse 51, and his name is Dom Pascal. “It’s like Boden raised them,” showrunner Andrea Newman says. “When a new chief starts, everybody’s going to have a different reaction. And some of the reactions are surprising.” But Boden won’t be forgotten. As Newman puts it, “Boden’s presence is still so much a part of the show, and it always will be, because he was so formative in the way that he put this group together and the way he raised this family up.”
And new faces aren’t always a bad thing. “There’s still such a core group there and they really do feel like a family and they always have,” Newman continues. “Bringing new people in is really a joy just as a writer. You get to see new dynamics, you get to see how certain people change, their relationships get shaken up a little bit by this new person coming in. The idea of sitting down and trying to write without the dad of this family, it honestly felt like how you feel as a parent when you’re hoping you raised your kids right.”
Speaking of family, the other big cliffhanger of last season involved Damon (Michael Bradway) revealing to Severide (Taylor Kinney) that they share a father.
“We kept feeling like this is haunted season 13. It’s kind of like people’s past ghosts coming back,” Newman says. “That’s very true for Severide, where he’s worked really hard to put his father in the rearview mirror and become his own firefighter. So to suddenly have Benny’s son, his half-brother, appear in his life, it makes him have to re-explore all of that stuff. So it brings up a lot for Severide and that relationship is complicated and juicy and there’s lots of stuff that will play out between the two of them early on.”
But Severide isn’t the only one being haunted. There’s still the question of what’s next for Violet (Hanako Greensmith) and Carver (Jake Lockett). “Violet’s haunted by Hawkins [Jimmy Nicholas] and what happened with Hawkins and that relationship,” Newman says. “And Carver is haunted just as a soul. So we are mining a bunch of that at the beginning of the season. There’s a lot between the two of them and a lot about the fact that they both bring their own ghosts to the table.”
It will all play out when Chicago Fire returns Wednesday, Sept. 25, on NBC.
