Who Is Monica Pascal on Chicago Fire? KaDee Strickland’s Connection to the New Chief, Explained
Chicago Fire began airing in 2012 and followed the lives of the firefighters and paramedics working at the Chicago Fire Department’s Firehouse 51. The show is great at creating big fires and building teams within the fire department, but like many other One Chicago shows, one of Chicago Fire’s biggest struggles is building relationships between characters outside the fire department in a way that balances well with the procedural side of the show. That’s part of the reason why so many characters date within the fire department, even when it’s against the rules. This flaw is never more apparent than when a new character joins the fire department.
Just two episodes into Season 13 of Chicago Fire, new Chief Dom Pascal (Dermot Mulroney) is already making waves at the fire department. In Season 13, Episode 1, “A Monster in the Field,” Pascal informs his fellow Lieutenants at Firehouse 51 — Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney), Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo), and Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) — that they will be meeting with him in person, along with filing their reports and providing a tub where everyone on the team needs to put their phones away at mealtimes. Additionally, it’s clear from Season 13, Episode 2, “Ride the Blade” that he’s dealing with some secrets from his past that could make fitting in at Firehouse 51 and maintaining his marriage more difficult than he expected.
Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker) was the Battalion Chief and then Deputy District Chief who oversaw Firehouse 51 for the first 12 seasons of Chicago Fire. When Boden took on a new position at the Chicago Fire Department at the end of Season 12, the hardest part for his team was always dealing with his replacement. In Season 12, Episode 13, “Never Say Goodbye,” Boden told Christopher Herrmann that he wanted to see him take over the position Boden vacated, but Herrmann had to pass some exams before he could get there. At least until then, maybe even longer, District 4 needed a chief.
Dom Pascal started his career at the Chicago Fire Department before moving to Miami for at least a decade, so his new position was a homecoming for him. Pascal made a mixed impression on the crew at Firehouse 51 on his first day—they were surprised to see him walking through flying debris without much protection, but his new rules at the fire station seemed to have left many of them feeling uneasy. Severide and Herrmann did their best to show the rest of the crew how to follow the chain of command, while Kidd had the most trouble showing off her close relationship with Boden, but by the end of the episode, both Severide and Kidd sensed something was off with Pascal, and they weren’t wrong. So far, it seems like it’s mostly his wife, Monica.
When viewers meet KaDee Strickland’s Monica Pascal, she’s arguing with Dom through an open window after he discovers that the lock on the front door has been changed in Chicago Fire Season 13 Episode 1, “A Monster in the Field.” It’s the last thing he needs after his long shift, but Monica won’t let him in the house. At first, it looks like Monica will leave Dom outside, but then he tells her he wants to fight for their marriage, and she quickly changes her mind. The final scene in “A Monster in the Field” has Monica and Dom passionately kissing, which is both irrelevant and uncomfortable. But they seem okay with it, because Episode 2, Season 13, “Ride the Blade” opens with the characters in bed together.
[Monica] seems a bit like a neglected housewife who came back to Chicago just to annoy Dom and used his paycheck — or even a divorce settlement — to do it.
The more viewers watch “Ride the Blade,” the more they learn about Monica and Dom — in a way. Monica arrived at Fire Station 51 during her shift to give Dom a new key, wearing a bright pink maxi dress that definitely looked like it would fit in Miami but stand out in Chicago. That’s when viewers learned that Dom’s former co-worker, Lieutenant Stephen Vale (Phil Donlon), who visited Pascal at the fire station in “A Monster in the Field,” had contacted Monica — apparently as soon as he got wind that Monica and Dom might be in trouble. Considering that Dom’s reaction to the news that Vale had contacted Monica was to come to his house and punch him in the stomach, it’s clear that there’s more going on in Pascal’s marriage than viewers have been given so far.
What viewers haven’t gotten much of in the first two episodes of Season 13 is any real insight into Monica. In Season 13, Episode 1, “The Monster in the Field,” she seems a bit like a neglected housewife who returned to Chicago only to anger her husband and use her old salary to
