Chicago Fire began airing in 2012 and follows the lives of the firefighters and paramedics who work at Chicago Fire Department’s Firehouse 51. The show excels at putting together big fires and building the team within the firehouse, but like many of the One Chicago shows, one of Chicago Fire’s biggest struggles is building the relationships its characters have outside the firehouse in a way that balances well with the procedural piece of the show. That’s part of the reason so many of the characters date within the firehouse, even if it’s against the rules. This flaw is never more prominent than when a new character joins the firehouse.
Just two episodes into Chicago Fire’s Season 13, new Chief Dom Pascal (Dermot Mulroney) is already making waves at the firehouse. In Season 13, Episode 1, “A Monster in the Field,” Pascal informed his Lieutenants at Firehouse 51 — Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney), Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo), and Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) — that they would be debriefing calls with him in person, along with turning in their reports, and provided a tub where everyone on the team needed to drop their phones during meal times. Plus, it’s obvious from Season 13, Episode 2, “Ride the Blade,” that he is dealing with some secrets from his past that might make fitting in at Firehouse 51 and keeping his marriage together tougher than he expected.
Dom Pascal is Firehouse 51’s New Battalion Chief
Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker) was the Battalion Chief and then the Deputy District Chief overseeing Firehouse 51 for the first 12 seasons of Chicago Fire. When Boden took on a new position with the Chicago Fire Department at the end of Season 12, the hardest part about it for his team was always going to be dealing with his replacement. In Season 12, Episode 13, “Never Say Goodbye,” Boden tells Christopher Herrmann that he wants to see him take over the position Boden was vacating, but Herrmann has several exams to take before he can get there. Until at least then, maybe even longer, District 4 needs a chief.
Dom Pascal got his start in the Chicago Fire Department before moving to Miami for at least a decade, so his new position is a return home for him. Pascal made sort of a mixed impression on the team at Firehouse 51 on his first day – they were astounded to see him walking through flying debris without much protection, but his new rules at the firehouse seemed to rub many of them the wrong way. Severide and Herrmann did their best to show the rest of the team how to follow the chain of command, while Kidd had the most trouble given her close relationship with Boden, but by the end of the episode, both Severide and Kidd felt like there was something off with Pascal, and they weren’t wrong. So far, it seems like it’s mostly to do with his wife, Monica.
Monica Pascal’s Marriage is Complicated
When audiences met KaDee Strickland’s Monica Pascal, she was arguing with Dom through an open window after he discovered that the locks on the front door had been changed in Chicago Fire’s Season 13, Episode 1, “A Monster in the Field.” It was the last thing he needed after his long shift, but Monica wasn’t going to let him just walk into the house. At first, it seemed like Monica was going to leave Dom outside, but then he told her he wanted to fight for their marriage, and she quickly changed her mind. The final scene in “A Monster in the Field” is Monica and Dom in a passionate kiss that feels both out of left field and uncomfortable. But they seemed to be okay with it, considering Season 13, Episode 2, “Ride the Blade,” began with the characters in bed together.
[Monica] seemed a little like a jilted housewife who returned to Chicago just to spite Dom and was using his paycheck — or maybe even a divorce settlement — to do it.
The further along viewers got into “Ride the Blade,” the more they learned about Monica and Dom — sort of. Monica arrived at Firehouse 51 during the shift to give Dom a new key and was dressed in a bright pink maxi dress that certainly looked like it fit in Miami but stood out in Chicago. That’s when viewers learned that Dom’s old colleague, Lieutenant Stephen Vale (Phil Donlon), who showed up to see Pascal at the firehouse in “A Monster in the Field,” had already been in touch with Monica — seemingly as soon as he heard through the grapevine that Monica and Dom might be on the rocks. Considering that Dom’s response to the news that Vale had reached out to Monica was to arrive at his home and present him with a punch to the gut, it’s clear that there is more going on in the Pascal marriage than has been revealed to audiences so far.
What audiences didn’t get much of in the first two episodes of Season 13 is actual insight into Monica. In Season 13, Episode 1, “Monster in the Field,” she seemed a little like a jilted housewife who returned to Chicago just to spite her husband and was using his paycheck — or perhaps a divorce settlement — to do it. Viewers quickly learned that the Pascals are still married, and in Season 13, Episode 2, “Ride the Blade,” Monica referenced having a client waiting on her when she stopped by the firehouse. In the coming episodes, it will be interesting to learn more about what Monica does for work, what role Stephen Vale might have previously played in their lives, and what happened in Miami that brought them back to Chicago and potentially tore them apart.
KaDee Strickland Once Played a Sexologist
Though KaDee Strickland has been in big films like Something’s Gotta Give (2003), Girl, Interrupted (1999), and Fever Pitch (2005), what she’s likely best known for is her six seasons as Dr. Charlotte King in Private Practice. A spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice focused on Addison Forbes Montgomery (Kate Walsh), the ex-wife of Derek Shepherd, who relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles to start over near her medical school friends, Sam Bennett (Taye Diggs) and Naomi Bennett (Audra McDonald). Strickland’s Charlotte King was the Chief of Staff and an attending urologist at St. Ambrose Hospital, though later she left her job there and joined the practice, where everyone else worked, as a Sexologist.
Here’s some free advice: kindergarten’s over. Training wheels are off. Nobody’s gonna catch you if you fall. If you don’t like your life, you do something about it. You reach down, you pull one foot out of the mud, then the other. You walk away from it. Can’t walk? You crawl. You do something. — Charlotte King
In addition to her romantic relationship with Cooper Freedman (Paul Adelstein), the practice’s pediatrician, Charlotte became close with Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), who worked primarily at the hospital before relocating to Seattle to join her brother, Derek, at Grey-Sloan Memorial. Charlotte and Amelia were both in recovery, which was part of what drew them together and made their friendship one that fans of the show really enjoyed. Since Private Practice aired its finale in January 2013, KaDee Strickland has taken on roles in television shows like Secrets and Lies, Shut Eye, and Cruel Summer. Her role in Chicago Fire might have some similarities to characters she has portrayed before, but so little is known about Monica that it’s hard to be sure just yet.
Regardless of how much is currently known about Monica Pascal or even Dom Pascal, it’s obvious that Strickland and Mulroney have a chemistry that works. Plus, Strickland is an excellent dramatic actress — which isn’t to say that she can’t also bring comedy to the table — who excels in the gut-wrenching moments that have audiences weeping along with the characters on the screen. One of the best examples of this is Private Practice’s Season 4, Episode 7, “Did You Hear What Happened to Charlotte King?,” in which Charlotte is attacked and sexually assaulted in her office at St. Ambrose Hospital. The episode remains the show’s highest-rated episode on IMDb almost 15 years later. Hopefully, Chicago Fire will utilize Strickland’s talents and give Monica Pascal some more screentime and maybe even a heartbreaking story to tell.
