Chicago Fire Season 13 Fall Finale Review: A Surprising Episode With One Huge Omission
Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 8, “Quicksand” is a fine episode of the NBC show, but it’s not a great fall finale. Some of the best Chicago Fire episodes have been the jaw-dropping midseason or season finales that feature deep emotion, incredible action and big surprises. While this episode tries to surprise and move viewers, it feels more like an episode that could’ve taken place at any other time. It’s just not dramatic enough to be a finale.
“Quicksand” has a main storyline that calls back all the way to Chicago Fire Season 1, which puts Joe Cruz understandably on edge. There’s also a subplot that hints at — but doesn’t explain — tragedy in Lizzie Novak’s past. And there’s an adorable dog, but that’s not enough to make up for the fact that this episode is not on the epic level that the show has gotten fans used to. It does the job, yet there’s no doubt something is missing.
Chicago Fire Season 13, Episode 8 Returns to Joe Cruz’s Past
One Chicago Fans Get a Deep Cut History Lesson
The main story in “Quicksand” belongs to Joe Cruz, who finds a bullet-shaped pendant in his locker and another in his locker. He assumes that this is a morbid prank, but in fact it’s an equally morbid callback to Chicago Fire Season 1. Joe’s brother Leon was previously in a gang known as the Insane Kings, and Joe left the Kings’ leader Flaco to die in a fire in Season 1, Episode 10, “Merry Christmas, Etc.” Many years later Leon tells Cruz that Flaco’s cousin Junior has earned an early release from prison — so naturally he’s coming after Cruz to get revenge. This plot is slow to develop, as audiences don’t learn what’s going on until a little later in the finale, but it is interesting to have the show pull a Season 13 storyline from something back in Season 1.
Joe Minoso does his best with this idea, and it’s lovely to see Jeff Lima return as Leon Cruz, too. Yet this whole saga never quite feels dramatic enough for a fall finale, since nothing serious happens to Cruz until the very end of the episode, when Junior confronts him in church. He discovers that there are human ashes inside one of the pendants, and has a minor meltdown wondering who at the firehouse knew anything about it getting placed in his locker. But his standing in a lab is not as dynamic as Firehouse 51 racing into a giant fire, or one of the characters getting into a fight with the latest Chicago Fire villain, or even a stolen fire truck. Obviously the storyline will continue into Episode 9, so perhaps that’s when the real action will occur.
