Changes Coming to ‘Chicago Fire’ Season 13: It’ll Leave Them “Haunted”
Eamonn Walker’s Wallace Boden has been overseeing firefighters and paramedics from various fire departments since Chicago Fire first premiered on NBC in 2012. However, season 13 will change everything. As the Chicago Fire Season 13 premiere approaches, showrunner Andrea Newman shares with Entertainment Weekly what to expect when a new chief takes charge. She also reveals that the upcoming season will be a “haunted” one for most of the characters. The 13th season of the hit procedural drama will introduce a new Firehouse 51 chief, Dom Pascal (Dermot Mulroney), but that doesn’t mean Boden will be forgotten. The veteran Chicago Fire Department chief technically trained a series of paramedics and firefighters during his tenure.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Newman explained that “Boden raised them,” adding, “[w]hen a new leader comes in, people react differently. And some of the reactions are surprising. Boden’s presence is still a very important part of the show, and always will be, because he shaped how he brought this group together and how he raised this family.” In the same interview, the showrunner revealed that Season 13 will see most of the main characters in a bleak light, especially Taylor Kinney’s Kelly Severide, who discovered last season that Michael Bradway’s Jack Damon is actually her half-brother. “We just keep feeling like this is a haunted Season 13. Like the ghosts of everyone’s past coming back. That’s very true for Severide, where he’s worked really hard to forget his dad and become his own firefighter. So to suddenly have Benny’s son, his half-brother, pop up in his life, makes him have to rediscover all of that. So it brings up a lot of things for Severide and that relationship is complicated and fascinating and there’s a lot going on between the two of them from the get-go.” In addition to Kelly Severide, Evan Hawkins (Jimmy Nicholas), Violet Mikami (Hanako Greensmith) and Sam Carver (Jake Lockett) will also be “haunted.” The showrunner added: “Violet is haunted by Hawkins and what happened with Hawkins and that relationship. And Carver is haunted as a spirit. So we’re going to explore a lot of that early in the season. There’s a lot between the two of them and a lot about the fact that they both bring their own ghosts into the mix.” Most of the main cast will return for the highly anticipated 13th season of the fan-favorite series, including Kinney as Severide, Miranda Rae Mayo as Stella Kidd, David Eigenberg as Christopher Herrmann, Christian Stolte as Randall “Mouch” McHolland, Joe Minoso as Joe Cruz, Daniel Kyri as Darren Ritter, and Lockett as Carver, who were cast in recurring roles in seasons 11 and 12, have been upgraded to main cast members for Season 13. Meanwhile, Jocelyn Hudon — who joined last season to replace Kara Killmer’s Sylvie Brett — will be a series regular in Season 13.
