‘Chicago Fire’ Boss on New Chief Dermot Mulroney: “He’s Going to Shake Things Up”
Showrunner Andrea Newman says outgoing Chief Boden (Eamonn Walker) casts a shadow over Firehouse 51 in what she and her writers are calling an overall “spooky” season 13.
Change doesn’t come easy, as audience members witnessed during Wednesday’s season 13 premiere of NBC’s consistent hit series Chicago Fire. And if you’re showrunner Andrea Newman, you’d probably go a step further and say viewers will sense a sort of “spooky” sensation, as key castmembers were confronted with issues and people who haunted them in their past.
In the premiere, viewers saw the entire Firehouse 51 try to adjust to not having the influence of their beloved former Fire Chief Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker). Boden had gone on to higher aspirations within the hierarchy of the Chicago Fire Department, and now the crew is left with a very different personality as their new leader in Dom Pascal, played by new addition Dermot Mulroney. Pascal lets the firehouse know off the bat that he’s nothing like Boden, nor is he trying to be. He expects firefighters to follow his specific rules. And to let off stress, the new chief likes to go at it with a punching bag in the station.
To get a clearer picture of what season 13 will look like for Chicago Fire fans, The Hollywood Reporter recently caught up with its show’s captain, showrunner Andrea Newman, to find out the new season’s theme; what some of the hottest story arcs are to pay attention to; and how the show’s beloved Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) might handle sitting in the chief’s seat after Boden’s message at the end of season 12.
Last season, a big arc dealt with the older firefighters in the house fighting against the physical and mental changes that come with aging. Fans of the show seemed to gravitate quite favorably to that storyline. What can they expect for season 13?
Big time. It’s funny, because it is season 13. And in the beginning we kept calling it Lucky 13 or Spooky 13, all these different things. And then we realized that thematically shadowed a huge part of this season. It’s the shadow of Boden hanging over the firehouse, and Severide [played by Taylor Kinney] has the shadow of Benny [his father, played by the late Treat Williams] always hanging over him. Finding this brother in this relationship with half-brother Jack Damon [played by Michael Bradway] really reminds us of that shadow. We’ve got Carver [played by Jake Lockett] with the shadows of his past. And now Cruz [played by Joe Minoso] is going to be haunted by a ghost from his past in the season, too. So, we have a lot of ghostly, spooky happenings going on this year.
Let’s go back to the story arc of Severide and his half-brother, Damon. Can we get more details on how that is going to play in this season?
It’s going to be a big thing for Severide. Severide was already thinking about family at the end of last season, and we had a conversation between him and Kidd [played by Miranda Rae Mayo] about starting a family. And then it’s revealed at the end of last season that he has this half-brother. That relationship is going to come into play in a big way at the beginning of this season, because it involves Kidd too, because she’s Damon’s boss as his lieutenant. So, there is the fact that he’s related and then, that he kept the secret. That’s going to be a big factor in their relationship and kind of creates a trio of those three.
And that part about Severide wanting a family, where are we going with that?
That’s going to be an evolving story too, because we really wanted to explore the idea of how different it is when a male firefighter makes that decision than when a female firefighter does, and how it would affect Kidd so differently than it would affect Severide. It’s a conversation for that reason, and also because, emotionally, those guys don’t have great role models in terms of parenting. This half-brother is a reminder of that. They have to work through some issues themselves, not just the procedural stuff at the firehouse, but also just in terms of their relationship and their pasts.
And what about fan-favorite firefighter Christopher Herrmann (Eigenberg). We know that Chief Boden told him at the end of last season that he was pulling for him to become the new head of Firehouse 51, but that will not be the case … right?
The interesting thing about that is that Boden obviously felt that Herrmann was the heir apparent and said, “I think that you lead with your heart and that’s going to make you the guy here.” But, there are steps to that. There’s a ladder he has to climb. It’s not just that you snap your fingers and we make you chief. He has some tests he needs to take to move up, and while he’s doing that, somebody is sitting in that seat that he wants to head toward. So, it’s like an impending collision that we have to look forward to this season. And definitely, it’s an issue for the new chief, and it’s an issue for Herrmann right from the jump.
We didn’t see a lot of crossover episodes last season (if any), compared to previous seasons. Can we expect any in season 13?
It was a shortened season because of the strike, and we really didn’t have a lot of time. But that is something we love to do, and I’m sure at some point there’ll be conversations about it this season. We love doing the mini crossovers too, where we get to have Chicago P.D. guys on our team for a while, and Chicago Med people and send our folks over there.
How are we looking this season as far as major castmembers leaving?
Well, Boden had a speech at the end of last season, about change being inevitable. We try to keep it real, and people do come and go from firehouses. But the big change is obviously the new chief coming in, Chief Pascal [Mulroney]. So, that is going to be the big story right off the bat.
What else can you tell us about Firehouse 51’s new chief? What do we need to know about him?
Just so fun! Dermot is a phenomenal actor, and we had ideas about who this Chief Pascal was going to be. What we knew for sure is that we didn’t want him to be like Boden. They are very different characters. And then Dermot showed up and brought all his talent. He has so many intriguing qualities himself, and it all got caught up in this Pascal character, who we keep saying is just kind of a mystery man from the jump. He has layers that will be peeled back. The moment he steps in the house, he’s like, “I’m not Boden, I’m not trying to be Boden. There’s going to be some changes around here, new rules.” So, he’s going to shake things up quite a bit.
Will Chief Boden make any guest appearances?
Yes, that’s part of our plan is to see Boden. He is a part of our world, still.
When you end a season, do you already know how the next season is going to evolve?
Yeah. When we do our cliffhangers, we always have the story; we know how the story is going to play out to resolve those. But when we really get back in the room, we take a few weeks and then we really start talking about the big picture stuff for the whole season.
Tell me about the relationship between Carver [Lockett] and Violet Mikami [Hanako Greensmith]. Will that ever blossom to its fullest potential?
Oh yeah, that’s good stuff! They’re kind of on a precipice at the end of last season, and so they start this season with a lot of drama. There’s a lot of drama between the two of them. And, in the theme of shadows, Violet has this shadow of Hawkins’ death [her boyfriend in season 11, who died before her eyes while making a rescue] that hangs over her in terms of going forward in relationships; so, she’s on a journey this season to move past that. And Carver has his own issues to resolve, having gone home and being around his family where he has some tortured history.
You mentioned Joe Cruz’s [Minoso] character earlier. Can you expound on that a bit more?
Yes, along that theme you were talking about, he’s going to be visited by a ghost of the past. We love when we can build on a history. Thirteen seasons, you want to go back and bring people in who we haven’t seen in a long time, who may have been formative in these characters’ lives at one time. So, we are going to see that in Cruz’s life in a way that is going make everyone’s head spin a little.
So, spooky seems to be the main theme?
Shadows and ghosts, and being haunted by the past. Yeah, that’s our spooky season 13. (Laughs.) That is what we keep calling it the writers room, because there are ghosts all around.
