EXCLUSIVE: NBC‘s Chicago Fire has cast KaDee Strickland (Private Practice, Cruel Summer) for a recurring role in Season 13. The new season begins Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. on NBC and next day on Peacock.
She will portray Monica Pascal, the new Fire Chief Dom Pascal’s (Dermot Mulroney) estranged wife. As Deadline reported in July, Mulroney joined the popular firefighter drama as Boden’s (Eamonn Walker) successor following his exit as a series regular in the Season 12 finale.
Before Boden was promoted to Deputy Commissioner of the Chicago Fire Department, he had chosen Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) as his successor. The introduction of Dom Pascal would interfere with that plan, and Eigenberg earlier this month shared insight with Deadline as to why Herrmann may pass on the opportunity.
“I want to say he felt like he had the rug pulled from under him because I don’t think [Herrmann] saw what the Chief said to him coming at all,” he shared during NBC’s portion of TCA. “In the real fire service, there are firefighters who stay firefighters their entire career. So when you become a Lieutenant, you’re not called a firefighter. You are a firefighter but you are not called that anymore.”
He continued, “With Herrmann, I think he would’ve been content to stay in the firefighter capacity. If they decide to make him an officer, that’s great because he can lead but I don’t know that there was an organically natural progression for the character to go into that position. So we have to see how the writers deal with it.”
As for Boden, there has been buzz that he might pop back up on Chicago Fire to show off his new uniform. It’s all still very wait-and-see, but plans are floating around as to how it could all play out, and it looks good for Walker to return as a guest star.
Chicago Fire also stars Taylor Kinney, Miranda Rae Mayo, Joe Miñoso, Christian Stolte, Daniel Kyri, Hanako Greensmith and Jocelyn Hudon.
Executive producers are Dick Wolf, Andrea Newman, Matt Whitney, Reza Tabrizi and Peter Jankowski. The series is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment.
Strickland recently co-starred in the Freeform anthology series Cruel Summer. Before that, she co-starred in Shut Eye, opposite Jeffrey Donovan. She is best known for portraying Charlotte King in the ABC medical drama Private Practice across the show’s six-season run. Additional TV credits include ABC’s Secrets and Lies and David E. Kelley’s Fox series, The Wedding Bells.
On the film side, Strickland most recently starred in the indies Time Capsule and Grand Isle. Other credits include The Grudge, Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, The Flock, Fever Pitch, Something’s Gotta Give, The Sixth Sense, Girl, Interrupted and American Gangster.
