Sharkatefonz

'Final thought - how are they ever going to pull off Dawson eventually firefighting in 51?' I keep thinking that Casey will start getting the head trauma problems and personality issues, Severide and Dawson grow closer, Severide pines for Dawson, she has a weak moment and Casey sees a kiss. Casey breaks up with Dawson and she works at 51. And then Severide and Casey's relationship is back to square one, with the added will Dawson and Kelly or won't they, before Kelly eventually finds his way back to Lindsey, well, after the next guest star romance plot he's supposed to get anyway. I'll keep reading the postmortem s on this ep, but I'll be sticking to commenting on Outlander and Black Sails, shall it ever return. Glad I had a place to rant. Dang I really wanted the cozy joy of CF back, and it really disappointed.

'That was supposed to happen last season when Dawson was in Severide's class in firefighter academy and never happened for whatever reason' I'm glad you brought that up. They said they tossed the idea to kill a character for a while, and Monica Raymond mentioned this Severide/Dawson connection back a few months before the end of last season. Then there was the pics from that big crossover with PD. Rafferty visiting Shay. And with that, we lose that friendship, or could it have been something more. That was either cut, or changed to a Kelly/Shay scene. I was so annoyed that moment didn't happen on Fire because I was never a PD viewer. (I could never let go of all Voight did to Casey. I always think of that scene of him trying to intimidate him, and Boden walking over to back Casey up.) I don't know if I'm right or not, but it seems like the talk about Severide and Dawson connecting could've been about Shays death all along, as far as the writers were concerned. If so, that really upsets me, because they had a long time to mull it over and they still let go of Lauren German.

Yeah, I remember holding my breath when that creep Keeler rammed Casey's head into the wall. I was sure that a guy with his trauma wouldn't be fairing perfectly well after an explosion. Hello show! Just keeps pointing more to me as fuel to lead Dawson into Kelly's arms for comfort, when 'Hulk Smash' Casey comes back. I took all the dumb storylines with a grain of salt before last night's opener, because up until then, they didn't drop the ball so badly, but now I'm just seeing all the cracks in the show and none of those elements I enjoyed so much before. Because before I still had that comfort zone of 'The family' to tune in for each week. Family, can make mistakes, annoy you and make you scratch your head, but they (hopefully) have your back. For me, that's gone now and that sucks.

'Personally, I give the edge on sucky life to Casey. But that's because he's stuck with Dawson.' LOL, good one. I just had a scary thought: Since Casey and Severide and Gabby are all gonna play Three' s Company, for the foreseeable future-Does anybody else think this is all leading up to a 'Severide starts to fall for Casey's girl' storyline? Dragging out all season until the season 3 finale, where an 'overstressed about, career, wedding, commitment and shared loss' Dawson, and 'grieving and now PINING ' Severide share a fateful and 'perfectly timed' kiss that poor Casey will just happen to walk in on? And welcome angst, party of three? Any takers? If in any way, shape or form that could be true, I'm really glad I won't be seeing it.

There was WAY more to do with her character than without. As if focusing even more heavily on 2 already prominently featured characters, and further minimizing the rest of the cast will help this. Not to mention Severide now beats Casey for worst life ever. Has there been 1 person Severide loved that he didn't lose? He lost his girl and assumed baby, his fiance, his sister (brutally) and by extension his father. And his strongest bond doesn't just leave his life-she dies. Ok, aside from still having Dawson, for the moment, Casey's life pretty much sucks too.

ITA- went on my rant in the media thread. Total slap in the face to take out 1 of only 2 female leads, and the only LGBT representative in the show. And yes, replaced with a beautiful, look-a-like STRAIGHT character. Saying it again- no longer watching. And yes-Lauren German is wonderful!

I have to second everything you've said here. After reading that article I was disgusted. I was a huge Severide/Shay fan, because of the uniqueness of their connection. I didn't ship them romantically, but I loved their friendship. I will never understand the statement that 'taking away a character' will add to storylines. I give Lauren German applause for her constant professionalism throughout such an insulting exercise on how NOT to treat one of your 2 leading ladies. They're down to one on an already unbalanced cast, and they've removed these storylines, IMO : Severide and Shay dealing with a very important issue in our modern family era - possible coparenting, perhaps surrogacy, and shining a light on a very REAL issue in the LGBT community. They could actually bring in characters that mirrored what some posters didn't like about it on the web, and have Shay and Severide defend their position; in effect a great sounding board for those in the community that are having their rights as modern families questioned. They could have been that example of true 'friends' that want to make that family for life, because of the love and respect they have for one another. That choice would effect future love interests, who could and could not deal with a third party in their relationship to either Shay or Kelly. And to see that Shay would value and respect Kelly's role as the father of her child, because she said she wanted someone that would be in her child's life. I would have loved to see that reflection of the way our society is changing, but I think the creators lacked the bravery to stick to their guns to stick it out to give us THAT gritty realism. A shame. A true shame. This is the first show I've commented on in probably about 3 or more years. It really touched a nerve for me. I'm no longer a viewer of their program, and it really was a GO TO for me.