NJRadioGuy

Nope, I think Hermann played it right from the beginning. Go in assuming your men are skilled, then get progressively tougher as needed to get the team functional. I betcha if his new guys were grade-A ballbusters (i.e. like pretty much every fire company everywhere) but the Best Engine Company In Chicago we'd have seen a very different Hermann. A veteran with his experience would have a million ways to "get back" for a prank. But the bugles in the urinal crossed a line hard. Engine companies play with water for a living and there are many ways to prank with it, and I was really expecting something like that. You watch a guy like that closely, for sure, but since he's still a Candidate, that goes with the territory to begin with. He wouldn't be the first probie to freeze up and he sure won't be the last. It's one thing to be in burn rooms with straw. Quite another when the SHTF. He needs good mentors, plain and simple. And if after a few months it becomes obvious he's not cut out for the job, well that'll be a different narrative. The guy from 111 would have been a better choice since he was already a Lieutenant of an Engine company, and I still maintain in the world of our show, dramatically-speaking, I think he would have been a good addition to the cast. Good looking guy, nicely skilled, and a hook to this season's early villain.

I'm curious what they're using to create the fire for filming. I don't think it's CGI, and it doesn't use the usual gas jets that we've seen before, where you can see the blue at the base of the yellow. Obviously they're not using anything that can't be instantly shut off, so I'm guessing that real water application might damage their equipment. Or an errant stream would hit the mics, camera gear, lighting gear/wiring, etc. Still would be nice to see it done right on camera, though. I'd like to see overhauls in progress, too. I don't think I've ever seen anybody going in with pike poles and pulling down ceilings or walls. No smoke extractors either, but understandable for TV, obviously. Nor do I think we've actually seen Truck venting a roof.

No, I guess he never fit in to the story after his last appearance and he may have either passed away or not be available or healthy enough for filming. IIRC, the real station 51 had two dogs on the show as well. Boot and Henry. I loved Boot. Hope Tuesday gets to be part of the cast. Gorgeous pup!

No, what I meant by "not as extreme as portrayed here" was Gloria's actions, not the calls received!

Wait. Isn't Boden the bestest chief who ever chiefed? Yet he allowed Barnes to stay in his house for how long? And the beloved and never-seen-before retiring LT from 51 put up with these layabouts and never went to Boden or did anything about his crew? Maybe HQ is on to something about Wallace's judgement after all. The more I think about this, the more I think they should have cast Boden as T81's captain rather than as a battalion chief, and just not have a chief in the house. Keep Casey as a LT, and Severide still as LT on Squad, with another character as Squad captain. If you don't know why you fill up the booster tank before going back in service what the hell use are you in the first place. But at least they were right in grabbing the crosslay handline and using tank water. But why on earth would a small job like that need a 5" intake? I doubt they'd have used more than 1000 gallons in total with that single line that 51 brought in. Couldn't tell if it was an inch-and-three-quarters or a 2.5, but it looked like the former. And some time in the weight room wouldn't be a bad thing either. I don't see any of those humps lugging 50 feet of hose up twenty flights of stairs in full gear without a paramedic following behind with 2 amps of epi at the ready and charged paddles. Just sayin'. One thing just came back to me. When they were breaching the door on the fire call, I think it was Casey and Kidd on irons. They actually did it right. "Strike." And no Slamigan! Kudos to the actors for learning the tools. Sigh. Please, please no. But at least she won't have Matt's testicles in her turnouts, so thank heaven for small miracles. Well, sort of. Not the best nozzle work in the world. And Hermann needs to get on his Engineer to watch his water pressure. Second fire in a row where that stream looked weak. There's a pill for that, guys. But yeah, about time we see E51 getting into the mix. I like the Candidate but I sense trouble. Is her Petermills-II, maybe? Can he even un-resign just like that? And of course, Mouch and Hermann are now able to make personnel decisions for the CFD. Hope he pans out, maybe saves Mouch's hide on a job during sweeps week? Jealous Severide is a piece of work. TV Trope #6: No female can have a close male friend (and ditto the other way around). Because there will always be hanky-panky. Thankfully a Gorsch-free episode but we all know that won't last. Otherwise I liked tonight's show, and PD as well. Decent writing for the most part and strong character development. Med was a trainwreck, though. Edited to add: More props to the props department. From the same team that brought you broiled mom with a side of baby two weeks ago we bring you Grenade Guy. That was the most gruesome thing I've ever seen on a mainstream network show. Well done (so to speak). How he actually survived those injuries is beyond me, although he apparently did.

There wouldn't have been a dry eye in the house if they did that. And it would have easily set up a spin off in the near-future with a Grimm task force, aided by Wessen on the side of good teaming up to take down the bad ones. It'll be more difficult if they choose to focus on the kids, twenty-odd years in the future.

The incredible part is that nobody caught it much earlier. Dispatchers and call-takers get regular performance reviews, and supervisors (at least in this part of the world) remotely listen in to make sure things are good. Plus don't you think at some point, someone who was hung up on would have lodged a complaint—especially if something serious resulted?

This is the single best news I've heard on the scripted entertainment front in a very long time. I don't care if we ever see Nick, Adelind, Renard, or Juliette again, but I so miss Munroe and Rosalee. And even if the regulars only make the occasional cameo for a flashback I'd be so happy to see that wonderfully-built world come alive again. I don't know whether they'll focus on the present or the future (the kids taking up the mantle from the parents), but the stories I always loved the best were the Wessen-of-the-week plots. I never cared about the Royals or anything in the overall arc. It was the world that drew me in and I miss it terribly. And Bud. Damnit, I loved that guy! When I heard that they were going in to their final season I was thinking a good way to end the show would have been to have Nick die, and all the Good Wessen showing up from around the world, wogeing in respect at the funeral—in essence, rebooting the world's power and letting everybody know what was going on.

I mostly liked this episode, with a few reservations. First off, Maddie, please learn how to block callers on your smartphone. You'll save a lot of agita with that. I'm glad it touched on call-takers' troubles. It really happens, although not as extreme as portrayed here for effect. Burnout is high, pay is low and morale can be all over the map, depending on the agency. They're often the forgotten service members when people think of first responders, but they're the first voices of hope you'll hear on your worst day. So it's all the more tragic when someone loses the plot, and this is as good a display of that as you'll see on a Ryan Murphy FOX-TV show. I hope nobody reading this ever needs to call 9-1-1 in real life, but if you do, be nice, and (quickly) thank them before you disconnect. I do wish they hadn't tried to (poorly) redeem Gloria's character after the accident with the story of what made her snap in the first place. She committed numerous felonies, maybe cost a ton of lives over the years and deserves to pay the piper for that. One thing that bugged the hell out of me. At Maddie's console, one of her monitors is a map. Guess what that map is there for—to pinpoint a caller's location using the Enhanced 9-1-1 system! In most places in the country, when you dial 9-1-1, your location, within a few feet, pops up on screen. No need to triangulate off towers or other such dramatic nonsense. It's right on the screen. If you call but can't speak, or the line disconnects for whatever reason, they'll send help based on precisely that info. Victims often owe their life to it. Bad guys often owe their incarceration to it. Glad they seemed to settle Hen's family drama and the ex going back to the Big House. Hopefully she'll stay there and that we've seen the last of her, although I wouldn't bet on that. The guy looks really stand-up, and if he's part of the kid's life that's gonna be a Good Thing, I suspect. What irked me is that for the first few episodes they seemed to be settled as a ladder truck crew, which is just fine. Truck 118, with a five person crew works just fine for me as the show settles into its rhythm. Now we have them back as an Engine (a very different skill set), and now split with an ambulance. IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, damnit! Keep them as either an engine crew or a truck crew, bring in a paramedic team as part of the ensemble and give them the scenes as needed. Personal grump here, between this, that 5-alarm dumpster fire in Seattle, and Chicago Fire, engine companies are getting the short shrift, damnit! But I guess there's not enough drama humping hose and taking hydrants <grin>. Overall I'm still enjoying this show. Much more than last season.

That's my guess too. If I'd been in the writers' room I'd have pushed for the Candidate to get assigned to T81 under Mouch's tutelage, as just an extra hand rather than displacing Hermann. Then put Toadie's brother in law from 111 as the new LT on 51. That would set up the story line of him being the Good Guy and and turning his BIL, Gorsh away from the Dark Side, the two of them teaming up against Ritter when they see just how good Our Heroes are. That would be some good storytelling right there. It's going to be interesting with Hermann now on Engine, since that apparatus has never played a part in the story we see. He's going to be in command of a bunch of no-lines with hose-lines? How's that gonna work? If they had brains (and the budget), start giving E51 some stories, speaking parts to the crew, etc. And hey, maybe Hermann can finally instruct them that you've gotta get water on the damned fire, FFS. It would make my little cynic's brain explode if there was an engine crew with a charged line accompanying the truckees when they kick in a door to effect a rescue. If you've got a victim in a room that's got live fire in it, but the door is closed, opening up that door gives the fire some oxygen, and it'll flash over and ruin everyone's day in short order.

We don't generally see Engine personnel. They're based in the house, but the show focuses on the ambulance, squad and ladder companies. Engine 51 is there as a background set piece, and usually staffed by actual firefighters playing as extras. But here's the thing. The retiring LT was from the Engine company. Forget what shift he's on, he has a completely different set of skills than the members of Ladder 51. At fire calls, engine companies are in charge of water, basically. Connecting to the hydrant, laying hose, advancing attack lines and extinguishing the fire. These are skills honed over a career if you're a retiring lieutenant. You've got to know how to attack any particular fire, and it's not just spray-and-pray. Ladder companies have their own skills. Ventilating, opening up the roof, light rescue duties usually, and overhauling after the main fire has been extinguished (overhauling means pulling down ceilings and walls, looking for hotspots that the enginemen put out). Hermann's spent how long on Truck vs how much time on Engine? The kicker is that in a real department the Batallion Chief wouldn't be making personnel decisions, and the Ass. Deputy Chief likely would. ADC Toadie should have been making that call, quite frankly, because that's what HQ does. Assigns personnel where they're needed. The LT from E111 looked competent enough.

If I had to guess, what probably did him in was his femoral artery gave way and he bled out...but there's no way in hell they could show that on TV, so they just had him go quickly and quietly for dramatic effect...and not grossing out the audience. I don't know about CA regs, but in some jurisdictions an ALS crew can pronounce (some with, and some without an MD's authorization). I'm guessing that everybody on Truck 118 is BLS certified only, so they probably should have kept CPR going until Roy and Johnny got there (sorry, they're in County, not City). And while an ambulance might arrive later than a fire department vehicle (simply because there are more fire stations than ambulance stations/posts), by the time they extricated and stabilized the victim that would be more than enough time for ALS crew (i.e. paramedics) to get there. But this isn't a show about them, it focuses on FD mostly. I agree, though. Sloppy writing in an otherwise excellent episode.

The more I see of season two, the more I just handwave season one away as the nightmare it really was, especially the first half-dozen episodes or so. This has matured into a decent show. Good writing, decent acting, plausible rescues based on real-life, and now the personal stories of the FFs are starting to mature. Chim's PTSD needs to be talked about, both from his accident and from the call he just ran, coupled with his personal life. He's going through a shitshow after that, and the support Nash gave him was exactly what was needed. Both actors pulled that final scene off with aplomb. Kudos to them both. Give him a few weeks and he's going to find a love interest, I have no doubt about that (especially after "April"). I've always been a fan of narration and this didn't bother me. But since it's also a staple of Station 19, this show should probably drop it, or use it more sparingly than they are. I really hope they can keep the quality going. I wish they'd show more fire calls (they are a truck company after all, not a rescue) Also, and like Station 19, their turnout gear is incredibly pristine for working firefighters. At least Chicago Fire gets that aspect right. And speaking of the gear, isn't LAFD's bunker gear beige, not black?

Couldn't agree more. But it would be political suicide to pass such laws. Property owners (i.e. those with million- and billion-dollar real estate portfolios) wouldn't stand for it, especially given how generally safe even older buildings are. Mass casualty fires are thankfully extraordinarily rare in this country. Working fire alarms, working smoke and CO detectors, panic hardware on doors, multiple paths of egress that are kept clear of debris and things like that help make even serious fires escapable. The real killer is that fixtures and furnishings today are made from materials that produce toxic and highly-combustible gasses when they do go up. Take two houses: one built in the 50s and furnished with ancient stuffed/upholstered furniture and a non-sprinklered home built today with modern furniture. Light both up identically (say a wastebasket with a dropped cigarette or a shorted-out lamp beside the curtains). The old house will take about 10-20 minutes to go from ignition to unsurvivability. Same room in a modern house will be 3 or 4 minutes until it flashes over—i.e. when the combustible gasses ignite and the room becomes a wall of flame. And yes, I bet there were all sorts of infarctions that night (yes, I went there). I was too. Sadly, that was pretty realistic. Props to the props department, so to speak. Glad they didn't linger on the shot for more than a brief couple of seconds. That's the stuff PTSD is made of.

That's sadly a fact of life in big cities. Contractors cut corners. Owners do their own gas plumbing with disastrous results. Building and occasionally fire inspectors are on the take. It's sickening, but it happens more often than you'd want to imagine. When I moved to NYC in 2000 the big story going around at the time was that building inspections were being handed off to the FD, because FDNY inspectors were considered less corrupt than building inspectors. All it takes is a know-nothing networking company using non-plenum-rated cables between floors and you've got a big fire hazard. Those cables can burn and fire could travel between floors. Fire could easily travel up to the wiring closet on the floor above, and if that's where the lackadaisical painters or renovation crew stored combustible materials, well....have a nice day. Now that said, in a modern high-rise in the U.S. the chances of a fire spreading like that are unlikely, but it could happen in an older building without sprinklers. For an extreme example, look at Grenfell Towers in London last year. No sprinklers, only one single stairwell that acted like a chimney, highly-combustible exterior cladding and presto. 90-plus deceased victims.

Is it just me, or is Danza's character eerily close to Hank Voight on Chicago PD? Accent, body language, demeanor, etc? I could easily see Jason Beghe in that role.

Perhaps a tad off-topic, but I just watched the new Netflix series The Good Cop. In it, Tony Danza plays a disgraced detective who just did a 7 year bit for corruption on the job. Good ghods, it may as well have been Jason Beghe. The accent, mannerisms and attitude were screaming Voight, if Voight were being played for sort-of laughs. It's a fun little show, too.

The new Mandy is terrible. I'm glad the show's back, but I just can't stand McCook in the role. I get that Mandy had to be recast after Molly Ephraim chose not to return, but couldn't they at least have found someone the same physical size and shape? Ephraim's Mandy was funny. McCook's is just annoying, and the physical differences just take the oxygen out of the room every time she's on screen. As for the politics, I like the balance. As a conservative myself, this was one of two network TV shows I could watch and not be nauseated by the anvils falling from the left—the other being Blue Bloods. No anvils here, just a few digs, and usually with a counterpunch from the other side. The show has heart and that's why I tuned in for 6 seasons (and will keep tuning in until it finally ends). Well, that and the fact I'm a ham radio operator and I like to see all that nice Icom and Heil audio gear. It's actually a working station that shows up on the air periodically! 73 de W2IRT

The RPD (Reagan Police Department) seriously needs to put cameras in their interview rooms. Such utter horseshit from this show sometimes. I like Jamie and Eddie. They make a good couple. Yes, it's nice to see sizzling chemistry onscreen but I can live with what they have because they're two similar and very likable people. If they'd been a couple from the beginning of the show we'd have had no problem with them together. I don't think Danny and Linda were a hot couple but we accepted them and she was good for him and the kids. The Game of Thrones viewer in me is just afraid that they'll whack Eddie this season for dramatic purposes. Get her integrated comfortably with the family, then come November or February sweeps, she runs into an ambush and doesn't come out, or something like that. Maybe dies in Jamie's arms. Or worse, Danny's. What I like about Eddie is she's now the Everyman character that viewers can both relate to and get comfortable with. That was Jamie for the longest time, but now it falls to her, with Jamie's promotion to Sgt.

Naw, I'm fine with a company being relieved like that. In the real world they'd just replace 81 with another crew upstairs, and call for another truck to respond for manpower. In major incidents one of the main functions of additional alarms is to relieve the first-due crews who are probably worn out. That's hard physical labor under extreme conditions, plus the possibility of losing a member of your own house like that, I'm perfectly fine with 81 tapping out and going to Med. The whole thing with Stella's mask bugs me, though. Yes, absolutely, going in without a working mask and SCBA is unconscionable today, but we lived through a long period where firefighters were called smokeaters for a reason. If her air ran out she shouldn't have dropped like a rock. Mask off and GTFO ASAP. Might have earned a well-deserved rip from the bosses (and still should).

You beat me to it. Opening any window or door to a fire building can feed oxygen to a fire, often with catastrophic results such as a backdraft. Which is why I scream at my TV when some moron cop or other "hero" breaks down a door to go into a building to save someone before FD arrives. 9 times out of 10 it would makes things exponentially worse. You turn a smoldering, smoky wannabe-fire into an inferno in just a couple of seconds when it takes a breath. What's not explained clearly for TV is that Boden's job is a Battalion Chief, not necessarily the "boss of 51." A battalion chief is in charge of several firehouses. He'd roll on calls for the other houses in his jurisdiction, and would be the main incident command at smaller jobs, even those where E51, L81, or R3 wasn't involved. Boden, if this was real-life, would be out of the station a lot more than he is now. Also, in most large departments, the BC has a dedicated driver; he doesn't drive himself. This is so he can be coordinating operations with other responding apparatus while enroute to the scene. With only a very few exceptions, a "full fire start-to-finish" would be a boring thing to watch, unless you're one of the guys on the nozzle or a truckee opening up the roof. Once the main body of fire has been knocked down, it's all about overhauling and putting out hotspots. For a spectator (or member of a TV audience), it's dull as dishwater after the first ten minutes, so I get that they have to have something go sideways in a modern network-TV show. What bugs me is that they usually make up bullshit that couldn't happen, rather than do something that's actually plausible. Like some dipshit opening up a door at the wrong time (see above), or a rescue team going in without a charged hose line with them. This is my biggest complaint about TV-fires, and you're right, the budget for that would be enormous. For a high-rise fire like they showed, figure 5 or 6 alarms, minimum. Each alarm level is typically 3 or 4 engines, 2 truck companies (each with four or five firefighters), a chief, and certain pieces of specialty apparatus at each alarm level. As well as all sorts of senior officers, dozens of cop cars, at least a half-dozen ambulances and their supervisors and so on. So just in terms of warm bodies in turnout gear (i.e. costumes for TV) that's about 30 extras, plus 6 pieces of rented firefighting apparatus per alarm level, so times 5. Maybe for a feature film, but not for a 42 minute weekly TV show. What they could do is have radio traffic in the background supporting a five alarm fire, and strategic shots of apparatus on the move--easy enough to do with B-roll footage shot during the summer, with magnetic signs for different companies on their doors. For those who want to see what a real working fire is like, there are tons of YouTube videos out there. My own personal favorites are from Newark, OH, where a chief has put up some great videos (with radio audio in the background) of the whole job, from arrival to under-control. He's an excellent incident commander and his FFs are consummate professionals who all know their jobs. No drama!

This show is still a 5-alarm dumpster fire. Sorry, but they should have 86'd both Jack and Travis. Not that I disliked either one, but their jeopardies in last season's finale should have been fatal (Jack in the backdraft, Travis getting impaled by a shard of plate glass deep in the chest). And even if Travis miraculously survived that horrific chest wound he wouldn't have survived being dragged down umpty flights of stairs immediately afterwards. And even if he did, not a chance that's a 6 week recovery and back on the rig. He's be pensioned off with lifelong physical challenges.

Agreed. 221's men would be looking just as frantically, but since we only had 42 minutes to resolve everything I can forgive that, since we're seeing it from 118's perspective. Agreed. It's no longer an insult to the fire service (coughcoughStation19cough) but still a long way from good. And I do like that the rescues are at least based on real-world calls. I like the new guy, and still hate Buck. He was a mistake from the git-go in my opinion, and the show would be better off if he were gone. Kill him off in a fire and use the grief/etc to reset the tone of 118. And please, show, decide if they're an engine company or a truck company. This sticks in my craw!

Yeah, and they killed off the only character on that episode I actually gave a damn about. And ever notice how on that show, all their turnouts are pristine? I like that about Chicago Fire, their gear has seen some action and the actors at least look comfortable in it. But unlike 9-1-1, at least Station 19 has working man-down alarms. Kudos to the team from E37. At least they're capable of applying wet stuff to red stuff (albeit quite ineffectively). Please teach E51 how to do the same. In my part of the world, if one of your members goes down, the whole company follows as soon as possible, so I don't fault that plot point at all. If you know one of your own went down you probably wouldn't be much good on the fireground anyways. Nice episode for Boden. He handled the fireground pretty well, and acted like a BC, not just in charge of his own house. But in a job that big he wouldn't be in charge of the whole firefighting operation, just a small portion of it. In show-world, Grissom's toadie or even Grissom himself would have overall scene command since they're senior officers. Wondering if the actor who played the Battalion 4 chief was a real-world chief with an SAG card. He looked like he belonged there. If not, kudos to the casting department. I'll handwave the heating vent crap. In a multiple story dwelling it's not possible--no forced air residential furnace ducts to begin with, solid concrete floors, and the noises around a fire, plus turnout gear, the FFs would never hear it anyways. But for drama's sake it was OK. I liked the save, and it set up Stella's story line. Her, Mouch, and Hermann are the three FFs I actually give a crap about and I figured that would be it for Stella tonight since she and Severide were happy. That would set up soon-to-be single Casey later on and a recovering-from-grief-yet-again Severide manwhoring together by the mid-season break. Glad I was wrong. I like Kidd a lot. Always have. The crossover with Med made a lot of sense and it worked well for me. PD was the weak link tonight. In my opinion, they should use crossover events like this to reset the baseline on all three shows. If you've got a cast shakeup, do it there for the most impact. When I heard about the crossover earlier this summer, I figured this was where Raymund would make her exit; Gabby would meet her fate in the fire and be the reason All Of Chicago would stop and wail uncontrollably.