S09.E05: My Lucky Day

[jewel21]

When Firehouse 51 is called to the scene of a dangerous blaze inside a 10-story storage unit, Herrmann and Cruz find themselves trapped inside a freight elevator with all communications cut off.

Airdate: 02/03/2021

[FnkyChkn34]

Isn't that Rule #1 when a building catches fire?  "In case of fire, do not use elevator, use the stairs."

[mxc90]

The show must have blown their budget on purchasing the 500 pounds of stale donuts last week and had to go with a bottle episode this week.

Which "community" is Boden talking about they "will respond"? I guess he and the writers have been ignoring this message board community's request to get to a conclusion with Casey and Sylvie! 

Herrmann grabbed the wrong fortune cookie! The next one read: "If lazy Mouch can take the stairs...you can too". 

No "fire emergency" button in a freight elevator?

"Think like Otis"? Where is you training for this situation Cruz?

If Herrmann was the only fire fighter in the elevator, those people would have been doomed! 

Holly the" I wasn't a bar manager. We were fine dining!" was a joy. 24 minutes in and I wanted someone to throw her out the elevator! Then she touched the box and was out cold. My prayers were answered! Curious she didn't get any superpowers from the jolt! 

Trevor saw Holly at her worst and still asked her out! He has guts!

I don't think the other fire fighters noticed or cared Hermann and Cruz were missing.

So Herrmann's and Cruz' radios can receive but can't send? I'm sure they will blame Gorsh for this mishap!

Seeing Cruz down earlier in the episode, I almost thought we would find out Chloe had filed for divorce.

Cruz will remember the horror stories and Holly's whining more than the good stories. It's going to haunt him.

The other fire fighters must have used their radios more than any other time during the last 8 seasons.

Severide is way too laid back. Kidd is a nervous wreck, sleeps at Sylvie's and he says "Nah! She's fine".

Edited February 4, 2021 by mxc90

[dovegrey]

I wanted to like this one. It’s nice for the two actors, and especially Minoso/Cruz, to get screentime. But Herrmann and Cruz just seemed really incompetent, and I wanted Herrmann to die instead of sidemouthing out one more stupid platitude. The injured subcontractor guy seemed more on it and cool than a CFD lieutenant and a Squad guy.

And I’m put off that there was apparently this awesome rager of a fire and we....listened to a useless rando bitch about life. 

All in all, I don’t think those two carried the episode well. There was a lot of filler, I thought, and I was more interested in the static-y radio drama.

I wish we could see Chloe and actually see Cruz in the relationship.

Severide is a tool. 

[MsJamieDornan]

35 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

and I wanted Herrmann to die instead of side-mouthing out one more stupid platitude.

Perfectly said.

35 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

All in all, I don’t think those two carried the episode well. There was a lot of filler, I thought, and I was more interested in the static-y radio drama.

The episode was painful. I cant believe I made it to the end.

 

36 minutes ago, dovegrey said:

Severide is a tool. 

A big one.

[Artsda]

The floor was on fire so they took the elevator up with 2 civilians with them too? That seems very stupid.

[FnkyChkn34]

So all of the people in Firehouse 51 share one collective brain, and it was with... Tuesday this week??  I mean.  Seriously.  That was pretty bad.

Stella isn't thinking.  Severide isn't thinking.  Herrmann definitely wasn't thinking.  Cruz knew better and wasn't thinking either.

I wouldn't mind an episode like this that just focuses on a handful of characters, but this one was bad.  I just couldn't get past the decision to take the elevator in the first place.  And then the suspense with Mouch?  Really?  They are going to have a major character die completely offscreen?  No, they wouldn't do that, so obviously he was going to be fine.  And then Severide and Casey's little banter about their heroics was just unnecessary; it wasn't funny or cute, it just made me roll my eyes.

I don't think Chicago Wednesday is must-see-tv for me anymore.  If anyone liked this episode, please share why?  Help me out here.

[jewel21]

*small voice*

I really enjoyed this episode. 

I liked that it focused on just a couple of characters. I liked the tension throughout the episode.  The lady was annoying but then she got electrocuted and I was happy, hah. 

The contractor was a sweetheart and I liked how he managed to remain calm despite the situation and the lady making everything worse. 

I liked the mentions of Otis although I'm still mad the show killed him off. 

All in all, it was a fun hour of television for me. 

[Dowel Jones]

I think I know why Holly's Michelin star rated restaurant closed.  Could have been something to do with the attitudes on the staff.

I did a lot of fast forward through this episode.  Waxing eloquent about life and such in an emergency situation just does not compute.  Somebody on the writers' crew was channeling Ladder 49.

If I remember my training way back, elevator shafts are built to extremely close tolerances.  The elevator is not going to tilt one way or the other.  Maybe freight elevators are different.  Along that line of though, good idea, pouring highly flammable liquid into an air shaft with a firestorm going on 20' above you.

Firefighters actually do take the elevator up, just stop a few floors below the active fire floor.  I know this because....One time I was in a high rise in San Francisco, visiting a relative on the sixth floor (not the top, however).  As I was leaving, I heard sirens below, and looked out to see SFFD pulling up to the entrance.  "Cool", says I, and pushed the down button on the elevator.  No fire alarm sounding, by the way.  I see the indicator showing the elevator rising up.  It opens on my floor with a bunch of FFs dressed for the party, and one says "No, wait a minute, this is the wrong floor".  Door closes, elevator leaves.  Er, um, did you miss something, folks?  Something I should know?  Turned out to be a false alarm.

[NJRadioGuy]

Some iffy writing and playing with the way radios work but I'll handwave it for a decent character episode. I really enjoyed it, especially the Otis reference (despite the fact we almost never saw him doing elevator rescues when he was there).

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No "fire emergency" button in a freight elevator?

The one that should have been working was the alarm button. It's uncomplicated--you push it, it rings a bell and keeps it ringing until you pull the button back out again. Ringing elevator bell plus the fact you can't reach your engine crew = guess where they are guys?

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"Think like Otis"? Where is you training for this situation Cruz?

Agreed. If you're on Squad you should know how to build an elevator in your sleep. Also, from what I recall, elevator brakes are released when traction power is applied. When it's not they have enough clamping power to hold it in position. And the trope of the car falling uncontrollably? Only once in modern history has a car ever gone into free fall, and that was the Empire State Building in 1945 when a plane crashed into it (the passenger survived). The safest place to be in most cases is in an elevator. You couldn't break those cables if you tried. Yay Hollywood.

Quote

Holly the" I wasn't a bar manager. We were fine dining!" was a joy. 24 minutes in and I wanted someone to throw her out the elevator! Then she touched the box and was out cold. My prayers were answered! Curious she didn't get any superpowers from the jolt! 

Trevor saw Holly at her worst and still asked her out! He has guts!

Sounds like Trevor hadn't gotten laid in so long that even Holly looked interesting. Dating rule number 1: don't let the little head do the thinking for the big head. And rule number 2: Run away from the crazies. 

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I don't think the other fire fighters noticed or cared Hermann and Cruz were missing.

That's the part that pissed me off the most and took me out of the episode more than it should. But I guess it was necessary to tell the story they wanted to tell, so I'll handwave that, plus...

Quote

So Herrmann's and Cruz' radios can receive but can't send?

They actually kinda-sorta got this one right. IRL, Chicago FD radios operate on the UHF band, and UHF signals there are generally blocked by the rebar within concrete, and a steel elevator car is a Faraday Cage in its own right, so yes, signals wouldn't be strong. HOWEVER...Assuming they're on a simplex fireground frequency, and only about 35-40 feet away from the seat of the fire (they were stuck near 7, and the fire was on 10), that's still more than enough for a 5W or 10W HT to get at least a partial message through. And all one of them would have to do is hold the antenna up through even a partial opening in the hatch and that would have helped get a message through.

With all of that said, though, hearing the job through radio traffic was bloody good writing. Take this from someone who knows (notice my board handle).* I absolutely loved how they conveyed the story of a good job without having to show a single thing.

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The other fire fighters must have used their radios more than any other time during the last 8 seasons.

It usually doesn't make good TV to do that 😃

So, for the sake of the story they need to reduce weight in the car (OK, handwaving all the above for draaaaaamah). Fair enough of a plot device. But let me get this right. You have a building fire which has just flashed over 20 feet above you, and your going to release 110 gallons of highly-flammable Toluene? Granted it will go down, not up, but that's a variable I don't think I'd want to throw into the equation...ESPECIALLY WHERE THERE WERE A HALF-DOZEN OR MORE BAGS OF CEMENT in the car as well, each one weighing at least 80 pounds. Two 55 gallon drums would weigh about 400 pounds each (including the drum). I'd have dumped out all the cement first and see if that helped. One thing in their favor is that Toluene's MSDS says its vapors are heavier than air, so a breached drum's vapors would likely not travel upward to the raging fire above and ignite. 

 

* For those interested, listen to the recordings of the 9 alarm fire in Boston, in March 2014. E33 responding first due to Box 1579, 298 Beacon St. This will haunt you.

[NJRadioGuy]

To add one more thing. Holly heard Mouch's mayday call and she was genuinely worried for him when things looked bleak. I was really hoping that either Hermann would have called Mouch aside at the end and introduced her, or she would have asked if she could see this Mouch guy.

All snark aside, and PITA or not, she went through something terrible and seeing this guy alive and well would probably have made her day, and the story of why would probably have gotten to Mouch, too. Wasted opportunity IMO.

[FnkyChkn34]

9 hours ago, jewel21 said:

I liked the mentions of Otis although I'm still mad the show killed him off. 

Yes, I did like them remembering Otis, and I also liked when the woman said "well I wish he was here now" and Cruz said "me too."  That part was nice.  There were some good parts, but overall as a whole episode, I have to give it a thumbs down.

My other thought, and I think someone already mentioned this too, is why did no one notice that Herrmann and Cruz were missing???  They were trapped in there for a good long while.  That's horrible leadership by Severide if he doesn't know that one of his Squad guys is not with him or answering his radio.  And did Herrmann's entire team not realize that they didn't have an officer giving them directions?  Where were Boden and Casey on that, too?  

[Dowel Jones]

8 hours ago, NJRadioGuy said:

For those interested, listen to the recordings of the 9 alarm fire in Boston, in March 2014. E33 responding first due to Box 1579, 298 Beacon St. This will haunt you.

Yeah, that was pretty tragic.  I listened to about half of it and will finish up today sometime.  It's a good example of an emergency going from 0-60 in a matter of minutes, with all the confusion and radio traffic.  This episode did a good job of capturing that tension, even with the bad reception.

[NJRadioGuy]

1 hour ago, Dowel Jones said:

Yeah, that was pretty tragic.  I listened to about half of it and will finish up today sometime.  It's a good example of an emergency going from 0-60 in a matter of minutes, with all the confusion and radio traffic.  This episode did a good job of capturing that tension, even with the bad reception.

Two line of duty deaths resulted. At the time they were saying that fire burned through the hose line that the two men from Engine 33 who perished were carrying to a hot spot in the basement. Just horrible and very difficult to listen to for sure, but for that very reason, that real-world tragedy made this episode extremely realistic to me--at least that aspect of it, anyway.

Radio, to me, has always been the best medium for storytelling, whether it's old time radio dramas or PD/FD/EMS radio systems today. TV (especially most insipid network TV shows) has nowhere near the impact for me. It's why I still like to listen to ballgames on the radio rather than watch them.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Severide is a tool. 

Truth. Why can't he just tell Stella some dude accused her of sleeping her way to the top and he's trying to take a step back while she takes these tests? Instead of  . . . letting her think he's an enormous tool

I actually liked this bottle episode. I wasn't sure Cruz or Herrmann would make it out alive. It would be just like this show to kill one of them off like it did with Otis. I was pretty sure Mouch would be OK though, I don't think they would just kill him off-screen.

[mxc90]

13 hours ago, NJRadioGuy said:

That's the part that pissed me off the most and took me out of the episode more than it should. But I guess it was necessary to tell the story they wanted to tell, so I'll handwave that, plus...

Boden had a line before they entered the building: "report back in 5 minutes". Was Boden's watch running slow to check on him?

Also, is there a rule for taking elevators or Herrmann should have informed Boden, Ritter or Casey?

[Dowel Jones]

Oh, by the way.  Major plotline coming up that they just kind of threw out there.  Chloe is pregnant!  <crickets>  More pointless firehouse drama.

[MaryHedwig]

On 2/2/2021 at 7:10 AM, FnkyChkn34 said:

Isn't that Rule #1 when a building catches fire?  "In case of fire, do not use elevator, use the stairs."

I was waiting for a public service announcement at end of the episode, "Hermann and Cruz entered the elevator during a fire for dramatic purposes. Do not try this at home."

[dovegrey]

I’ll just add that I like the idea of this episode, and I found the static-filled radio chatter to be quite compelling. (I would’ve loved for Mouch - my favorite secondary main character - to die in this episode and for the next episode to show the fire and his death, although I think that would be the end of Casey, so maybe it could’ve been Ritter to die instead.) The actors who play Cruz and Herrmann were great (well, Eigenberg is…quirky). It was the writing in the elevator that killed the episode for me.

One of my favorite episodes is off-duty Casey trapped in the break room with the 15-year-old girl and her injured dad. That was fantastic and awesome episode because they wrote to all of Casey’s strengths and used his skills to navigate the situation. I can watch that one over and over because it’s flat-out fun and interesting to watch a capable firefighter be capable (as far as TV goes).

In contrast, you have a Squad fill-in-lieutenant and an Engine lieutenant, both of whom were previously on Truck 81, who had to wrack their brains and send a Ouji board message to Otis to figure out the elevator had a control panel. It was way too far in the episode before they figured out there was a roof hatch. They seemed dazed, lost, and confused and then spent how many minutes talking about babies. Their only way out of that deteriorating situation was an outgoing radio signal, and they didn't work that problem. Instead, they dumped barrels of flammable liquid down an elevator shaft that was apparently being used to vent a massive fire and I guess just hoped the fire didn't spread to the elevator and cook them like that poor woman + baby in 7x2. AYFKM.

The episode was a great idea; the radio chatter was compelling; but the writing was total, infantile shit with about 0.1% creativity from the writers. And THAT has been this show’s infinite flaw since all the capable showrunners left and gave the whole thing to Derek Haas around season 5.

Edited February 5, 2021 by dovegrey
missing words

[Sake614]

So I’m guessing the writers did NOT want me laughing and rolling my eyes during this episode? Yeah well, epic fail because that’s all I was doing for an hour. And if Holly had 2nd degree burns on her hands, why wasn’t she screaming in agony when she woke up?

[WinJet0819]

Again, this show's authenticity takes another hit. There is a fire, and you're taking the elevator. That's one of the things they teach you not to do in grammar school. And for two actual firefighters, including a lieutenant to make that mistake, is just a slap in the face to the CFD. Not to mention, in any fire or possible fire situation, firefighters do not let civilians escort them to where the fire may be to avoid exactly what happened in this episode. All civilians are escorted out if the building. If a firefighter needs directions, the manager can give them that outside before they go in. What are the writers and CFD advisors thinking about when they make these stories.

All that aside, it was refreshing to watch an episode that didn't have Brett-Casey drama or Kidd-Severide drama. Two other characters got the focus, for a change. Because lately, the show has been more drama-focused than firefighting-focused with all this forced relationship tension.

[Dowel Jones]

The rules are different for occupants and firefighters.  Firefighters really do use the elevators on high rise fires.  Imagine trying to carry 100' of hose (~35 lbs.), plus your SCBA (~15 lbs.) and the turnouts you're wearing, up 25 flights of stairs without being exhausted by the time you reach the fire.  A quick internet search brings up a few manuals on the subject.  One does say if the fire is on floor 7 or below, walk.  And lock the elevator so it doesn't go up and down w/o control.

[FnkyChkn34]

On 2/8/2021 at 3:53 PM, WinJet0819 said:

Again, this show's authenticity takes another hit. There is a fire, and you're taking the elevator. That's one of the things they teach you not to do in grammar school. And for two actual firefighters, including a lieutenant to make that mistake, is just a slap in the face to the CFD. Not to mention, in any fire or possible fire situation, firefighters do not let civilians escort them to where the fire may be to avoid exactly what happened in this episode. All civilians are escorted out if the building. If a firefighter needs directions, the manager can give them that outside before they go in. What are the writers and CFD advisors thinking about when they make these stories.

I didn't understand this either.  She was already out of the building waiting on the sidewalk for them, and then voluntarily went back in with them.  If that were me, I'd never have done that!  They did say something in the beginning about it being small and maybe even a false alarm, but still... no!  And the construction guy who didn't even bother to get out in the first place, still loading up flammable liquids.  Genius.  

[Leeds]

On 2/4/2021 at 7:32 AM, FnkyChkn34 said:

.

My other thought, and I think someone already mentioned this too, is why did no one notice that Herrmann and Cruz were missing???  They were trapped in there for a good long while.  That's horrible leadership by Severide if he doesn't know that one of his Squad guys is not with him or answering his radio.  

 

The only leadership Severide has ever understood is his dick's.

Edited March 11, 2021 by Leeds

[SnarkySheep]

On 2/8/2021 at 5:21 PM, Dowel Jones said:

The rules are different for occupants and firefighters.  Firefighters really do use the elevators on high rise fires.  Imagine trying to carry 100' of hose (~35 lbs.), plus your SCBA (~15 lbs.) and the turnouts you're wearing, up 25 flights of stairs without being exhausted by the time you reach the fire.  A quick internet search brings up a few manuals on the subject.  One does say if the fire is on floor 7 or below, walk.  And lock the elevator so it doesn't go up and down w/o control.

Yeah...but at the same time, I kept remembering that apartment fire a couple seasons back, where the woman and her baby took the elevator despite being told not to, and then next being seen totally charred. I'm sure other viewers thought of that too.

[NJRadioGuy]

16 minutes ago, SnarkySheep said:

Yeah...but at the same time, I kept remembering that apartment fire a couple seasons back, where the woman and her baby took the elevator despite being told not to, and then next being seen totally charred. I'm sure other viewers thought of that too.

Firefighters have a special key to control where the elevator stops--or doesn't. Residents don't have such things. So if the fire's on 10, they can run express to 7 or 8 and walk up the designated access stairwell, for example. I think I still have my old Otis key from the 1970s kicking around somewhere, if memory serves.

[NWFan2014]

On 2/4/2021 at 9:32 AM, FnkyChkn34 said:

My other thought, and I think someone already mentioned this too, is why did no one notice that Herrmann and Cruz were missing???  They were trapped in there for a good long while.  That's horrible leadership by Severide if he doesn't know that one of his Squad guys is not with him or answering his radio.  And did Herrmann's entire team not realize that they didn't have an officer giving them directions?  Where were Boden and Casey on that, too?  

Sometimes I get the feeling that Herrmann could drop off the planet tomorrow & the others simply wouldn't give a damn 😢, but oh if it had been Casey or Severide, the others woulda been all over it 😒

Edited July 1, 2021 by NWFan2014
added a thought