S09.E16: No Survivors

[Proteus]

Finally! Brett & Casey! Literally waited years for this & it was well worth the wait. 

[dovegrey]

On 7/8/2021 at 11:49 PM, WinJet0819 said:

But this is another cliffhanger with all or part of the house being trapped and in mortal danger. Season 2, Season 5, and Season 7 all ended with similar cliffhangers.

And this one to end this season was probably the most incredulous of all of them. But what do you expect when the righters no longer care about keeping things authentic?

The showrunner/writers have put themselves into a corner with finales. The showrunner interviewed that he's basically always looking to one-up himself and make each finale more shocking or complex, at the same time he's gutted almost all of the non-51 relationships and personal stories. We haven't seen Boden's two boys in years, and we see Donna once a season in a low/no-impact way. We maybe see one of Herrmann's kids once a season, in a way that doesn't really relate to Herrmann's job. We haven't seen or heard about Mouch's biological child since that story was first established. We never see or hear about the beloved brother that Cruz killed a man to protect (Leon didn't even rate as best man). There are also some older backstories that could be mined for finale content, like Kidd's addict background (imagine if the stress she was under in season 9 led to her using again), Casey's mom or even Louie (bio dad needs some shady help from a former alderman/respected firefighter to protect the kid?), something with the now-teenage Darden boys and Heather reigniting some animosity between Casey and Severide, etc. Maybe Cindy is diagnosed with cancer. Maybe Trudy and Mouch are violently harassed for Trudy being a cop, and Truck 81 gets shot up at a scene because of that (Gallo gets shot?). Things like that.

As it is, Cruz and Chloe are likely the one non-51 relationship that newer viewers are familiar with, but Cruz, although an original main character, is written as either comic relief or an invisible bit character who belongs more with the Tony and Capp tier of characters than even the Herrmann and Mouch tier; so, the finale can't be written about Chloe going into an early, dangerous labor, or even suffering a stillbirth by herself while Cruz is busy at a multi-alarm scene, because very few viewers will likely care about Cruz long enough to feel anticipation for 10x1. As it is, most fan site speculation about 10x1 is focused on how Severide will survive, with Cruz, Tony, and Capp lucky to be afterthoughts. The only four characters who are consistently written for in a somewhat dramatic way are Casey/Brett and Severide/Kidd, and those are the characters who get the big cliffhangers, but they're all enmeshed in 51 with zero non-work-related storylines/relationships, which leaves the writers, who must have the Most Shocking Impactful Finale Ever, relying on shut downs, reorganizations, and possible mass casualty events. It's old and boring. Severide drowns, while Kidd handwrings. Oh no. Can't wait for the magical wrap-up and three-month time skip.

The season 1 finale was probably the best one they ever did, IMO, because it focused more on wrapping up a rapid fire season and leaving fans (or at least me) eager to see where the characters developed into season 2. 

[anna0852]

On 5/26/2021 at 11:02 PM, mxc90 said:

It will be Station 19 level of nonsense. 

As an avid watcher of first responder shows (I like my adrenaline by proxy) my ranking tends to run with 9-1-1 at the top and Station 19 as the utterly ridiculous dregs. Fire falls right in the middle.