S04.E17: What Happened To Courtney

[WendyCR72]

Severide and Cruz find a child's remains inside a chimney while investigating a possible carbon monoxide leak inside a home. In other events, Casey braces for the worst in his run for alderman while Alderman Becks continues to bad mouth him to the press.

[Dowel Jones]

Gabby looked like she wanted to jump Casey's bones right there in the garage after the save.  Now that would have been a photo op.

 

New character with domestic drama?  Check.  Firehouse rallies around new character?  Check.

 

I was a tiny bit disappointed that the brother dropped the broken neck line on his sister and Severide.  Up to that point a defense attorney could well have laid the blame on Casey's dumbass mishandling of the body at the scene.  That was on Boden, too.  He is responsible for his firefighters.

 

Start fixin' those streetlights, Casey!  Get that bridge built, and watch out for those pesky political operatives, because that's a sure fire plot point.

[squidprincess]

I was a tiny bit disappointed that the brother dropped the broken neck line on his sister and Severide.  Up to that point a defense attorney could well have laid the blame on Casey's dumbass mishandling of the body at the scene.  That was on Boden, too.  He is responsible for his firefighters.

 

Wasn't it Severide who removed the body, not Casey?  Honestly, I think a defense attorney would have a field day with this case anyway.  There were all sorts of chain of custody problems from the beginning.

 

It'll be interesting to see how much they use the alderman role from this point on.  I mean, Mouch as Union President has come up maybe once or twice since he took the position.  So it may be a non-issue.

 

I like Stella, but I'm not really emotionally invested in her enough yet to care about her ex-husband troubles.  It was interesting that she seems to have some bartending skills though.   I wonder if that'll come up again with Molly's.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Finally an episode that centered on the two centers of the show. Thank you thank you thank you, writers. It was great to enjoy their talent. Loved when Casey said "They got my good side"'about the heroic photo in the newspaper and Cruz said "They're all good sides" and Casey swatted him.

Go away Gabby. I didn't expect Casey to win (because sorry but that's just a stupid storyline--I guess it will likely tie in occasionally with a new Dick Wolf series in the franchise) but I did expect her to be front and center when we found out and boom, there she was hogging the spotlight.

Did I miss the logic of kidnapping a 7-year-old, breaking her neck, and climbing a house ten miles away to stash the body in a chimney? Not the most logical secret hiding place.

[juliet73]

Does Severide a get police paycheck too? Not only does he find the body, but then finds the mother, gets the suspect, beats him up, etc. What did the detective do? Bitch that Severide didn't follow protocol but asks him anyway to go back to the mom's house because he knew her. New girl and her deadbeat husband do not interest me at all. And considering he's living off his ex wife, he has a nice, big Chicago apartment. Is Holly Robinson Peete going to be part of a love triangle with Casey and Gabby? Hermann has his kid's bday party at what looks like a Chuck E. Cheese. Why did he need a band to play as well? This show needs way more fires/accidents and a lot less personal stories outside the firehouse.

[iMonrey]

 

Did I miss the logic of kidnapping a 7-year-old, breaking her neck, and climbing a house ten miles away to stash the body in a chimney? Not the most logical secret hiding place.

 

This whole story felt like something that should have spanned several episodes and was all chopped up to fit into one. We get that Courtney's uncle probably killed her, but why? When? How? Who owned that house at the time she was hidden there? Why was she hidden there? Don't. Get. It. At. All. If there isn't any follow-up to this then it's possibly the worst thing they've ever written.

 

The whole thing with Stella trying to get her ex to play at an eight-year old's party was stupid too. Some loser that plays goth rock or whatever and is obviously in a state of arrested development and that's really a good find for a children's birthday party? Even for free? 

 

So Casey won the Alderman race, and as he asked himself, "what now?" Well, for starters, didn't he promise the Crips (or the Bloods or whoever) he'd remove the surveillance cameras from their favorite drug dealing corner in exchange for their support? So I guess we'll see if he follows up with that. My guess? No. Danger ensues.

[roamyn]

Casey said he'd try to. I didn't want him to win, because Chicago politics will poison him just like...oops wrong show, right idea.

Regarding the little girl in the chimney, this was eerily like a 1970s Cleveland case where little Arthur Noske was murdered and his mother's b/friend took him to an abandoned house and shoved him up the chimney. I believe he was 7, too.

The fact that I was still young - maybe 13 - when it happened and I still remember his name, shows you how much it stuck with me.

In the 1880s, HH Holmes killed 3 of his "partner's" kids, and took the little boy to IN to a vacant house (that's still standing) and did the same.

[Dowel Jones]

Maybe the whole point of the chimney story was to introduce yet another woman to the Severide circle of sex.

[Kel Varnsen]

I know it is not anywhere close to the same thing, but after binge watching all of Daredevil season 2 in about a week, Severide's fight scene was really lame.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Oh, and the total ickiness imo with the Molly's Jr. setup as the homemade "entertainment" in the Chuck E, Cheese --look, kids not even ten years old, let's pretend we have a cool bar and are having cocktails! It's fun!

[Lillybee]

Since when do 8 year olds require live music at their birthday parties?

[roamyn]

Since when do 8 year olds require live music at their birthday parties?

Since birthday parties have blown up into themes.

[iMonrey]

Yeah but when you rent out a space like Chuck E Cheese (or whatever it was supposed to be) the whole point is that they provide the entertainment. 

[MakeMeLaugh]

Yeah but when you rent out a space like Chuck E Cheese (or whatever it was supposed to be) the whole point is that they provide the entertainment.

+1. Not to mention those places probably don't even let you bring in your own food, extra entertainment, etc.--they have their own to sell you.

Edited March 31, 2016 by MakeMeLaugh

[NJ RadioGuy]

Call me a sentimental sap but I liked this one. It hit the right notes, mostly and showed a side of Severide I really like. As for Detective Hottie McHotterson, a.k.a. Severide's next belt-notch, I don't like her character and attitude. I know real-life murder police and she ain't it.

 

There was no need for chain of custody for the hairbrush. That was just to check and see if there was a familial match to confirm ID. After 9/11, victims' families were asked to bring in hair brushes, toothbrushes and so on for the same thing. Chain of custody would only become relevant if they were going after a suspect's DNA to tie him to the murder. Courtney's DNA from the brush could not matter in the slightest to proving the uncle did it. And with a body that charred, down to skeletal remains only, what kind of DNA would they hope to find anyways? That point was rather silly.

 

Nope, don't care about New Girl or her rocker-ex. Get me invested in her character as a functioning paramedic first then throw me back story. Maybe. Liked Casey's election wrapped up in one episode and not dragged out. I agree, the gang storyline is going to come back as will his Casey's run-in with the CFD, because his Aldermanic duties will absolutely clash with his CFD shifts eventually. I don't know CFD policies, but shift switching in most departments often isn't a big deal; everybody in the House knows everybody anyways, regardless of which shift you're working. We only see the day watch here but the other shifts in the house are equally family.

[iMonrey]

I kind of figured Stella was pegged to be Severide's next slam piece rather than the lady detective. The former is here for the long haul apparently, the latter seemed like more of a one-off.

 

Hell, he'll probably screw them both. Maybe at the same time.

[Xantar]

Casey's deal with the gang bangers was actually that he would get the security camera moved if they would stop dealing in front of an elementary school. The quid pro quo was not for his own benefit which I thought was actually an interesting twist.

 

I wonder if the writers were thinking of the Robert Redford movie The Candidate when they shot that ending.

 

Also, I think it's been established that Severide actually has met Stella before and he drunkenly tried to hit on her without realizing that she was married at the time. Or was that someone else?

[KDB]

On the topic of Casey's deal with the drug dealers, I can't imagine Voight allowing that. I seem to recall some history between them.

[squidprincess]

Would Voight really have a say in the issue?  (I don't know much about what an alderman actually does, to be honest.  So I don't know if it'd be in Casey's power to grant or Voight's to stop.)

 

But Voight isn't particularly known for his "play by the rules" nature, so if Casey explains the situation, Voight might be pragmatic enough to back him up.  He might agree that it's better to have drugs sold at that known corner than near a school.