S07.E01: A Closer Eye

[Jaded]

Quote

Reeling from Dawson's continued absence, Casey makes a rash move during a rescue, while Brett struggles with a series of replacement partners; meanwhile, Boden faces scrutiny from Commissioner Grissom and has a confrontation with new Assistant Deputy Commissioner Jerry Gorsch.

[mxc90]

There was no need for Gabby to make an appearance. Devote 5 minutes of her wanting to stay in PR and then move on to her replacement, fires and rescues. It was sickening to see Casey pine for her and the mention that other paramedics were being dumped by Sylvie because (I guess) they couldn't meet Gabby's standards.

Did she even once ask Casey how was he doing?

I was hoping Connie would have gotten a better tribute.

Sylvie couldn't ask the doctor/nurse why the fallen star new girl is now a paramedic? I hope she isn't a Gabby in training.

Did Severide not tell Cruz and others to be careful what is said to Gorsch?

Edited September 27, 2018 by mxc90

[LittleIggy]

The Chief needs to get that analysis Otis did to a reporter. Grissom’s little toad is such a dick.

[doLLish]

The yearly 51 under fire arc has commenced! Oh bliss, OH JOY! This years enemy has the most annoying face ever. I really hope they wrap this one up quick.

Of course they squeezed out every last drop of Monica Raymond they could. I was looking forward to a Gabby free premiere but whatever. I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Brett was weird today. I didn’t really like her attitude towards Emily but I guess maybe she didn’t want to get attached because she was expecting Gabby back? I wonder how deep we’ll go with Emily’s storyline. I’m assuming she was a surgical intern or something and disaster occurred along the way.

All in all an okay premiere.

[Chas411]

Bleh I guess they felt they needed to honour Monica Raymond in the premiere but ugh. Can we just never mention her again please.

[momtoall]

Are the writers so short on storylines that they have to have a Boden's job in jeopardy/51 under scrutiny plot every season?  How can so many of the highers up in the department have a vendetta against Boden or 51?  This is getting old!!

Edited September 27, 2018 by momtoall

[Brookside]

Was Gabby really just going to sneak back to PR without talking to Matt?  I'm thrilled that I'll never see her again, but what a coward.

[Guildford]

And that Ladies and Gentleman is what you call fan service. All those harpies on Twitter can now STFU up how they demonised St Gabby of the Flame. Because this was basically an hour long eulogy to mother teresa. Of course she's going to run the whole friggin' shebang in PR, because there is no-one more qualified.

Please please let this be the last of her.

The rest....so meh. Of course they had to drag Brett down with her moping. And looky..trouble in the firehouse. Who would have thought?

Liked the new paramedic so far, lets hope they flesh her out over the next few episodes.

[gaucho91]

4 hours ago, momtoall said:

Are the writers so short on storylines that they have to have a Boden's job in jeopardy/51 under scrutiny plot every season?  How can so many of the highers up in the department have a vendetta against Boden or 51?  This is getting old!!

I could not possibly agree more. This is ridiculous. Honestly this makes me think it is finally time to give up on this show.  I don't like the crossovers so the previews for next week do not thrill me either.  

[Waterston Fan]

11 hours ago, mxc90 said:

There was no need for Gabby to make an appearance. Devote 5 minutes of her wanting to stay in PR and then move on to her replacement, fires and rescues. It was sickening to see Casey pine for her and the mention that other paramedics were being dumped by Sylvie because (I guess) they couldn't meet Gabby's standards.

Did she even once ask Casey how was he doing?

I was hoping Connie would have gotten a better tribute.

Sylvie couldn't ask the doctor/nurse why the fallen star new girl is now a paramedic? I hope she isn't a Gabby in training.

Did Severide not tell Cruz and others to be careful what is said to Gorsch?

I wonder what that doctor meant when he said that and I thought she would get in trouble too. 

I don't think Severide had time to tell the others to be careful what they say to Gorsch. I think Gorsch is a jerk. 

Connie deserved better send off or maybe they should have had Connie die too. 

I wonder if Sylvie is feeling bad for yelling at Dawson? 

Yes, another wonderful storyline of the Chief in trouble this year for the 7th year in a row.. Oh goodie!! 

Next week does not look interesting. 

[athelyna]

Well, that was dull.  I thought getting rid of Gabby would help, but I wish they would have just killed her off instead of making Matt look bad.  Severide says Matt is partially to blame for his marriage doing badly, when Gabby was the one who decided to run off to Puerto Rico and was going to take a permanent job there without discussing it with her husband.  Oh, yes, the epic Dawsey love story that ends with Matt telling Gabby she's just too awesome not to take the job rebuilding the island single handily and barely looking upset the epic love of his life is leaving him.  I know he's always been portrayed as reserved and not prone to strong displays of emotion, but I would have thought they were just roommates or people who had just met and been dating a couple weeks, not a couple that had known each other for years and been married for a while the way that final scene played out.

Like everyone else, I wish they would find some other way to insert drama rather than another Head Guy has it out for Boden storyline.  I really dislike the new overseer, which I suppose is the point, but in an I find him annoying to watch and just want him gone way, not an it's fun to hate him way.

The only part I really liked was how Boden handled Brett in the beginning - telling her she just had to make it work with the new girl and refusing to listen to Brett's whining about missing Gabby.

[juliet73]

I had to laugh when Gabby said she headed up a crew that included doctors, nurses, engineers, etc. Of course she is! Of course she'll know more than all of them because she was a firefighter for 6 months and best paramedic in the world! I'm so glad she's gone!

Boden's job and the firehouse are in jeopardy again - just like every other season. Considering 51 is the only competent group of firefighters and EMTS in the CFD, why are they always threatened with being shut down?

I like the new girl but she's only been a paramedic for 3 months, and yet NO ONE asks her what she did before becoming an EMT? 

Once again, Otis, Cruz and Hermann are involved with a stupid subplot.

I loved Boden, Casey and Severide out on the boat. They looked like they were having a lot of fun in real life!

[UNOSEZ]

I gave up on this show a season or season and a half ago.. Because it felt like it was the same thing over and over.. Some new chief is a jerk and wants to take down 51... But also because a big part of watching TV for me now is reading comments and chatting with other ppl who enjoy these shows and the overwhelming hate that always seemed to flow gabby's way just also turned me off was gabby atbtje center of a lot of things.. Sure as she was one of the leads.. But I never really felt she was more featured than severide or Casey... And she got criticized for behavior that Casey and severide also exhibited... The fact that so many of the online  detractors were/are women who also lamented poor poor casey always reeked of misogynoir to me... I had hoped a new season would change some of that... But doesn't look like that

[belletane]

4 hours ago, athelyna said:

Well, that was dull.  I thought getting rid of Gabby would help, but I wish they would have just killed her off instead of making Matt look bad.  Severide says Matt is partially to blame for his marriage doing badly, when Gabby was the one who decided to run off to Puerto Rico and was going to take a permanent job there without discussing it with her husband.  Oh, yes, the epic Dawsey love story that ends with Matt telling Gabby she's just too awesome not to take the job rebuilding the island single handily and barely looking upset the epic love of his life is leaving him.  I know he's always been portrayed as reserved and not prone to strong displays of emotion, but I would have thought they were just roommates or people who had just met and been dating a couple weeks, not a couple that had known each other for years and been married for a while the way that final scene played out.

Like everyone else, I wish they would find some other way to insert drama rather than another Head Guy has it out for Boden storyline.  I really dislike the new overseer, which I suppose is the point, but in an I find him annoying to watch and just want him gone way, not an it's fun to hate him way.

The only part I really liked was how Boden handled Brett in the beginning - telling her she just had to make it work with the new girl and refusing to listen to Brett's whining about missing Gabby.

This episode was really poor in the way they made Casey look like the bad guy, and made St Gabby look like such a hero. But that's been par for the course for a while so why would we be surprised that they've done it again. And of course she will single handedly get the island rebuilt!    And l wonder what would have happened if Casey hadn't just walked into his apartment when he did?   It looked to us like she was just going to leave without letting him know she was leaving for PR permanently. Typical of Gabby Sue - selfish to the nth degree towards Casey! The ending was clearly added in to appease the Dawson fans who were so outraged by the season 6 finale, and the showrunner  said he had begged Monica Raymund to come back to film these scenes. Let's hope she is so busy in future that Dawson can't make any more appearances in Chicago Fire.

[LittleIggy]

Nice article about the tribute to DuShon Brown that was worked into the season premiere: 

https://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2018/09/27/inside-chicago-fires-touching-tribute-to-dushon-monique-brown/23543835/

I don’t know how they kept a dry eye when Hermann said they didn’t get to say goodbye.

[Quark]

I do hope that is the last we see of Gabby.

Decent premier and the new paramedic seems nice. I like the actress too.

[Waterston Fan]

Pretty sad that Derek had to beg Monica to come back and film the scenes. He should be lucky she said okay and I hope we never see her again. 

I didn't realize they asked her family for approval for how to write her out. That's pretty cool. 

[mxc90]

7 hours ago, Waterston Fan said:

I wonder what that doctor meant when he said that and I thought she would get in trouble too. 

I don't think Severide had time to tell the others to be careful what they say to Gorsch. I think Gorsch is a jerk. 

I wonder if Sylvie is feeling bad for yelling at Dawson? 

I get the feeling Emily must have pissed off her superiors/defied orders to lose her position and now is a paramedic. 

Serevide could have addressed the situation during their joyride to get gas.

Yes. Sylvie feels bad but she can call her to work it out. No reason to mope about it day and night.

I hope Gorsch isn't around all season

[Court]

19 hours ago, momtoall said:

Are the writers so short on storylines that they have to have a Boden's job in jeopardy/51 under scrutiny plot every season?  How can so many of the highers up in the department have a vendetta against Boden or 51?  This is getting old!!

Amen. I'm not even done watching and this storyline may be why I quit this show. Can't the writers come up with anything else?

[Kel Varnsen]

19 hours ago, juliet73 said:

I had to laugh when Gabby said she headed up a crew that included doctors, nurses, engineers, etc. Of course she is! Of course she'll know more than all of them because she was a firefighter for 6 months and best paramedic in the world! I'm so glad she's gone!

Boden's job and the firehouse are in jeopardy again - just like every other season. Considering 51 is the only competent group of firefighters and EMTS in the CFD, why are they always threatened with being shut down?

It is a weird situation where they seem to go back and forth between Boden being the best in the business and then his job being on the line.

On 26/09/2018 at 11:05 PM, mxc90 said:

There was no need for Gabby to make an appearance. Devote 5 minutes of her wanting to stay in PR and then move on to her replacement, fires and rescues. It was sickening to see Casey pine for her and the mention that other paramedics were being dumped by Sylvie because (I guess) they couldn't meet Gabby's standards.

It was totally a Poochie situatuon where whenever Gabby wasn't on screen people were asking "where's Gabby?".

[Chick2Chic]

When I first saw Gabby onscreen in this ep, I thought about how many people here would be unhappy to see her. Hee. I didn't mind since it seemed like it was totally to wrap up her story but I wasn't a fan of how it was basically Matt feeling bad in the end and once again doing all of the sacrificing in their relationship. I suspect the writers see it as Matt being supportive but IMO a spade is a spade and Matt was sacrificing his feelings to make Gabby happy yet again, not simply being supportive of her. I don't hate Gabby but I want that cycle to end. I want to see Matt living a single life and stories focused on him.

I continue to enjoy Stellaride. I just really like how the two of them click. 

I like Emily so far, though it really was very little revealed about her so far. I did like her energy and hope that lasts. Sylvie still seems stuck on the fight she had with Gabby and not really open to anyone else riding as her partner.

[Brookside]

4 hours ago, Chick2Chic said:

When I first saw Gabby onscreen in this ep, I thought about how many people here would be unhappy to see her. Hee. I didn't mind since it seemed like it was totally to wrap up her story but I wasn't a fan of how it was basically Matt feeling bad in the end and once again doing all of the sacrificing in their relationship. I suspect the writers see it as Matt being supportive but IMO a spade is a spade and Matt was sacrificing his feelings to make Gabby happy yet again, not simply being supportive of her. I don't hate Gabby but I want that cycle to end. I want to see Matt living a single life and stories focused on him.

 

(Bolding mine,)  I think you mean a doormat is a doormat.

[SuzieQ]

I'm annoyed as hell to see Matt be such a wimp and encourage selish little Gabbitch to break his heart again.  Au revoir!

[Dowel Jones]

On 9/27/2018 at 7:56 AM, Waterston Fan said:

I wonder what that doctor meant when he said that and I thought she would get in trouble too. 

My guess is that she was a doctor of PA somewhere else, then lost her license and became a medic.  It would explain why she knew some surgery, but still that was way out of the scope of practice for a medic, and would sink the CFD if there was some liability down the road.

[preeya]

6 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

My guess is that she was a doctor of PA somewhere else, then lost her license and became a medic.  It would explain why she knew some surgery, but still that was way out of the scope of practice for a medic, and would sink the CFD if there was some liability down the road.

2

Yep, she is/was a doc that lost her license and you can bet that there will be ramifications down the road for her "unauthorized surgery" stunt.

[Waterston Fan]

1 hour ago, preeya said:

Yep, she is/was a doc that lost her license and you can bet that there will be ramifications down the road for her "unauthorized surgery" stunt.

I'm sure this will come back and bite them. 

The guy had an ankle bracelet, couldn't the officer go with him to the hospital?

[NJRadioGuy]

May be too early for the emergency field eye surgery thing to be an issue since we don't know the character yet and we have no reason to care if she'd get suspended or fired as a result. She's been on screen for one episode, and although seems OK, we the audience have nothing invested in her. I think it's more a case of "here's how she's going to be trouble down the road."

Would have been a great premiere if it had been Gabby-less, and they picked up "Some Time Later."

They'll also need to somehow reset the One Chicago timeline before this week. In the premiere, it had been 2 or 3 months since St. Gabby, First of Her Name, went to save Puerto Rico singlehandedly, but at the 21st District it picked up immediately after the finale. Med was pretty well same-day too.

As for ankle-bracelet guy, no judge would violate someone for going to the ER for emergency surgery, especially when he's accompanied by police. That was completely ridiculous.

I liked the tribute to Connie.

All in all, "more of the same" seems to be the plan for this season. I wish they'd take some story telling chances and move these two-dimensional characters along a bit more. I like the world they built, it could just be fleshed out more by better writing. There are so many things you can dramatize in a firehouse story without bringing up the same stupid tropes year after year, just plugging in new villains every time. Maybe, oh, I don't know, focus on rescues and firefighting for a while, a bit of character development at Molly's and in the firehouse between calls, then a few WHAM! episodes to change things up and move from there.

[Misslindsey]

On 9/27/2018 at 7:04 PM, mxc90 said:

Yes. Sylvie feels bad but she can call her to work it out. No reason to mope about it day and night.

I may have misheard, but it sounded like Gabby hadn't responded to Sylvie's texts or calls. I thought when Sylvie was talking to Casey about how Gabby was doing that she said she texted/called Gabby, but did not receive a response from her.

[limecoke]

On the one hand, it's an amazing thing that the viewers of this show are, once and (I hope) for all, rid of who is probably the most annoying character in the history of TV programming.  Arguments could be made, but Gabby is one of the few who have come closest to making me go all Elvis on my TV.

On the other hand, did we have to have almost an entire episode dedicated to the glorification and deification of this character?  Did we?  It's bad enough to have Matt moping all over the place but they had to add Sylvie to the mix with her loving and longing glances at St. Gabriela's locker.  Oh the humanity!

On a less sarcastic note, could the scene between Matt and Gabby at the end be more unrealistic?  Oh, of course, all husbands are noble enough to pat their sainted spouse on the head and wish them godspeed as they go off to save the world.  "Yes, it's true, I'm so blessed and humbled to have been able to walk along side your glorious self for these few years while you find your true calling, sweetheart.  Go forth and do your good work and I'll get on with my miserable life and only hope I can some day drift into your aura once again."  Oh please...

I do like the new ambo and will be interested in seeing her story unfold.  I expect one of these days she'll be reinstated and move on to Chicago Med.  As to the firehouse in jeopardy...again, thing, I was over it a couple of seasons ago.  May it be short-lived and that annoying little creep gone.  Can't we just fight fires and save people?  Isn't that what the show is supposed to be about? 

[Ailianna]

The problem with Gabby sneaking off to nobly save all of Puerto Rico, is that she is still married to Casey.  So, he can't date anyone, or fall for anyone, or have any potential love interest, because that would make him a cheater.  They have to get him un-married to really get her off the show.  She doesn't have to die, but a nice divorce due to irreconcilable geography, if nothing else, would be good.

[Chas411]

I reckon she'll just blind sight him with divorce papers later on in the season or depending on when/if Spencer decides to leave they'll have him follow her out to save the world. 

Ugh.

Id actually love a season of carefree Matt slutting it up. 

[MakeMeLaugh]

The only reason Casey married Gabby was to improve her chances of adopting Little Louie. She was always an obligation to him and apparently he felt he owed her something, God knows why. I imagine the actress was popular with the cast and the staff so she rated a sweet swan song, unlike Sophia Bush on PD. Please please please let it be her real swan song so I can say this for the last time: “Go away, Gabby.”

Okay by me if Casey and off-screen Gabby stay married, but let’s get more Casey and Severide screen time together—love their scenes together.

The house’s new archnemesis is played by the funniest dumbest person ever on the summer comedy Trial and Error—interesting casting there. Just such a stupid lazy bunch of writing. I’m ready to kick Boden out myself.

Edited September 30, 2018 by MakeMeLaugh

[izabella]

When is Gabby going to disappear?  Was this her last appearance, or is she going to keep popping up on Skype calls throughout the season?

[Guildford]

I just hope Matt checked her bags before she left to make sure she wasn't taking his nuts with her.

[belletane]

9 hours ago, Guildford said:

I just hope Matt checked her bags before she left to make sure she wasn't taking his nuts with her.

He seemed to have found his balls at the end of S6 so let's hope he has managed to keep them! And what a pile of rubbish poor Casey was made to spout in that last scene of the S7 premier. It was completely cringeworthy! 

23 hours ago, izabella said:

When is Gabby going to disappear?  Was this her last appearance, or is she going to keep popping up on Skype calls throughout the season?

Let's hope that the communication links from PR are down...for ever! Dont want to see of hear from her ever again unless its divorce papers for Casey!

[Chas411]

Matt and Sylvia pining over someone who sincerely couldn’t give a crap about either of them had me laughing. So log Gabby. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Please Matt just move on and do not bring her back for the series finale. 

Nice to see they wasted no time in setting up this seasons evil moustache twirler.

[Crs97]

  Of course she's going to run the whole friggin' shebang in PR, because there is no-one more qualified.

I am reminded of an Odd Couple episode from decades ago when Felix and Oscar have gone to some resort and Felix ends up in charge of entertainment or something.  When Oscar complains to the management, the guy in charge said (very bad paraphrasing here) their policy was to identify the person who would be the biggest problem and give him a whistle so they could hear him coming.  Out of every person in PR, Gabby got the whistle.  I am not the least bit surprised.