Chicago Fire – An Agent of the Machine

By starrymag | February 15, 2017

By: MaryBeth McMahon

 

Gabby (Monica Raymund) and Matt (Jesse Spencer) are finally at a peaceful place in their relationship and are handling Louie’s absence very well. During a date night, the couple goes to a grocery store and separates in different aisles. Gabby is approached by a strange man (Jamie Jackson) who shows her a very serious burn wound on his arm. He directly asks her if she works at Firehouse 51 and implies that they all must feel powerful being able to decide who lives and who dies. It’s immediately evident that his man was the victim who disappeared during last week’s fire and was referring to the moment Matt left him behind to help someone else.

 

At his home, Gabby and Matt meet with Antonio (Jon Seda) to figure out their next steps. Antonio agrees to have Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) of Chicago PD look into the case further as a means to identify who this man may be. The couple leaves and Brett (Kara Killmer) emerges from the bedroom. Their morning is cut short when Antonio is suddenly called into work. She offers to lighten his load and watch over his son Diego (Zach Garcia) at the fire station.

 

Ambulance 61 responds to a call, which coincidentally happens to be at the very same apartment building where the unidentified man went missing. They rush to the basement to check on the landlord (Greg Mills) and find him dead with what appears to be a gunshot wound to the chest. While giving a statement to the police, Gabby informs them of the missing man who pulled a gun on Matt and his likely ties to the landlord’s death.  Halstead arrives on the scene and questions Carly (Sarah Scanlon), a tenant who alerted the authorities of the landlord’s condition. She was unable to provide information on the man living in the basement, but is clearly concealing something.

 

At the station, Severide (Taylor Kinney) introduces the crew to Dennis Mack (Nick Boraine), an old friend of Severide’s father. He is visiting from Springfield, the very same place where Anna (Charlotte Sullivan) is from. The meet-and-greet is cut short when Boden (Eamonn Walker) brings everyone into a meeting to discuss the need to stick together on all calls. The missing man from the fire is raising red flags for the entire crew and the issue cannot be taken lightly.

 

Inside Boden’s office, Halstead notifies Boden, Casey and Severide about the man on the loose. The man, now identified as Eddie Owens (Jamie Jackson), has a history of creating fertilizer bombs and has been on the run since a previous attempted bombing. Boden makes a call to the Office of Fire Investigation (OFI) and has all of the evidence from that apartment fire delivered to the station so the entire Station 51 crew can comb through it in search of any clues. In the evidence Mouch (Christian Stolte) discovers a bottle of heavy-duty pain pills prescribed to Eddie before the fire occurred.

 

Brett and Diego’s peaceful chess game is interrupted when Antonio’s ex-wife, Laura (America Olivo) storms into the lounge. Laura is not impressed by Brett’s new position in Antonio and Diego’s lives and tells her off. Brett’s good intentions of looking after and bonding with Diego came to an abrupt and incredibly tense halt. A short time later, she seeks out advice from Gabby. The women both realize that the relationship might be “too soon” for Antonio, considering the recent and messy divorce.

 

Carly enters the station and is ready to talk. She says that, according to Eddie, she was “the chosen one” and he is going to make Station 51 pay for the choice they made in saving her and her daughter over him. Gabby pulls Boden to the side and urgently notifies him of this development. With confirmation that Eddie is directly targeting Station 51, he urges the entire crew to be weary of their surroundings in any upcoming calls.

 

Antonio greets Brett after she returns from a call. He apologizes for having put her in the position of interacting with his ex-wife. As Brett explains how difficult it was to have that pressure put on her, they engage in a heated argument. She tells him that he’s not ready and he responds by saying they should just forget their relationship altogether.

 

Even after being threatened with a gun and essentially being stalked by Eddie, Matt still can’t help but feel guilty for not saving the man. Regardless of Eddie’s actions and history, Matt views every victim equally and always holds himself to the highest standard when it comes to executing successful rescues. Severide helps divert his attention by asking Matt about his plan to give Gabby her ring. Matt is planning the ultimate moment to give her the ring because their wedding was not as glamorous as they would have originally liked.

 

Halstead made an arrangement with the clinic that prescribed the painkillers to Eddie. They left a message on his phone telling him there was an issue with his prescription and they needed him to come him. Boden received a call that Eddie fell for the trap and was being taken in by the police. After his announcement, a call comes in and a rejuvenated Station 51 prepares the trucks.

 

When they arrive on scene, Severide notices that there is no fire, but the building is full of smoke. Although the building is condemned, they all proceed forward when the figure of a person is visible through a foggy window. At the same time Severide and Cruz (Joe Minoso) discover fertilizer bombs, Boden gets a call from Halstead alerting him that the man arrested in the clinic was not in fact Eddie. It was a man that Eddie hired to take his place. Gunfire echoes through the building, stemming from the same room where Matt and Stella (Miranda Rae Mayo) are located. Dennis suits up and goes inside to help Severide diffuse the fertilizer bombs, both of which are large enough to take down the entire neighborhood. The bombs are successfully diffused while Matt, unscathed from the gunfire, manages to take Eddie down. Matt delivers the criminal outside and is met by a tender hug from his wife, a type of moment the two often share after high-stakes calls such as this.

 

Severide storms into Gabby and Matt’s apartment while they are hosting Brett for dinner. He gives the entire group no choice, but to stop their “pity party” and go to Molly’s. Matt is extremely willing while the women convey hesitation from their exhaustion and stress.

 

Before Brett joins everyone at the bar, Antonio surprises her with a meeting. He gives her an emotional and tearful apology where he says, “I got a job that’s never going to be able to put you first and you deserve first.” He thinks she deserves better and regrets that he can’t give her all that he wants and all that she deserves. They take each other’s hands and agree to “check and see” where they are if his job and baggage settles. They both agree that they were great together and want nothing more than for it to work out, as impossible as it seems.

 

Gabby and Matt enter Molly’s and are met by a large group of people waiting for their entrance. With couple’s photos hanging from the ceiling and a white wedding cake, Herrmann (David Eigenberg) kicks off this long-awaited wedding reception by making a toast. Matt humorously cuts him off and finds his moment to place the ring on her finger. He says, “Gabriella Dawson, I know we’ve never gotten to do this right, so… I hope you wear this ring always to remind us both that whatever we’ve been through and whatever we go through, as long as we do it together we are the luckiest souls around.” After many years of trying to move forward in their relationship, but constantly being knocked down by countless struggles, they’ve finally reached the point of happiness together. And that ring that we first met many seasons ago has finally found its righteous place on Gabby’s finger.

 

During the party, Dennis informs Severide of a Battalion Chief position available to him in Springfield. Dennis is the Fire Commissioner of Springfield and would like to “groom” him so Severide will take over his position one day. Dennis mentions Anna to Severide, making the idea of moving to Springfield seem that much more worth it. Severide spends the final moments of the episode absorbing all of the life-changing information he was just presented.