For fans of NBC’s Chicago Fire, Oct. 11 seems like a long ways off until the premiere of the fifth season. However, executive producer Derek Haas and one of the show’s stars, Jesse Spencer, who plays Matt Casey on the show, have a preview of what to expect in the upcoming season.
Haas, speaking to Entertainment Weekly, said this season will show Casey and Gabby Dawson (Monica Raymund) starting to ease back into their relationship, especially after the events of the finale where Casey showed up on Gabby’s doorstep, proving that he’s ready to be a foster parent to Louie, the baby that Gabby became a foster mother to in the finale. “Casey made a very conscious decision at the end of last season to go back to Dawson and we want to explore the two of them as a couple. Not as a married couple necessarily, but as a couple with a child in their lives, and also explore the challenges of being on a fire truck together with a child at home,” Haas said.
Haas also said that Casey’s second job as alderman of the 52nd ward won’t be as prevalent as it was in the second half of the fourth season. “It’s there and it’s present and we can use it as need-be, but it’s not going to be a huge part of the show,” Haas said.
As for Spencer, he told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s also hoping that his character and Gabby are able to make it work this season. “I see them being able to stick it out. Obviously there will always be bumps along the road there, but as a couple, I think they’re really solid,” Spencer said.
He also previewed the impending tension between Chief Boden (Eamonn Walker) and Jimmy (Steven R. McQueen), saying the Jimmy thinks Boden is partially responsible, if not completely responsible, for the death of his brother in the events leading up to the finale.
Spencer also said he’s hoping that his character will be a little “darker” in the upcoming season, telling readers to keep an eye out for what happens in the fourth episode of the season, which is a Casey-centric episode.
Meanwhile, TVLine has reported that Chicago Fire‘s 100th episode, aptly titled “One Hundred” based off a tweet from the show’s Twitter page, will be about Molly’s, the bar that serves as a after-shift hangout for the firefighters of Chicago Fire, the police officers of Chicago P.D., the doctors of Chicago Med and potentially the attorneys from the upcoming Chicago Justice, will be celebrating its centennial. The 100th episode is the eighth episode of the season.
Chicago Fire returns for its fifth season on Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 10 p.m.