ONE CHICAGO Women: Chicago P.D. “Reform” (5×01) & Chicago Fire “It Wasn’t Enough” (6×01) recap

Boy, it feels like it’s been awhile since we were in the ONE CHICAGO world! It was a long wait over the summer and all the teases didn’t help the anxiety of ChiHards, but finally two-thirds of the ONE CHICAGO world have returned (R.I.P CHICAGO JUSTICE, which received a sly acknowledgement in the CHICAGO FIRE premiere) with CHICAGO P.D. kicking off its fifth season and CHICAGO FIRE  its sixth, this past 48 hours. (CHICAGO MED will return midseason in 2018.) Both P.D. and FIRE ended their previous seasons with cliffhangers that would hunt us over the last couple of months – is Lindsay seriously leaving Intelligence and Chicago on P.D. and who won’t make it out of that catastrophic warehouse call on FIRE? Thankfully we had resolutions of both these cliffhangers pretty quickly and now it’s onwards and upwards. Read on to find out what happened with the leading ladies of CHICAGO P.D. and CHICAGO FIRE this week…

CHICAGO P.D. — “Fork In The Road” Episode 423 — Pictured: Sophia Bush as Erin Lindsay — (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

Erin Lindsay: It’s sad but true – Lindsay left Chicago to join the FBI in New York. The premiere’s opening was a montage of past moments before leading into Halstead inside her now empty apartment where he found a photo of the two of them during happier times left behind. Boy did that opening hurt my heart to watch! Following Sophia Bush’s exit from the show, we don’t actually see Lindsay but she is referenced to by both Voight and Halstead, the former telling the latter that she’s not coming back. Poor Halstead. I just basically wanted to give him a hug all episode.

CHICAGO P.D. — “Reform” Episode 501 — Pictured: (l-r) Jon Seda as Antonio Dawson, Marina Squerciati as Kim Burgess — (Photo by: Parrish Lewis/NBC)

Kim Burgess: After taking some time to look after her sister last season (which was to accommodate Marina Squerciati’s real life maternity leave), it’s nice to see Burgess back in Intelligence. She wasn’t the only familiar face returning to Intelligence, so was Antonio Dawson by the episode’s end. Before that though, while he was helping Intelligence while on a case, Burgess was pretty excited to see him and even got to work alongside him at one point. At the end of the episode they share a drink at Molly’s. We hear they’ll be partners now and we can’t wait to see more of their dynamic. Also at the end of the episode, Ruzek offers to buy Burgess a drink, to which she tells him that they’re not going to get back together (remember she kissed him when he returned late last season from his undercover stint and they didn’t really acknowledge it on the show after that) and that she’s seeing someone. Girl, we want details!

Sgt Trudy Platt: As per usual, we don’t see nearly enough of Platt but when we do, she proves that she’s down with the Internet and  what’s “blowing up”, informing Ruzek and Atwater of all the awful things being said about Halstead and how he should be fired when he is accused of killing an innocent eight-year-old girl during a showdown with a suspect.

CHICAGO P.D. — “Reform” Episode 501 — Pictured: (l-r) Elias Koteas as Alvin Olinksy, Jesse Lee Soffer as Jay Halstead, Tracy Spiridakos as Det. Hailey Upton — (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

Hailey Upton: With Lindsay gone, Upton is now permanently a part of Intelligence and also Halstead’s new partner. As a Linstead fan, I was pretty wary when I heard she was going to be Halstead’s partner but by the end of the episode I had warmed up to the idea and was intrigued by this PLATONIC new partnership. She is no Lindsay and those are big shoes to fill but she seems to have settled in well with the team and I like that she’s also not trying to be but also still looks out of Halstead like a good partner would. She hinted that she was in a similar situation to the one that Halstead was in this episode so I am looking forward to getting to know her more and learning more about her history. I’m also hoping to see her and Burgess become friends – I don’t think they really said a word to each other this episode and the show could do with more girl power!

CHICAGO FIRE — “It Wasn’t Enough” Episode 601 — Pictured: (l-r) Vanessa Lynch as Little Girl, Monica Raymund as Gabriela Dawson — (Photo by: Elizabeth Morris/NBC)

Gabriela Dawson: We pick up right where we left off last season on FIRE with Dawson having just heard husband Casey tell her he loves her and basically say goodbye to her because he doesn’t think he’s going to make it out alive. It’s an intense opening scene but thankfully Casey and the rest of 51 team trapped inside make it out alive as revealed in the flash forward to a couple of weeks or months in the next season. Casey is even receiving a special medal. Whilst everyone is physically fine, we soon discover that the event took an emotional and somewhat mental toll on Dawson, who is advised by her father (who is finally moving out of her and Casey’s place after crashing with them for a couple of months) that she should speak to the chaplain or someone about her feelings on what happened that day. She tells her father that she’s fine but at the end of the episode, breaks from her strong self and tells Casey never to say goodbye to her again and they finally have a conversation about what he said to her that day. They both promise each other that they’ll always come back to each other, even though they know that in their line of work it’s not a promise they can always keep, but sometimes you need to tell yourself these things in order to push on through. Side note, did you guys pick up on Dawson’s sly CHICAGO JUSTICE cancellation reference? ? “We got cops, doctors, lawyers… well not so many lawyers now,” she said when explaining the patrons at Molly’s to Hope. Ha!

CHICAGO FIRE — “It Wasn’t Enough” Episode 601 — Pictured: Kara Kilmer as Sylvie Brett — (Photo by: Elizabeth Morris/NBC)

Sylvie Brett: Brett’s friend from her hometown Fowlerton is in Chicago and she’s pretty much the opposite of the sweet paramedic. Brett’s friend Hope is bold and flirty and despite Brett seeing Hope eye Severide and warn her that he’s getting over his girlfriend dying from cancer and has pretty much had half the women in Chicago comforting him, that doesn’t stop Hope from programming her number in Severide’s phone and sending him flirty texts. Yep, we can tell you now that this is not going to end well! On the professional side of things, a father rushes his daughter to 51, with his daughter bleeding from her eyes. It turns out she was choking while eating lunch and must have disrupted her blood vessels. Brett and Dawson revive her in the driveway of Firehouse 51 before taking the young girl to Med.

Stella Kidd: When a man angrily comes storming into the Firehouse looking for Kidd and accusing her of being a bitch and ruining his reputation, we wondered what trouble Kidd had gotten herself into now. It turns out he’s her landlord and she was refusing to pay her rent until he makes repairs that she has requested. He tells her she’s his most troublesome tenant and she tells him it’s because he bullies the rest of them and she refuses to let him do the same to her. He storms off but we later learn she’s being evicted because she overstepped her rental agreement. At first she sleeps on a fold up cot at Molly’s and showers at the firehouse but when Severide hears off her plight, he offers to let her stay with him, teasing that she’s a “lost little puppy”. This is going to be interesting, especially since she’s already noticed Hope’s interest in him – we get the vibe she’s not too impressed by Hope – and tells Severide that her staying with him shouldn’t affect him doing his thing if he knows what she means. Nope not awkward at all. On a more lighter note, I loved Kidd’s “What now?” reaction when Mouch announced that he had entered them in the Firehouse Muster, ha ha!

CHICAGO P.D. airs Wednesday at 10/9c on NBC and CHICAGO FIRE airs Thursdays at 10/9c also on NBC.

Related links:
CHICAGO FIRE: Season 6 Cast Photos
CHICAGO P.D: Season 5 Cast Photos
CHICAGO PD: Sophia Bush exits
CHICAGO JUSTICE cancelled
ONE CHICAGO Women: Chicago Justice 1×13, Chicago Fire 5×22 & Chicago P.D. 4×23 recap