Chicago Fire Boss Explains How the Sinking Boat Call Will Affect Firehouse 51 in Season 10

Over the past nine seasons of Chicago Fire, the members of Firehouse 51 have gotten themselves into -- and frequently out of -- plenty of major, life-threatening situations. But will the harrowing call that saw several members of Squad trapped on a sinking boat at the end of the ninth season mean another tragedy for the team? The resolution to that cliffhanger will come immediately when the series returns for its landmark tenth season on Sept. 22 at 9 p.m. on NBC.

"Usually we do a big time-jump after one of these types of things," says showrunner Derek Haas. But instead of a three-month jump, this time it'll be a matter of weeks. "We do a little three weeks later kind of thing. We wanted the ramifications of what occurs at the lake call to play out over the next few episodes, as opposed to that it's all wrapped up and then we're off and running on new adventures."

The fates of the trapped Severide (Taylor Kinney), who's newly engaged to Stella (Miranda Rae Mayo), Cruz (Joe Minoso), who's expecting a baby with wife Chloe (Kristen Gutoskie), and Capp, who's seeing someone new, will quickly be revealed, but there are also plenty of other dangling threads that we'll learn more about this season as well. Stella's waiting to find out where she'll be stationed as a newly minted lieutenant, Chief Boden (Eamonn Walker) will have to decide if he wants the position as deputy district chief, and Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Brett (Kara Killmer) finally got together.

Below, Haas discusses what's in store for Firehouse 51, including the show's 200th episode.

What can you say about the effect that the lake incident will have on the squad?
Haas: It keeps going, and certainly plays into the next few action sequences or calls that they go on. There's a sustained giant cloud hanging over things for a bit. But, you know, that's the way it is on Chicago Fire.

Will we be experiencing some loss?
Haas: I can tell you about some other storylines!

Love this pivot. Let's go for it.
Haas: I can tell you about Brett. Brett and Casey finally got together, and that's going to pick up where it left off. And again, we're Chicago Fire, so it's not always sunshine and roses for new couples. So there'll be some big obstacles coming their way early on. But also, Brett is going to get involved in a new program. It's based on a real program that we read about where, because of the pandemic, response times to emergency calls have increased because the volume of non-emergency calls has gone way up with people calling in to 911 for anxiety attacks and things that are non-life-threatening. Well, that affects the life-threatening ones, so Brett decides to take it upon herself to see if she can start a Paramedicine program that will relieve some of the stress on the Chicago Fire Department, and who she chooses to do this with will be a surprise that I think will be fun.

You bring to light a lot of those issues -- like last season when a man who was a firefighter in prison couldn't get hired at CFD.
Haas: We have great assistants and researchers who are always scouring the globe, really, for anything related to fire departments. Of course, we're an urban, Midwestern fire department we don't really deal with the forest fire topic as much, but anytime [we see] something even on the West Coast that affects a fire department we think, "Oh, could we make a storyline out of this?" Another one we did a few years back was, how, by not wiping the soot off themselves and scrubbing their uniforms, the chances of getting cancer as a firefighter increased so we shined a light on that. You've got to make it an interesting story without being a public service announcement.

Going back to the Casey and Brett of it all, neither of these two is very lucky in love. What can you say about the challenges that they may face?
Haas: Yeah, that continues. Circumstances beyond their control that, as often happens with couples, create a conflict that doesn't have an easy resolution. I can't say that everything's going to be smooth sailing for Brett and Casey. But, you know, some of our couples have overcome those early problems, although it seems like these two have been circling each other for so long that are they really a new couple? I don't know.

Casey feels like he is at a crossroads in his life.
Haas: He's always solid. He always puts his men in front of his own feelings. So, I don't think his character's going to change any because Brett's now in his life. The big thing I think this season -- this isn't really a pivot, it's related in my mind -- the big thing in this season is that we have our 200th episode coming up, which is the fifth episode of the season. Typically you wouldn't build toward a fifth episode or promote a fifth episode necessarily in any season, but this year all of our focus is going into this gigantic show-altering fifth episode. So there's going to be a big build-up with Casey and lots of other characters going into the 200th episode.

What else can you say about that episode?
Haas: In the first five episodes we're going to see some characters we haven't seen harkening all the way back to seasons one and two. You know, that's the other fun thing that you get to do when you have a history like ours on the show. We have ten seasons, you get to play with this whole history. Big, big, big call in that episode. It's going to be colossal.

Not to go back to the kissing, but Severide and Stella are a couple that feel solid right now?
Haas: Over the course of the season could be solidifying that relationship even further. The other thing that's at play, though, is that she might have to leave the firehouse because there's no lieutenant spot for her on the truck. And Boden is going for a position that would take him out of the firehouse also, so when I say there's going to be some giant changes coming to 51 I'm not faking you out.

Boden seems to be a person who cares about doing good in the world and making a difference, and he realizes that this new job could help him do that but he loves his people. What can you say about that struggle?
Haas: That's all true. It's Boden weighing his personal and emotional love of firehouse 51 with all these firefighters that he's either risen with or groomed and mentored, or do I take the job that would be bigger, and where I can help more people. That's a really interesting for us, conflict, and it will get resolved very soon in episode one.

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When you're going into season 10 of a show, do you feel like you need to shake things up? Do you worry about falling into old ruts?
Haas: I'm lucky enough for all of these years that when we sit down in June and we start to craft a season, we're hit with a hundred stories of fire department calls or moves, and all those stories are interesting. I always told our paramedic consultant and our chief consultant Steve Chikerotis and Michelle Martinez, I'm like, if you guys just wrote down in a week the calls that you go on we'd have enough stories for a season. So we've never had a lack of storytelling. The fun part of the job is getting in there in June. After a season ends you take a month off and then you come back and you're like, Okay, what are we going to do? For 10 years on this show it's been mix it up. It's been what can we do to throw a wrench in here and a spark there? This show has never been the same two seasons in a row, from a cost standpoint, from a storytelling standpoint. I don't think that we're static. There's that old expression like if you put your foot in the river, it's different each time you do it but it's the same river, you know? That's what I feel like Chicago Fire is.

Do you think about long-term stories that you want to implement?
Haas: Yeah, there's definitely thoughts of major arcs over the course of a season. We try not to think too much beyond any given season. We think of the little markers throughout the season - okay, on the fifth episode we're going to do this, on the tenth episode we're going to do this, that kind of thing. But the other thing that you have to do on a show like this when you have this many episodes, it's not like a cable show that's six episodes and you can write all the scripts ahead of time and then you hire everyone and you shoot exactly what was written. On our show, because we do it so long, circumstances beyond our control affect the storytelling. In other words, we might see an actor in a smaller role, like Granger, and then it's like, okay, let's be nimble. Let's add four episodes to that story. Well, that actor might get picked up on a new show. So then you're like, oh well, we can only do that for four episodes instead of six episodes. Or things like the pandemic happen, or somebody gets sick and you have to say okay, that storyline we need to rethink. All of those things can happen and affect a show. So we have a plan, and then you have to be light on your feet.

Chicago Fire Season 10 premieres Wednesday, Sept. 22 at 9/8c on NBC.