CHICAGO FIRE: Derek Haas and Miranda Rae Mayo Tease Gabby’s Return

CHICAGO FIRE is welcoming back Gabby Dawson (Monica Raymund) for its fall finale—a return that has been five months in the making.

“I pitched some things back in June to Dick [Wolf] I was worried we weren’t going to be able to pull off or pull together,” CHICAGO FIRE executive producer Derek Haas told reporters last month.

But with Raymund signing on, viewers will finally get a real update on Gabby. “She left a year and a half ago to go to do aid work; then the organization pulled her in,” Haas teases. “And so she’s been going around the world wherever there’s a need. Part of your job when you’re doing these things is to raise money, and people like to rub shoulders with the actual field workers, so she gets brought to Chicago for a fundraiser. She’s only in and out for a weekend. That’s the plan.”

However, Firehouse 51 has changed considerably since she was last there. “One of the big reasons why she returns is Otis’ passing,” Miranda Rae Mayo (Stella) teases.

Despite the bittersweet elements, Stella is excited to see her old friends. “She’s thrilled,” Mayo says. “One of the things that I love about her is with her girls, she gives herself permission to just be where she’s at…So she’s ecstatic that Dawson came back. She’s also very open and free, like, ‘Do what you got to do, girl.’ She’s not she doesn’t give into any kind of sadness or any kind of neediness, like really wanting her back [permanently]. She’s happy that she’s there. And when she leaves, she’ll be happy for her when she leaves.”

Of course, there is the very big question of how Gabby’s reunion with her ex, Casey (Jesse Spencer), will go…and his potential bubbling relationship with Gabby’s good friend Brett (Kara Killmer).

“Because of Brett and Casey’s relationship, the advice that Stella gives to Dawson is like, ‘It’s ancient history! Who cares about that?'” Mayo recalls, admitting she initially struggled with how to best make sense of the dynamic. “But after doing some work, it’s like, no, I think that really is just how she is: just because I feel this way about the relationship with Brett and Casey doesn’t mean that I love Dawson any less.”

Haas was coy about what was ahead, but did tease that Brett and Casey are “on their own trajectories for now”—and “so much changes in the winter finale.”

CHICAGO FIRE, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC

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