CHICAGO FIRE Post-Mortem: Derek Haas on Cruz’s Wedding, the ‘Dangerous’ Season Finale

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Wednesday, April 8 episode of CHICAGO FIRE.]

CHICAGO FIRE’s Cruz (Joe Minoso) and Chloe (Kristen Gutoskie) are married!

Of course, the wedding couldn’t go off without a little bit of drama. Cruz worked a shift before the wedding, but it was quickly overshadowed by an on-site protest, as citizens chained themselves to Firehouse 51 equipment to protest the shut down of their own local firehouse.

In the madness, Cruz was injured, but he was able to make it to the chapel on time and marry Chloe..albeit with a facial injury.

Of course, the show was also good to mention Cruz’s deceased best friend, Otis (Yuri Sardarov), and Minoso previously shared that it was on his mind when filming the wedding. “I know for me, I was thinking about him when I was walking down the aisle,” he said at the time. “So hopefully a little bit of that shows up.”

So how did CHICAGO FIRE land on the pre-wedding drama? Boss Derek Haas broke down the episode (via email), plus what those Brett (Kara Killmer) and Foster (Annie Ilonzeh) moments might mean, and teased next week’s season finale…

When breaking the episode, how did you land on the right balance of wedding vs. a “regular” FIRE hour?
Every season, we try to do one episode that takes place primarily at the firehouse. It is always a fun challenge to do something creative with that mandate, and some of our most memorable episodes have been when we’ve done that. This season, as we were looking at the board and trying to figure out when to do Cruz’s wedding… we said, why don’t we do it at the same time as a protest at the firehouse. It can help build up Cruz’s anxiety… this is NOT what was supposed to happen on my last shift before getting married. We wanted the episode to drive toward the wedding, so we could end with the big event.

The show did a beautiful job of addressing Otis’ absence. How did you get to that moment and what other potential homages were considered?
Elizabeth Sherman, the writer of the episode, along with our head writers Andrea Newman and Michael Gilvary, had that notion to talk about Otis as a way of showing that Cruz’s anxiety wasn’t just because of his wedding approaching, but because of the absence of his best friend. It seemed very authentic to me.

CHICAGO MED’s Will praised Foster’s medical skills, and it seemed to resonate with her. How much is she considering getting back into that world and how much does that play into what’s next?
Yes, that will be a spark that has been building since she saw photos of her med school peers after the turn of the year. The road not taken…

Brett’s gone through a lot with her newfound family lately. What can you tease about what comes next, and how much Casey may be helping her out?
I can’t give too much away, but it probably won’t go the way audiences think it will.

What can you tease about next week’s now-finale, specifically the 51-er who gets injured?
The job is dangerous and even when you’re careful and an experienced pro on an elite squad, it can rise up, knock you off your feet, and end your career.

CHICAGO FIRE, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC

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