CHICAGO FIRE: Joe Miñoso Previews How Junior's Return Puts Cruz 'in a Very, Very Difficult Position' - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

Give Me My Remote > Chicago Fire > CHICAGO FIRE: Joe Miñoso Previews How Junior’s Return Puts Cruz ‘in a Very, Very Difficult Position’

CHICAGO FIRE: Joe Miñoso Previews How Junior’s Return Puts Cruz ‘in a Very, Very Difficult Position’

January 7, 2025 by  

CHICAGO FIRE Junior return

CHICAGO FIRE — “A Favor” Episode 13009 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Peter Gordon/NBC)

After receiving ominous threats, CHICAGO FIRE’s Cruz (Joe Miñoso) came face to face with a blast from his past in the fall finale: Junior (Richard Cabral), the cousin of Insane Kings leader Falco (José Antonio García).

Cruz encountered Falco in season 1, when Cruz’s younger brother, Leon (Jeff Lima), became entangled with the Insane Kings gang. Cruz and Flaco argued over how (and if) Leon could leave the gang, but the matter became moot when, later, Flaco got trapped in an apartment fire…and Cruz didn’t save him and passively allowed him to die. Now, when the show returns on Wednesday, January 8 (at 9/8c), Junior is out of jail, looking for revenge.

“First of all, I’m so proud of the team, in general, for what they’ve put together in this storyline and how they built up the story,” Miñoso tells Give Me My Remote in the video below. “That church that we’re in at the very end of [episode 8]…is the church where I got married. It is the church in season 1 where I’ve made the decision to leave the firehouse after all of the events that happened with Flaco. So there is a long history with me in that church, which is fun fact, St. Ignatius, very near where we film [on location for] the actual firehouse for 51.”

“[But] when we last leave Cruz, he’s standing face to face with Junior, who apparently wants to have a conversation,” he continues. “And you are going to learn that Cruz is possibly going to get involved in some unfortunate, nefarious activities—definitely with a lot of hand wringing and being coerced. But he definitely gets into deep trouble and figuring out how to navigate all of the secrets that he’s had from the past—and the new ones he’s building up during these couple of episodes…[They] really start to come to a head at the end of episode 9 and 10.”



While it’s been over a decade since the show first told this story, it’s a key one for Cruz—and Miñoso.

“It’s funny: It was fun to revisit the episodes [in preparation], but this storyline is pretty much Cruz’s origin story…I think it’s really how you get to learn who he is as a human being,” he says. “It’s when you first learn about his family, and it is, arguably, one of the more controversial decisions made by the writers in the first season, because it was such a step away from what they were trying to do with building up a firefighter show that really kind of highlighted the bravery and honor and just selflessness of firefighters. And that certainly was not what Cruz did in that moment. Actually, I would argue he would [say] it was.”

“But it was so easy to step back into because it’s so vivid in my memory, still,” Miñoso continues. “Like, I still have so many recollections of what it felt like, where we were…how hot my ears felt when there was the shot of me closing the door on Flaco, because that was very real fire. And I literally felt like my ears were on fire in that moment. And so revisiting it was actually just immediately all came back.”

There’s also an additional perk for Miñoso. “Jeff Lima, who, God, I’ve known now for so long, and he’s such a joy to see him back on the show, and he brings so much to the table,” he gushes. “It’s just it was so fun to play, and it was so fun to be able to jump back into a storyline that I didn’t think we’d ever see again, because it’s such a big secret for Cruz that I thought that one’s going to the grave; we’re never going to revisit this. But, it’s definitely going to put Cruz in a very, very difficult position in the firehouse.”

CHICAGO FIRE, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC

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