It was pretty apparent just how often they spend holidays together when we learned about their Thanksgiving rituals; the chief carves the turkey, but only after they name it. The clincher was naming it after someone they want to carve up. That was a pretty good idea, and if I wasn’t so thankful for the turkey for giving its life for my dinner, I’d think about giving mine a name, too. Peter’s sister Elise was helping with the turkey and they had one hell of an impressive dinner. Of course, every time they got ready to eat, there was another call. Did you notice by the end of the episode the turkey was different? They had cooked it so many times it should have been near burnt, but it was less cooked than the second time they took it out of the oven. Oops!

We learned a bit about Boden through a potential teenage arsonist he took under his wing. He had a son, who doesn’t live with him and who he apparently can’t talk to any time he wants. Maybe a bad marriage and he lost his parental rights? We never did learn if the kid, Ernie, was a firebug, but I’m guessing it’s not the last we’ll see of him. Watching Hermann use his fatherly skills to try to draw information out of him was endearing, and made his scene of heading home to his own family holding Thanksgiving dinner down right tear inducing.

Thanks to a meth fire, the entire team needed to take a drug test and Kelly came ever closer to losing his battle to keep his addiction silent. Shay was feeling generous, because although she’s made it clear she was done helping him, she couldn’t let him tank right in front of her. But when he said he had no idea what his plan was if he would have had to give his sample, she’d had enough. Now that Clarice is back in her life, it will be interesting to see how close she keeps Kelly, because she’s going to need a someone to listen to her own fears as she reinvests. I don’t think Dawson will be there this time around.

Casey and Hallie seemed to be getting on really well until his jubilation at assisting a woman in an accident give birth melted over into his marriage and Hallie finally admitted she’s only ever said she wanted kids because he did. There’s no way he can continue a life with a woman whose life goals are so different than his own. He ended the episode doing shots with Dawson. It’s not like we didn’t see that coming mile away.

There isn’t another show that started this season where I feel as invested in the characters and their happiness as I do with Chicago Fire. That I do is a testament to the hard work the writers have done in proving what can be done with a show with low expectations. Sometimes the best surprises come in the smallest packages.

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Considering the number of time it’s necessary for either Dawson or Shay to do a trach to save someone’s life while in the field, wouldn’t it behoove the Chicago Fire Department to teach them how to do it rather than consistently write them up for doing it? Especially when, to date, they haven’t killed anyone, but have saved people by using the procedure? As a civilian, if I were in the street and someone wasn’t breathing and they were nearing death, I’d go all MAcGyver, beg for a pocket knife and a Bic pen (do people still carry them??) and perform one myself if I thought it would keep someone from dying right in front of me.

I’ve really enjoyed how the CFD has been portrayed in Chicago Fire so far, so I’m hoping they go the message loud and clear that what they are doing out there isn’t just lifting people onto a bed and rushing them to a hospital, but saving them in the process. The next story I expect to see if a class where every one of them learns how to perform that procedure should the need arise. Heed me NBC!

Hallelujah!  Casey saved the life of one of Voight’s future minions and his mom. Sure, Voight could keep him out of jail some day, but the kid can do that himself by steering clear of crime. Can he rescue himself and his mother from a burning building without dying? Not so sure about that. Who’s the hero now Voight? Sadly, now he and his son can share adjoining cells. Although, realistically, the judge may just go easy on his son for having such a crap father. If his son plays his cards right, cries and says he wanted to turn himself in for what he did, but his bully of a father wouldn’t allow him, Voight could take the entire wrap himself. It’s such a shame to think of the lengths people will go to to get themselves out of trouble when they could have avoided it in the first place.

We received a bit of  a break from this week from Kelly’s addiction. Thank you! Seeing him go off the rails can only be experienced for so long before you want to reach in and take him into your arms and smack the hell out of him. When you see what everyone was willing to do for Dawson to make sure she didn’t lose too much pay, imagine what they would do for him if he got his much-needed surgery.

A few other thoughts:

**I don’t think Hallie and Casey are long for this world. They have so little in common.
**Did anyone else notice a hint of something in Shay’s eyes as she asked on behalf of Cruz if Peter’s sister was in the restaurant? New love interest?
**Mouch really came through for Dawson. He had me worried for a while, but it was a proud moment when the family showed up as support.
**Chief Boden has to be the best Chief ever to grace a firehouse on television. Eamonn Walker just nails it.

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If you had told me at the beginning of the season that Chicago Fire would be one of my favorite new shows of the season, oh how I would have laughed.

As a general rule, I dislike procedurals. They are woefully light on character development and spend more time introducing new, throwaway characters each week than they do on the mainstays. It can sometimes take seasons to find out someone is married. They just show up, do their job and go home.

As a Dick Wolf production, responsible for the granddaddy of all procedurals,  the Law & Order franchise, I expected very little. However, the cast included Taylor Kinney (Vampire Diaries), Jesse Spencer (House), Lauren German (Hawaii Five-0, Eamonn Walker (OZ) and David Eigenberg (Sex and The City). That alone was enough to catch my attention.

While the first episode was a little shaky and out of focus, by episode two it became clear Chicago Fire wasn’t a procedural at all. It has a little bit of Rescue Me in it, with the firehouse ribbing and emergency calls and a lot of Parenthood. Imagine the firefighters, rescue squad and paramedics of Firehouse 51 in Chicago rely on each other to save the lives of total strangers and each other. That need has them deeply invested in each other both inside and out of the firehouse, bringing a completely unique vision to Chicago Fire that I don’t think has been attempted before on network television.

You’d expect Kelly (Kinney) to be a player. He has the looks, the bravado and the charm, but his moral compass keeps him from straying too far over the line. Some of the most compelling stories have involved Kelly’s giving heart. When he was unable to save a trapped man in a collapsed building, he used his cell phone to film a goodbye message to his wife of many years.

Kelly lives with Leslie (German), a lesbian who keeps him in check with the ladies, but he hardly needs checking. Their sibling like relationship is refreshing and enjoyable to watch.

Chief Boden (Walker) and Lt. Casey (Spencer) serve as the role models for most of the Firehouse and when they find themselves in trouble, the troops step into action to protect and serve. In “One Minute,” a man lost his homeless brother to an explosion when Boden called his men out of a burning warehouse for safety reasons.

The first thing that came to my mind as they portrayed him on the news, sporting a T-shirt with his brother’s photo, blaming his death on the City of Chicago was “where were you when your brother needed a place to stay?” So rarely are topics like that addressed that I was practically floored, when Christopher Hermann (Eigneberg) stepped in front of the news camera to confront the man to ask that very question, pointing out that they made decisions to save complete strangers every day.

What’s interesting about the cases on Chicago Fire is they don’t feel forced, or done because they have to get a fire or rescue scene in to honor the name of the show. They’re integral to telling the stories about the men and women who have chosen the jobs they are in and how they survive each day. They remind us what it’s like to leave for work when their children don’t know if they will come home and even how the power of their position can corrupt when the wrong person ends up in the job.

Chicago Fire is about everyday heroes. After the recent super storm in New York City, there’s one thing we know for sure. We can never have enough of them. If Chicago Fire can inspire someone to take a job serving others, while still making viewers laugh and cry, it’s well worth watching.

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