Chicago Fire saw a huge departure in the Season 7 premiere — with Gabby Dawson leaving the NBC show for good.
The episode was the characters’s last proper appearance on the show, after the actress who plays her, Monica Raymund, announced earlier this year that she would not be renewing her contract.
The Season 7 premiere saw Dawson return to Chicago from her volunteering stint in Puerto Rico, only to tell Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) that she’d been offered a permanent position there.
For fans who missed out on last season’s Chicago Fire season 6 finale, Gabby and Matt had a huge fight, one that involved her making the huge career and life change of traveling to Puerto Rico for the volunteer paramedic post.
Chicago Fire fans who were hoping that it was just a bump in the road for the couple got a wake-up call when Raymund announced that she was leaving the show after six seasons.
Did this mean that Gabby and Matt were calling it quits? Was she going to die on the show?
Showrunner Derek Haas hinted earlier this year that while Gabby was leaving Chicago Fire, it wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of her and Matt’s relationship and that the couple was not getting divorced.
However, he admitted he was caught by surprise when Raymund said she was actually going to quit — after initially thinking she was just negotiating with producers.
The writers then had to adjust what they had planned to work around her departure.
However, fans should not worry about Gabby leaving Chicago Fire because Haas said that this changes Matt’s character a great deal and that change is exciting because it is new.
Why is Gabby leaving Chicago Fire?
Raymund announced she would be leaving her role as Gabby on Chicago Fire back in May.
She said in a post on Twitter that it was “time for me to move on to the next chapter in life”.
https://twitter.com/monicaraymund/status/996387044023648262
Earlier this month it was announced she is set to star in new Starz series P-Town.
But that’s not the only new project she has up her sleeve. Raymund also revealed in July how she was joining NBC’s new “Female Forward” directors initiative which would see her working behind the scenes on Law & Order: SVU.
https://twitter.com/monicaraymund/status/1022196670325448704
Chicago Fire airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.