The Chicago Fire cast may have to film a number of upcoming episodes without star Taylor Kinney.
It was recently revealed that Taylor had to take a leave of absence from the show, putting the writers in a difficult spot.
Some fans have even suggested that the reason there are no new One Chicago episodes on February 8 is so that the production team has time to work around the situation.
The good news is that the next new episode features Kelly Severide, with the filming already completed before his recent announcement.
The bad news is that the One Chicago shows are back in production for episodes slated to air this spring, and without Taylor on set, it will require the writers to get creative.
It is going to be very interesting to see exactly how One Chicago deals with one of its most popular characters being out for a while.
What will Chicago Fire look like without Kelly Severide?
There are a lot of ideas that the writers could go with when it comes to explaining the absence of a character. Long-time fans of the show are already used to characters talking about why people aren’t present, so that facet won’t be anything new.
In the past, the Chicago Fire writers have used dialogue between characters to explain how much time has passed (like the time jump after the explosion fallout in the winter premiere), where a character is at that moment (like when Sylvie Brett went to Portland), or what might be happening soon.
When the first new episode arrives without Severide, it will thus be easy to explain that he is doing some training, that he had a family emergency to attend to, or that he is recovering from an injury on the job. And those are only a few plausible ideas.
Maybe they could even write it so that Severide is visiting Matthew Casey in Portland. It would be a fun excuse to get Jesse Spencer back for an episode in case Taylor Kinney returns before the end of Season 11.
No matter how it is undertaken on the show, it will be a shock to the system for Chicago Fire fans not to see Severide leading Squad, even for one episode.
More Chicago Fire news
Coming up on the show, some new Emma Jacobs drama has been teased. The disgraced paramedic has nothing left to lose after Violet Mikami went to the bosses and got her fired from her new job.
And there is more to come with the health situation of Cindy Herrmann. Her surgery didn’t go as well as Christopher Herrmann had hoped during the last episode.
To go back and watch previous episodes of Chicago Fire that featured Taylor Kinney playing Kelly Severide, everything is available for streaming on Peacock.
Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.
Hopefully he will be back where is he going anywsy