Welcome to the new normal! We’re doing scene-by-scene recaps for some shows, just like the old days. If you want less of that but still want to talk about the episode, check out our Chicago Fire Season 13 Episode 16 review!
Step aside if you’re not ready to be spoiled to the hilt!
The episode picks up with a quick recap of Pacal’s wife’s death. Violet narrates.
Fire is devastating, but so is loss. Pascal meets with a woman, Monica’s sister Olivia, at the funeral home. They disagree about who will be invited. Olivia is surprised that he would step out of the meeting to take a call about pressing charges.
Damon chose to go to the floater pool, although Kelly thought he was demoted there. But Stella throws out the possibility of rejoining 51. Kelly hasn’t had a chance to talk to Pascal under the circumstances. Damon’s not in a rush.. He’s not going anywhere.
Novak thinks two weeks’ leave isn’t enough after losing your wife, but Violet says everyone is different, and if she knows Pascal, he’ll need the work to keep him busy. He’s not the type to crawl into a hole.
Novak wonders what Violet is writing when she spots a tablet filled with handwriting. Violet is writing to Carver to apologize for everything that has happened over the last year. Novak reminds her that what he’s going through has nothing to do with her.
Violet narrates again. Perhaps it’s from her letter to Sam? She says, “You know you can’t just sit there in the rubble, so you dig out, move forward, or at least that’s what you think you’re doing.”
They’re talking about funeral plans when Pascal comes in. He acts strong, not wanting anyone dancing around him. He’s their battalion chief, and there’s work to be done.
Cruz is embarrassed to have said, “Good morning,” to someone the day after his wife died. But the others remind him that all you need is to show up and be there for them. Cruz is confused.
The whole house is called for a person trapped. When Pascal rolls out, Kelly finds it odd, but Stella says it’s better than being trapped with your own thoughts.
In the second Jaws callout of the week, Pascal’s first words on the scene are “We’re gonna need a bigger ladder.” He is the first one to climb up for the rescue. He’s doing everything he can to ignore his life, and it’s hard to blame him.
One of the warehouse employees comes in with a fuse for the lift, but Stella calls him off. Doing that now will crush her guys. Meanwhile, Pascal, who didn’t use a harness, slips…
At this point, the team isn’t impressed. The last thing they need is to have to rescue their chief, too. I bet this will become a huge discussion point when they return to 51.
This is an odd rescue. Rather than removing the duct above the trapped man, they grind away the lift. It seems like the long and hard way around a rescue, especially since ductwork is rather light and flexible.
Kelly calls out Pascal afterward, but Pascal says he was in the zone. Pascal says good work, and Kelly says back at ya.
Mouch can’t understand how Pascal isn’t inconsolable. Meanwhile, Cruz continues beaing himself up about his good morning comment. He wants to be the guy who shows up. But how do you do that when the person doesn’t want to acknowledge their loss?
Food. Food is the answer becomes the consensus.
Ritter tells Violet Novak is worried she’s putting too much of Carver’s problem on her shoulders. Violet feels like her letter is going in circles, but Ritter has faith in her.
She writes, “I guess when you lose the person you love, you look for reasons, anything to hold onto that would help everything make sense.”
Pascal is on the phone with someone, noting they’re making things more complicated than they need to be. Kelly overhears and says it sounds like he’s got his hands full.
Pascal reminds him it’s business as usual. Kelly wants to talk about getting the spot in engine filled. Pascal is getting a list together to help Herrmann’s process.
Kelly floats Jack Damon, and Pascal reminds him he lied to his commanding officer, who also happens to be Kelly’s wife.
They wouldn’t even be having this conversation if Damon weren’t Kelly’s brother, but neither would they if he weren’t a solid firefighter. He is, and working under Herrmann would make him an even better firefighter.
Pascal won’t do it. He wants a fresh face.
Pascal visits Daniel Strauss about pressing charges, but Strauss can’t find fault with the other party in an accident. It’s just an accident, plain and simple. The traffic signal was blinking yellow. Nobody was at fault.
But Pascal can’t live with that. He explodes. He knows his wife, and she was too careful a driver to have gone blindly into the intersection, flashing yellow or not.
Strauss handles it well, calmly restating the facts. The look on Pascal’s face is anything but comforted.
Pascal runs into the poor guy from the accident in the rotunda, where Pascal shouts at him, “You killed my wife. You’re not gonna get away with it!”
Cruz beats himself up again when he learned that the meals he had delivered would go unnoticed because Pascal’s porch was already full. He wants to show up, but he also wants it be to known that he did.
Violet remembers how the search for what went wrong swallowed her up. You need to make a plan.
The conversations about Damon continue. Meanwhile, Pascal wants all hands on deck to follow him to the scene of the accident. His plan is to reinvestigate the scene, to make sense of it in the only way he knows how.
Everyone shares what they remember and what they know, but Pascal drops “what ifs,” knowing that even with evidence, every accident scene is investigated through a compilation of evidence, and if any of it is wrong, the house of cards falls.
Pascal demands to know how Stella came to save the fellow driver. Didn’t she think that perhaps he had been on something that didn’t show on the tox report? He was acting like someone with head trauma.
Pascal lashes out, wondering why they’re hell bent on exonerating the man who killed his wife.
Everyone talks about it when they get back, but they’re all at a loss of how to proceed. How do they help Pascal? How do they comfort him?
Herrmann brings up the obvious. They need a plan on how to handle it if Pascal keep showing up like he did to the initial call.
Pascal asks Kelly to reconsider things again. His gut tells him that Franklin was at fault. After all, he’s not even from the area. He lives in a McMansion somewhere and was probably terrified to be caught in the city.
But how did he know where the guy lived? Kelly is concerned, but Pascal wants him to go over the whole report again before the end of the day.
Damon runs into a friend at the job board. It seems like times are tough. But the guy says Damon has friends, naming Kojak… er, Novak. It makes Damon smile.
After some digging, they determine where the funeral is being held and decide to send flowers. Violet remembers how the smell of lilies permeated her hair for days after Hawkins’s funeral. Anything but lilies.
Ambo responds to a call where a guy’s pacemaker keeps shocking him. That’s friggin terrifying. His damn pacemaker is trying to kill him. Most patients can’t withstand more than 15 shocks. If they can’t stop it, he won’t make it to Med.
Violet goes on the hunt for a magnet, and when she finds one holding up his knives, she rips it out of the wall with her bare hands. It works.
Kelly and Stella discuss the possibility of Pascal going to Franklin’s house. Stella thinks he’s too level-headed to do that, but Kelly disagrees. But what does he do about it?
Damond finds Novak after the call, thanking her for putting in a good word. She said it was after a few tequila shots, so her memory is fuzzy. A referral from her could be looked at negatively, but if so, he doesn’t think they’re worth it.
She uses an excuse to get Damon to herself, grabbing him for a passionate kiss. Can they pick this up after shift?
Cruz and Mouch go to the funeral home and meet Olivia, the woman from the beginning of the episode. She’s surprised to see them there. She’d invite them herself, but… Mouch gets a strange look on his face.
By this point, Violet’s letter is an epic. She should have told him the truth “back then,” and he deserved better, but she couldn’t do it. It was too hard.
Kelly reports back to Pascal. He stands by every word of his report. Kelly almost walks away, but he thinks better of it.
He’s the only person in this firehouse, maybe the world, who knows how far Pascal is willing to go for Monica.
But if Frankin gets hurt, well, don’t do it. All it will do is ruin his life, and although he didn’t know Monica very well, he doesn’t think that’s what she would have wanted.
Pascal cries when Kelly leaves.
Stella and Herrmann’s reports also remain unchanged, and Pascal says the case is closed. He’s also requested that Jack Damon be assigned to 51 permanently.
Violet has decided not to send the letter. It doesn’t seem fair to put all of this on him now when she doesn’t know where his head is. She’ll just shove it in a drawer now and reconsider when he returns.
Violet wrote that at some point, you realize the hole in your heart is permanent and nothing will change it, but you have to open up and let others in to get through it.
When Pascal arrives at the funeral home, the whole team is there. It was supposed to be family only, he says. Mouch agrees. That’s why they’re here.
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