Chicago Fire Season 13 Episode 9 Review: A Favor

Joe Cruz may never be the same after the events of Chicago Fire Season 13 Episode 9, “A Favor.”

It may be one of the most interesting and complex storylines we’ve ever gotten on Chicago Fire, especially considering that it’s a callback to the first season. 

Flaco’s cousin, “Junior,” doesn’t just come looking for Cruz to get revenge. He wants something from him. Junior attempts to blackmail Cruz into helping him steal back money that he’d had set aside — and to use uniforms from Firehouse 51 to do it.

This puts Joe in an impossible position, but it’s not hard to understand why he’d consider going along with that plan to get Junior off his back. Joe’s secret — that he let Flaco die in a fire 12 years ago to save his brother — really could ruin his life.

Junior even shows he’s serious about his threats by putting in a call to the fire department, asking for an investigation into that fire. 

Joe nearly goes through with it, but his conscience gets the better of him, and he tries to back down. Junior, however, won’t take no for an answer and puts a gun on him instead.

It’s a perfect balance because Joe still has to help Junior, but he’s trying to get out of it, and his willingness to accept consequences that could affect his career instead says a lot about who he is as a person. We’re left feeling like he’s still the Joe Cruz we know and love, who wouldn’t sacrifice his principles. 

At the same time, it would be too easy for Junior to take that route, so forcing him by threatening his life still allows Joe to be put in that situation and sets up the gunfight that comes afterward when they’re caught.

Joe gets out alive, but not unscathed. In a poignant scene, we see him sitting in his car, crying, and examining major wounds on his arm as Chloe tries to call him. It’s a small moment, but it’s one that Joe Minoso plays incredibly well. Junior may now be out of the picture, but this will at least affect Joe emotionally — if not physically.

The callback to such an early storyline is excellent writing, and the fact that this will all have a lasting effect on Cruz in one way or another is even better. It’s really smart storytelling.

Meanwhile, both Mouch and Herrmann hear good news about their exams. Chief Pascal tricks them into going into the conference room for what sounds like an ominous conversation, but instead, everyone at the firehouse is gathered to congratulate them on the news that they’ve both made rank.

It’s convenient, too much so, that Stella is said to be out of town for girls on fire, which means Mouch can be acting lieutenant on truck. 

He’s thrust into that position immediately, which is at least nice to see because it means we aren’t waiting for him to show off his skills. And Hermann is now captain, the first the team has had since Casey left. 

Both do well in the new roles, but it’s all a bit rushed and somewhat anticlimactic. Mouch spends the majority of the episode searching for family members who might have known a victim they pulled from a motel fire who had died days before. 

While it’s an endearing storyline for Mouch, who ultimately learns a bit more about himself in the process, it’s not quite what I’d have liked to see for his first shift as a lieutenant.

We also don’t know when we’ll see him in charge again, though with the way there’s always a character missing in each episode this season, maybe it will happen again soon enough.

I do hope the trend of not having the full cast around will end sometime in the near future. It throws off the chemistry of the group, and the excuses are always barely mentioned. The show thrives when the full cast is together as a group.

It’s also sad that Stella isn’t there for the big celebration at Molly’s. It actually seems like the sort of thing everyone should have waited to do when she returned.

Severide has a fun storyline on this episode that winds up addressing a concern I’ve had about his character for a while. Van Meter asks Severide to take over teaching a fire investigation course, and Pascal isn’t thrilled.

On the one hand, he has concerns about Severide taking on too much when he should be focused on his job as a lutitant at 51. On the other, he believes Van Meter should have come to him first.

While it feels a little off-putting because of Pascal’s gruff personality, he’s not wrong here. The amount of time Severide has been spending with OFI, just running off there whenever he’s asked, has felt like a problem.

Pascal’s concerns put that issue into perspective. They also show a difference between his leadership style and Boden’s — and a difference in the relationships as well. 

The course Severide is teaching allows for a surprise return as well. His brother is signed up for the course, and because of the last-minute instructor change, he wasn’t aware he’d be learning it from his brother.

They have a cheerful interaction that offers some closure there, and Jack even shows up Molly’s when everyone is celebrating Herrmann and Mouch.

Overall, this is a solid episode that brings us back from hiatus with a lot of energy. There’s also some great potential to dig deeper into Joe’s character moving forward, and I hope we get to see that.

What did you think of this episode of Chicago Fire? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Chicago Fire airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.

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