Chicago Fire continues to hit the ground running as its ninth season progresses. Its use of many storylines, while keeping its use of action and real-life situations keep the series running strong. Tonight’s episode deals with yet another arson case as a close call in the field leaves Cruz worried about his transition to fatherhood.

After Severide and Kidd made up in last week’s episode, Kidd asks Chief Boden to allow her to take the lieutenant’s test, to which he insures her that he never removed her in the first place. Joe Cruz finally delivers the news that he and his wife are having a baby and hands cigars out to everyone in the firehouse. The celebrations are cut short as the bell rings and they spring into action. They are called to a homeless camp that’s been set ablaze. Several of the residents have to be kept back as the people try to run back in to grab any items. An explosion throws Joe back, nearly slicing his neck on a piece of shrapnel.

Casey saves a man, Big Jim, who’s knocked out and burned from the wreckage. Casey remembers him from a previous case involving a drug overdose where he refused to call in for help.

Back at Firehouse 51, Lieutenant Greg Grainger arrives to ask Sylvie for some medical supplies that he clearly doesn’t need, but he’s really only there to see Sylvie since he’s been crushing on her. Kidd sees right through this ploy and calls him out on it. Grainger even goes to Molly’s and hits on Sylvie, but she rejects him saying that her latest experiences with men haven’t been good for her.

A girl from the homeless camp, Vanessa also arrives at the firehouse and talks to Ritter and Casey about the fire. The man Casey saved, Big Jim, took care of the place and prohibited any items that may have caused danger to the homeless camp. She thinks that the fire was started on purpose by a man named Dixon, who Jim kicked out of the camp because he started a garbage can fire that got out of hand. Ritter, who seems to have taken a liking to Vanessa, finds her and gives her a new copy of The Secret Garden, which she mentioned she lost her copy of in the fire. He also gives her food and some fresh clothes, which further shows his infatuation with her.

Casey and Severide return to the scene of the fire, which is already under construction to be rebuilt. A nearby man, Al, tells Casey that his neighbor called the city to quickly clean up the area. Severide sees a homeless man sifting through the trash and discovers him to be Dixon, the man that might have set the fire. At Chicago Med, Big Jim is stable, and Casey and Severide ask him about Dixon. Jim says that he found several propane bottles outside his tent that caught fire, and gives them whereabouts on Dixon, leading the two to believe that Dixon was also trying to kill Big Jim.

Shortly after, Severide and Casey face administrative problems. Since the city already cleaned up the scene, they can’t flag the fire as arson, leading to the fact that the two will most likely have to cut some corners just to find Dixon.

Cruz returns home to his wife Chloe and lies about how he got his injury from the shrapnel on his face. She believes the lie, leaving Joe faced with how to approach his next move. His fellow squad members played a prank on Cruz, “framing” the piece of shrapnel that almost cut his head off. Severide takes the shrapnel because it could be used as evidence as Casey sees a label for a local hardware store. At the store, Casey asks the owner about Dixon and to look at his security tapes and recruits the firehouse to search through the footage.

Gianna and Sylvie are called out to a cemetery, where a gravestone has fallen on top of a man’s arm. Firehouse 40 (with Grainger at the helm) shows up to help and they take the rescue. Turns out the cemetery is a clown graveyard and it’s full of clowns, leaving Sylvie uncomfortable with the situation.

At the firehouse, Vanessa shows up and tells Ritter that Big Jim has died from his injuries, which makes the team more determined to find Dixon as now it’s become a murder case. When they finish the tapes, they discover that it wasn’t Dixon who started the fire, but Al, the man who lived near the camp, who bought the propane and set fire to the homeless camp. A much different plot twist for an arson episode since they usually just trace one guy until they find him instead of giving us a red herring.

Ritter takes Vanessa out to get some food and reveals that a friend of his grew up homeless and he has always wanted to help those that are homeless. Sylvie finally decides to go out with Grainger as the episode ends with Cruz finding out that his wife is going to have a boy.

There was also a mini subplot about Gianna and Gallo having formed their relationship last week. Not much happened with them in this episode to really take much ground, but I’m sure that’ll grow as the weeks go by.

Sometimes I feel like when Chicago Fire runs out of some storylines, they just rehash an arson case, making it look like Chicago has arson cases every other week. However, they used the red herring trope, which hasn’t really been used by the show in these situations in some time. This made the episode a little more surprising. However, it always seems like there’s arson after arson, and it’s beginning to get a little stale. I’m hoping as the series progresses that they can find new ways to uncover mysterious fires rather than just arson. Once again, I feel like the show is relying on way too many subplots at once to organize it into one cohesive episode: the Gianna and Gallo plot didn’t even need to be there and the episode still would’ve been the same. Sometimes the plots get to be a little much to juggle all at once.

What did you think of tonight’s episode of Chicago Fire? Leave a comment below.