Matthew Casey is gone, and a new era of Chicago Fire begins with tonight’s episode. Casey has gone to Oregon to take care of two kids he wants to be there for, but Firehouse 51 continues to run as normal.

Teamwork made the dream work for the episode, as multiple firehouses were dispatched to one location, but they both worked together to save a man who was struck in the chest by a basketball rim.

The confusion was the biggest part of tonight’s episode. Hackers got into the CFD’s central computer system, and shut down all communications, meaning everything needs to be done by hand. Mouch and Herrmann had the most experience in doing this before, so they took the lead on this case. The entirety of Firehouse 51 was assigned to work as the sole dispatch for the whole city of Chicago. They set up the whole firehouse with phones, maps, notepads and whiteboards to organize where people are, what their emergency is, and who to dispatch to the location.

It was incredibly stressful to see Chicago’s finest not be able to help anyone, when they know that they could. They took the whole firehouse out of commission while the trouble was sorted out. However, a man who’s garage was on fire a few blocks away, inspired Boden to send Firehouse 51 to the garage, despite being out of commission.

Severide teamed up with Lieutenant Sieger to take down the arsonist that set fire to the church from last week. After investigating the scene it was clear that there was definitely arson involved. The pastor told Severide that Sister Montclaire was the only person who was not anywhere near the church when the fire occurred.

After talking with her, she gave them the name of a former student, Mosiah Adler who was expelled after lighting someone’s hair on fire. After talking with him, he said that he didn’t do it, and that the incident was an accident.

Severide went to the Archdiocese to ask about Father Anthony, and they were informed that he’s an old school pastor, and he stalled on handing in his parish papers in that had funding details on them, and those papers were burned in the fire. Headquarters knows there’s a lot of convoluted information regarding the search, because its the word of a priest, or a delinquent who was expelled. When going to the Father Anthony’s place of residence, Severide found the priest tied up with a fire underneath him, with the arsonist sprinting out of the firehouse.

Severide called the firehouse and they worked to send backup as quickly as they could, considering they could only work with what they were given. The team was able to take the priest to the hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma, leaving the mystery of the arsonist still wide open.

The hackers were taken care of, and the 911 operators were back online by the end of the episode.

We got a vocal cameo from Matt Casey, as he called Sylvie wanting to set up a call schedule so they can make their long distance relationship work.

I would’ve liked this 911 dispatch storyline to last more than one episode. I think it was intriguing for the firehouse to adapt to a new situation such as this, despite how little they could really do to physically help people.

It’s clear to me that Severide is going to take the lead from here on out now that Casey is gone. At least this church arsonist is going to continue for at least a third week, as this was teased at the end of the episode. I’ll be intrigued to see how long this case goes, especially because they’re using Kevin Atwater from Chicago PD to help in the investigation.

What did you think of tonight’s first episode without Matt Casey? Leave a comment below!