As Chicago Fire continues on its shortened, COVID-19 impacted season, it seems that the series could possibly be hinting at a departure from a longtime cast member.

With the abrupt departure of Gianna Mackey (and we barely got to know her), Gallo’s ex-fling Violet returns to Firehouse 51 to help out Sylvie in Ambulance 61, much to Gallo’s dismay. While Sylvie struggles to find a new partner, Casey gives her assurance that the partners that she’s had have left because she has lifted them up. This gives Sylvie the confidence to ask Violet to stay, and she agrees, hopefully giving her the partner she’s been looking for.

Casey, still affected by his huge head injury in the last episode, is clearly still feeling the effects of it. Whether or not it pulls him from the fire department is to be seen, but it’s definitely impacting his work, holding onto his head after he rescues a man from a laundromat on fire. He even snaps at a concerned Gallo after he asks his captain about it. Gallo calls him out about it later on, saying that firefighters can’t trust their captains if they are not disclosing medical issues.

This week’s main plot concerns a string of fires at a bunch of small laundromats. Turns out, a detergent that is sent to all laundromats has a combustible fuel that catches fire and explodes easily. While they try to stop the product that’s been sent out, a delivery truck that’s full of the detergent catches fire, making it a bomb on wheels. The team manages to get ahead of the explosion and put it out before any harm can be done.

For the comedic side-plot of the week, Mouch gets to audition for a fire department funeral band. Turns out he can play the bagpipes, but not very well. He enlists the young members of the firehouse and film a TikTok video for the audition. While he botches the audition, the video he made impresses the judges, and they plan on playing it for the Celtic conference in Chicago.

At the end of the episode, Casey talks to Dr. Will Halstead (from Chicago Med), and he encourages him to see a doctor and to not mess around with head injuries.

Just like last time, there are some scenes where the head injury doesn’t appear to be affecting Casey at all, but then in some scenes, he’s full of excruciating pain. I know inconsistency can happen on shows like these, but it would be nice if it would be a little easier to tell that the injury was really affecting him, even though he’s trying to hide it.

With the arching story that Casey’s head injury could be serious, it’s quite possible that unless there’s some medical miracle, we might be heading towards a Matt Casey departure from the Chicago franchise. Jesse Spencer has played Firehouse 51’s captain since the show’s inception, and it will be interesting to see if this plotline is what takes him out, leaving the opportunity for the character to do other things in the franchise, or run away and find his ex-wife Gabby to possibly reconcile their differences. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with it, but with a character that has been established from the get-go, it might be hard to say goodbye to Captain Casey.