After last week’s horrific cliffhanger in the premiere, Chicago Fire’s second episode hit the ground running to resolve the action. Sylvie and new paramedic Gianna were run off the highway by an angry Halleck, who was after them after his brother overdosed.

Gianna took most of the hit, and Sylvie seemed relatively unscathed. Casey and the rest of the team found their location and managed to get them both out. Knowing that Halleck also crashed (and with a gun), they did their best to navigate the car that’s on fire. Halleck, impaled with shrapnel, begged for help, and pulled himself out, causing him to bleed everywhere (with an extremely gross sound effect). The car is put out, and Halleck is taken to Med, while Gianna is treated with nothing more than a bandage on the head from a scrape. With a fall that nasty, it was pretty impeccable that it was really only a couple of scratches, but hey, gotta keep the main characters active, right?

Back at the Firehouse, Cruz gets oddly protective when he sees Gianna’s bandage, which seems odd, but given they’re lifelong friends, the writers probably wanted to establish that relationship better. Casey goes up to Sylvie and says how grateful he is that she’s okay, and Sylvie lets it slip saying, “it’s always been you!” She covers up her feelings for him by saying that she meant that by his friendship, which Casey turns a blind eye to. Casey is so dumb sometimes when it comes to relationships so this is nothing new. Sylvie reveals what happened to Kidd, and Kidd lets her know that maybe it isn’t so bad that she let her feelings out because it’s about time he knows.

An upset Chief Boden is struggling with some of the paperwork that he has to take care of since the secretary staff can’t work in the office because of COVID, so Ritter volunteers himself and Gallo to take care of the paperwork, much to the dismay of Gallo. Because of this, everyone has accepted that these two hooligans will be taking care of all logistic work in the firehouse.

After the shift is over, Casey awkwardly asks Herrmann and Mouch if they were going to Molly’s (you know, the bar that they own), but it was clear that he was figuring out if Sylvie was going. Herrmann and Mouch then try to give advice to Ritter about not always helping out the chief if he genuinely doesn’t want to do it.

At Kidd’s Girls on Fire program, they are running drills, and a happy Chief Boden watches on, acknowledging that she is inspiring the future of the CFD. Kidd then tells him that one of her top students, Kylie, hasn’t been at any of the sessions for weeks, and Boden thinks it might be best to investigate.

Cruz finds Gianna working out, and they discuss how Gianna’s adapting to being at Firehouse 51. Cruz encourages her to stick around at 51, but she has second thoughts because of the crash. Cruz lets her know that her brother would be proud of her.

Kidd finds her star pupil Kylie at her job and wants her to come back. However, she tells her that her parents need a lot of help and support since things have shut down (always have to have some sort of look into the real-life situation).

Severide heads to the car yard that has Ambulance 61, but the front gate doesn’t let him in because he doesn’t have proper authorization. Severide drives around the back and hops the fence anyway.

At Molly’s Cruz tells Sylvie that he gave the “hard sell” to Gianna, but isn’t sure if she’ll stick around. Sylvie joins Casey, Gallo, and Capp on the back patio, and Gallo is telling the story of how they rescued the ambulance from its destruction. All the while, Casey and Sylvie stare at each other flirtatiously, and a nervous Sylvie makes up an excuse to leave.

The next day, Sylvie and Cruz discover that Gianna decided to stay at 51 and work with her. Makes sense, why hire a new actress for two episodes? Severide arrives with the door to Ambulance 61, which has the name of the late Leslie Shay on it, and they replace the door on the new ambo. Gianna notices her name, and Severide and Casey share a moment of remembering her, and how soon more people who didn’t know her are soon going to outnumber the people who did.

While out on a ride, Ritter sees a group of kids on a subway track yelling for the truck to stop. He jumps out of the truck and runs to the subway, and the kids tell him that a woman fell onto the tracks and hit her head, and of course, a train is arriving at the station. As it always is, Ritter hands the woman off to Herrmann, and barely escapes himself as the train arrives.

Kidd, after seeing a frustrated Gallo working on paperwork, suggests to Boden that maybe Kylie take over the job and become Boden’s part-time assistant, which she accepts with a long hug.

At Molly’s, Mouch gives Ritter an inspirational talk that his hard work and dedication to wanting to take over a lot of the clerical work at the firehouse is a sign of a true and loyal firefighter, and he gives him back a pen Ritter’s father gave him when he joined the squad.

Casey shows up at Sylvie’s house unannounced, and she admits that she’s been avoiding him, and the next thing we know, she plants a large kiss right on him! Something that the show has been teasing for at least two seasons. The scene starts to get ~very steamy~ but Sylvie brings up the fact that if Casey’s ex-wife Gabby were to come back and want him back if he would go with her. Casey says he doesn’t know, since the relationship ended pretty poorly. Naturally, this breaks Sylvie apart and she kicks him out before anything else can happen. A teary Sylvie sits alone as the episode comes to a close.

After a pretty good episode all around, it brings the show to a close for now as Fire will return in January. Hopefully, there will be more great firefighting sequences, and drama that will continue to entertain.

What did you think of the show’s last episode of the year?