Stella jumped headfirst into her new lieutenant position, as she began the search to fill an empty spot on her team in tonight’s latest episode.

Since Stella is now running the team, she has to find a replacement firefighter to take her old spot on truck, so a few floaters are coming in at high request of the CFD. A new Academy graduate, Kim took the spot, and the rest of the firehouse tried to see if she worked with the team. Mouch discovered that Kim acted and talked a lot like Gallo, providing discomfort from Gallo’s end.

The second floater, Sykes filled Mouch’s “eagle scout type.” Hard worker, but not a lot of personality.

Herrmann brought in his protege Mason (from season 9) to do a ridealong with Truck to convince Stella to give him the position, which he originally couldn’t have, because dumb regulations say that felons cannot be hired in the CFD.

During the ridealong, Mason provided to be a big help, locating a small fire in an apartment complex. Stella felt that Mason was “the missing piece” to 51, with his skills as a firefighter, as well as the generosity he shows as a person. Looks like Mason will be sticking around in the show for some time!

Stella’s first shift began at a rapid pace, as everyone was called to action at a warehouse that the CFD was investigating for fire affected stairs, and the stairs collapsed, while Seager was on them. The stairs had crashed several floors down, requiring the team to perform an epic rescue. Severide, being the rescue master, managed to free Seager out from under the wreckage with not a lot of crucial injuries.

Severide and Cruz went to investigate what might have happened to cause these stairs to collapse. Severide found that the stairs had been cut down, not started by a fire, meaning it was intentional. The property belonged to land developer who was making no money through this warehouse, and Severide suspected that he might have tried to burn it down for the insurance money. When they went to question the owner, Murphy, he said that he never wanted the factory burned, because he was planning a big overhaul to turn it into apartments, removing him as a suspect.

Back at the factory, the two investigators found evidence of an electrical fire, and couldn’t deduce if the stairs being cut was enough to overrule that the fire was accidental. Severide saw the culprit, but he escaped while chasing him out.

Severide felt that maybe the culprit was able to make the fire accidental, but then attack the fire investigators because of a vendetta. One of the arsonists they were looking at files of, Mark Green, looked like the guy that Severide saw at the factory, but he had an alibi that would not leave him there at the fire. However, it was Mark’s father who made the phone call, because he was furious at the CFD for locking his son away

It was a sad episode for the die hard fans, as Sylvie and Casey’s relationship continued to weaken. Casey has been out of the show for the most part of this season, but they have desperately tried to keep the old captain relevant to the show. The distance is affecting Sylvie to no end, and she still wants to make it all work, so she said she is going to take some time off to build the bridge back with him. Does this mean Sylvie Brett will also be leaving the show? We might have to wait until next week to get any official confirmation that she’s gone.

I’m super serious when I say that they love giving Severide these little arson cases each week. It’s the one way the show is going to have anything fire-related for an entire episode while they focus on the lives of the rest of 51. While some of the cases are good, it begs the question of: why are there so many arsonists in Chicago? If there’s enough to solve every week, why doesn’t Severide just change his job over to the investigators unit, and everyone’s happy?

If Sylvie really is leaving, it’ll be sad to see her go. However, she has a fitting ending, going to be with Casey, and the relationship won’t end out of sake of keeping the character around. This is something that fans have wanted to see, and even though it is happening offscreen, just knowing that it’s happening is enough.

Do you think this show has too many arson cases? Leave a comment below!