#Show boss on big Casey’s big Brett revelation

Tonight’s Chicago Fire season 9 episode 3 accomplished a number of different things, whether it be giving Stella a fantastic hero moment or Joe Cruz preparing more to be a father.

Even with all of these other moments, there’s a particular Casey/Brett moment that is creating all sorts of excitement in the minds of many fans. Near the end of the episode, Casey learned from a very important source that Sylvie is very much in love with him. Does that make him want to act on this? Will these two move closer to a relationship now? There are no guarantees of anything, but it at least serves as a reason for great optimism.

To speak futhre on this moment and a number of other scenes within tonight’s episode, we turn to showrunner Derek Haas. Check out part 2 of our interview below, and remember to also check out part 1 over at the link here.

Matt & Jess – Why did you do Cruz dirty like that in not letting him do the swaddling competition? You could’ve let him have his victory! When you were writing this, did you always know you were going to pull the metaphorical football away?

Derek Haas – Those things just come to you at the end! I don’t know where the idea for the swaddling episode came from — I think it was [writer] Elizabeth Sherman, maybe. When I got into this episode I realized I didn’t have a funny C-story yet, so I was like ‘Elizabeth, I’m taking that one’ (laughs). As a guy who has raised two boys, I remember those days! I just thought it would be really fun and funny. We were just thinking of how to have that really great last beat. Joe Minoso has one of the greatest death stares in the game, and I just thought that Cruz vs. Huxley would be funny — and you have to have a little surprise at the end.

What I really loved about the Stella story is that it was so strategic in a way. Fire can be an action-heavy show sometimes, so did you go into this episode thinking you wanted it to be a little different and have her be a hero from afar?

Yeah. It was inspired by the last bottle episode where we did the radio calls inside the elevator. You never saw what Severide, Casey, Mouch and Herrmann were doing, but you could hear their voices. That told the story like the way old radio dramas do. [Executive producer] Michael Gilvary had this idea of ‘what if a phone call came into the firehouse?’. I love old classic radio, and there’s this famous episode of a show named Suspense called ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ where the main character hears a murder over a party line. It really plays up all the suspense, but you never saw it. It was all voices, and that became the model for this episode — you have a girl who was saying all of this, but you never saw her.

There was a big moment for Casey at the end of this episode, one where he’s told that Brett is clearly in love with him. Is that going to make a light bulb go off in his head?

It does set off a light bulb! Casey’s been in his own head about his own feelings towards Brett. It hasn’t been voiced to him in such a direct way of what Brett is feeling. In this instance, this is someone who would know, based on him briefly dating her! This outside observation is a little bit of a hypnotist snap of ‘hey man, it’s not just what’s going on in your head. It’s what’s going on in her head, too.’ This is going to drive the last three episodes.

You didn’t exactly get a typical Chicago Fire finale last year. Did you come into the writing for this one thinking that it has to be the finale for the past two seasons. Did that add extra pressure?

Every year when you’re thinking about the finale, you’re wondering if you can do something you’ve never done before. The idea for the last ten minutes is something that we as writers came up with in June of last year. This is where we wanted the season to end. I wrote the last ten pages in January when we were only on episode 12. I knew the last ten pages were going to be a gigantic production and we’d need the extra prep time to get it done.

You’ve known for a long time that you’re coming back for another couple of seasons. Did that help in setting up the end of this one?

It was liberating for us as writers. We could set up bigger character moves and impacts on the firehouse than we could in a season where we feel like we need to wrap up everything. You can make some of those moves that have more ripple effects over everything.

Related – Be sure to get some other news when it comes to Chicago Fire moving forward

What do you want to see when it comes to Chicago Fire moving forward, especially for Casey and Brett?

Be sure to share right now in the comments! After doing that, be sure to come back around for some other news. (Photo: NBC.)