It’s been a long few weeks for Chicago Fire Fanatics, as The Voice took over this time slot and caused us to wait weeks and weeks for Chicago Fire Season 2 Episode 6.

But at least it came back hot.

There are a lot of moving pieces to get through, but let’s start with the big one: Kelly and Nathan.

When the steel beam came crashing down on Kelly and Nathan, I honestly thought Nathan would be a goner... but Kelly never gives up. He kept working and trying to figure out a way to get out, and in the final moment, he was able to jump start it and heroically get the bulldozer up.

Honestly, who needs Benny as chief now? Kelly is continually showing strong leadership, compassion and ingenuity to spare. Maybe some promotions need to start happening within the firehouse instead of going outside of it.

With Boden's resignation official on paper, every call he went was filled with a sense of finality. Boden doesn't want any call to go wrong, he wants every call to be handled properly. The state may view him as a bad chief, but there's no way Boden will leave his house any other way than on top of the job.

After Kelly and Shay saw Nathan wheeled down in more or less in good shape after his traumatic event, the question of having a baby together began to come around again. Kelly is great with kids and he would make one great father. The sins of his father might give him pause, especially since Benny hasn’t been home in weeks according to his wife, but those past sins and Kelly’s first hand experience with them give him the insight he needs to not repeat them.

Shay, while not partaking in as much risky behavior as the few previous episodes, is still seeing Devon and Devon is nothing but bad news. She’s a jerk to the woman on the ride along and she seems like nothing but a user. Honestly, I was expecting her to take some free samples of the drugs in the rig. The quicker Shay dumps her the better.

The Arthur situation is at its conclusion and it’s good to see him gone. His constant threats and damage to Molly’s grew tiring, but he did go down in a blaze of glory. Not only did he confess to torching Game Day after they didn’t pay, he tried to do the same with Molly’s.

The entire point of Arthur, though, was to get Jesse Lee Soffer over to Chicago PD (which has undergone a few casting changes). With Arthur injuring him, he basically gets whatever job he wanted and he chose to go with Antonio to Intelligence.

Dawson did break up with Jay and it’s hard to find any fault in her decision. The worry and silence one would experience from a partner that is constantly undercover would end up working against the relationship. Plus, with Isabella telling Casey that Heather’s likely to get bumped to minimum security (and maybe getting out early) that means Casey is going to need someone to lean on again when the boys go back with their mom.

Mouch’s morality is what ends up costing him Union President. He’s unwilling to air Sullivan’s dirty laundry, and Sullivan completely deserved to be exposed after telling all of Station 51’s secrets. Maybe Sullivan’s child support issues will be what ultimately pull him out of the president job, but at least Mouch can say he stuck to his word.

Lastly, the final moments of this episode featured Casey and Heather’s younger boy looking at all the medals and all of them coming across his father’s medal:

It’s okay to cry here, I have.

Casey

• Permalink: It’s okay to cry here, I have.

Chicago Fire Season 2 hasn’t shown Darden’s family in the aftermath of his death, but with Heather’s behavior the kids might not have had the chance to properly grieve for their father.

Casey has been able to work through his grief over Darden, and probably did so right in front of that medal; watching the little guy mourn for his father is a powerful scene and one that continues to prove why Chicago Fire is nearly flawless in the stories it tells.