TV Review: Chicago Fire Season 2 Episode 11 "Shoved In My Face"

Shoved in My Face deals with a lot of ongoing stories, ties up some, while also starting others. It's the ever moving machine that is Chicago Fire's plot.

Stories and relationships between all the characters are always moving, always developing, ending and changing.

Most of the fun is trying to see where they are going.

When a show is doing well, it's very difficult to predict what moves they are going to make. Chicago Fire is unpredictable in that sense, which is a good thing.

While the last episode focused on Casey and ended on his injury, very little of Shoved in My Face dealt with him. Between our long break, we entered the episode with Casey recovering at home and Dawson taking care of him. That was nice. Throughout the episode, Casey dealt with the fact that he couldn't remember his locker combination.

Eventually this culminated in him snipping the lock off and putting a new one on. That combined with a violent outburst of beating a man who had a gun in the last call, and it's safe to say Casey might be having some lasting side effects of his injury.

They used some typical editing effects that gave off the impression he was having this kind of tunnel vision, which would support his rage swings.

This is good for the show - it shows the lasting injuries that the firefighters face everyday. Severide's injury in season one seems to be an afterthought, so it's nice that they're dealing with Casey's injury still.

Speaking of the man with the gun, what an interesting call. It started off with a woman telling them it was a false alarm, blaming it on the electrical work being done.

Turns out Casey and his team walked in on a safe robbery, where they set off the alarm trying to cut through the steel door.

The execution was great - the Firefighters have been through calls that don't feel right, and they don't stop until they get the full picture.

The Clark getting arrested and brought in for the murder of the loanshark/ex of his ex wife was resolved all in this episode. Through Mills, we learned the police had copies of text messages sent from the ex wife to this now murdered loanshark/ex of her being jealous of him moving on. Clark had been silent to the cops to protect her, until he realized she did it and then provided an alibi to Jay, one of the detectives.

It was a nice misdirect, especially since the alternative would be to go down the cliche road of having Clark the war vet with an anger problem murder someone.

Glad to see Chicago Fire chose the best path to go down with that. This ended a major thing with Clark, I wonder if they'll let his character take a backseat for awhile or give him something new.

A few small stories happened this week. Severide taught a Recruit class at the Fire academy and kicked out a female recruit for throwing another recruit under the bus. Because of politics, the Chief in charge forced him to let her back in. Not much development here, mostly the setup of something.

I'll hold off to analyze it until I get a better sense of where they're going with this. Both characters are astonishingly good looking, so it's probably a romance.

If it is, it's an interesting setup for one getting off on the wrong foot like they have.

Severide's sister Katie and Otis bonded over the game Settlers of Catan and kissed before being interrupted by Severide, who barley missed seeing it. It was a funny awkward leaving scene.

They end up giving Mills squad after all. I still think he should have jumped shows to Chicago PD. He could have always came back if it got canceled. Since this obviously didn't work out, I still think it would be interesting to see a character switch shows.

The two biggest developments revolved around Dawson and Shay. Dawson's isnt as big as it is polarizing (for me anyway). Dawson started her CFD training in Severide's class. Again, this move doesn't make much sense to me. I don't hate it, but I'm struggling to see the choice here. Besides providing a nice platform to show how a female can be just as good of a firefighter as a male (which is admirable), I see little opportunity here for new story outside of a little different dynamic with Dawson in the firehouse. Besides that, it fundamentally not only changes her working relationship/interaction with Shay, it changes the character entirely. Shay and Dawson come as such a packaged deal, messing with that isn't a great idea.

I hope this is temporary and she realizes it isn't for her in a way that isn't reinforcing that negative sexist stereotype. I still think she should pursue med school. It's the natural progression for a head paramedic in charge like Dawson. It's been hinted at twice now - once with the now deceased Hallie, and again with Dylan Baker's character.

It would allow for Dylan Baker's character to resurface again, which would be cool. Look at Rachel Zane on Suits and her progression from paralegal to lawyer.

There is room to play with there with Dawson studying in med school, as well as milestones that could be seen throughout the show. It wouldn't mess up Shay and Dawson's dynamic either.

Sigh. I do not write for this show unfortunately (I would in the drop of a hat if anyone from Chicago Fire is reading this) so that story will probably just remain a story.

If they're gonna fully transform Dawson into a firefighter, it might be cool to see Shay go through the classes and tests to be the paramedic in charge for 51.

Shay's been beaten down a lot this season, I'd like to see her have some positive progression soon.

Speaking of Shay, more bad things seem to be happening to her. Her new partner and paramedic in charge, Allison Rafferty, apparently is quite homophobic. They never explain it, but apparently it's well known in other Firehouse's that Shay is gay, because Rafferty acted cold to her from the beginning. They worked through their problems however, after Rafferty helped Shay hide from a lawyer who was coming to see her. A lawyer who Boden advised her wants to talk about the suicide that happened.

I'm not exactly sure what bad things could happen from this, since the only two witnesses to the suicide are Shay and Dawson, but it's scary nonetheless. Perhaps there were conflicting reports from Shay and Dawson as to what happened, that both would have been written right before their big blowup. That could be scary, but I hope there's enough story and not just a rehash of old tension.

I'm excited - Chicago Fire hasn't let me down. It's always interesting when stories that you think have told all there is to tell rear their head again. Especially unhappy ones.

Photo Credit: TV Equals (Elizabeth Morris/NBC)