ONE CHICAGO Post-Mortem: Derek Haas on Brett’s Big Moment and What Comes Next

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the CHICAGO FIRE/CHICAGO P.D. crossover that aired on Wednesday, February 26.]

Though CHICAGO P.D.’s Roman (Brian Geraghty) was the spine of the latest ONE CHICAGO crossover, CHICAGO FIRE’s Brett (Kara Killmer) had one of the biggest moments of the event when she finally came face-to-face with her birth mother.

Originally, she got off to a rough start when she went with Casey (Jesse Spencer) to the address her birth mother had sent her and discovered she didn’t actually live there. But Julie (Julie Deadmon)—Brett’s biological mother—showed up at Firehouse 51 and explained that her husband was actually the one who turned Brett away, but admitted it to Julie.

“We always want to give FIRE watchers who maybe don’t watch the other [shows] some story that [is just] for them,” CHICAGO FIRE boss Derek Haas explains. After Brett was turned away, “I think at that point, she’s like, ‘Okay, the universe is telling me this was a bad idea. I should have trusted my gut. There’s a reason why I didn’t go searching for this over the last 30 years of my life.'”

But Julie showing up—and being pregnant herself now—changes things for Brett. “We thought it was interesting that a lot of these adoption situations are from teenage moms,” Haas says. “You’re at a different time of your life when you’re 15 having a baby than you are when you’re 45. And now people can have children into their late 40s, so we thought that’s such an interesting complication that not only does birth mom show up, but birth mom’s pregnant with essentially your sibling.”

And the story will be playing out on-screen vs. off. “That’s going to be a big story going forward,” Haas teases. “Brett is the kind of character who’s always seeking joy, forgiveness and all those good traits and qualities. Now that she’s met her birth mom, and her birth mother was pregnant, there’s no way Brett’s going to let this just leave her life again…it’s going to be a more joyful situation as she gets to know her more.”

The story was also important for Casey and Brett’s friendship. “We wanted to do a story that didn’t have to do with stolen glances and romance and all those things,” Haas says. “Here’s Casey who has always been a good support, a good shoulder to lean on, always has a smile on his face. And so we wanted to do a story with the two of them that wasn’t just about romance and and [instead] grow their friendship.”

But will this cause them to take stock of the fact that they were together for such monumental moment in Brett’s life? “I think that’s a fair guess of where this is going,” Haas teases. “Sometimes we do things really fast on the show. Sometimes we take a slower route—I think that is in that [latter] vein.”

One thing the show won’t be playing with? The fallout of Roman’s arc in P.D., which found the former cop getting revenge—albeit through a third party—on his sister’s killer. “We’re off and on to our own business after that [crossover].”

Are you excited to learn more about Brett’s biological mother?

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• Jesse Lee Soffer on the CHICAGO P.D. Fall Finale: ‘We Haven’t Done Anything Like This Before’
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• ONE CHICAGO Stars on the Cut Crossover Ending
• Jon Seda, Colin Donnell, and Norma Kuhling React to Their CHICAGO P.D. and CHICAGO MED Exits
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