CHICAGO FIRE Season 13 Finale Post-Mortem: Andrea Newman on the Stellaride Bombshell and What Comes Next - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

Give Me My Remote > Chicago Fire > CHICAGO FIRE Season 13 Finale Post-Mortem: Andrea Newman on the Stellaride Bombshell and What Comes Next

CHICAGO FIRE Season 13 Finale Post-Mortem: Andrea Newman on the Stellaride Bombshell and What Comes Next

May 21, 2025 by  

Chicago Fire Stellaride pregant

CHICAGO FIRE — “Cut Me Open” Episode 13020 — Pictured: (l-r) — (Photo by: Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Wednesday, May 21 season finale of CHICAGO FIRE.]

After spending months contemplating adoption—and nearly adopting a newborn weeks ago—Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) had a surprise for Severide (Taylor Kinney) on the Wednesday, May 21 season finale of CHICAGO FIRE: She was pregnant!

But, as has been discussed repeatedly, being pregnant while a firefighter comes with its own complications. So what comes next? CHICAGO FIRE showrunner Andrea Newman offered a few teases to Give Me My Remote about what this means for Stellaride, and broke down a few of the other big moments in “It Had To End This Way”…

Stellaride is having a baby! What can you share about what this will mean for these two people, especially given the dangerous job they’re dealing with? And what kind of time jump are we looking at when the show returns next season?
You know, it’s funny, we have to coordinate with all the other shows because we’re all [connected in ONE CHICAGO], so that hasn’t been completely figured out. But usually we do, like, a four month-ish kind of jump, and we’ll probably do something similar. 

But you hit the nail on the head in terms of, like, what it means for the dangerous job that they’re in. I think that’s really what we want to explore: That, as we say, you think the stakes are high because you’re married to the person you’re working with. Imagine if you’re trapped with your significant other together, and you realize if this building comes down, you’ve left a child behind with no parents? And that is exactly what happened to Kidd when she was growing up, so it’s a particular fear of hers. So, yeah, there’s a lot to play in terms of stakes just going way up for them, as a couple at work, and just as firefighters at work, and how they manage that. And Kidd’s past kind of stays around to haunt her, in terms of that.


It seemed like adoption had been important to Stella. Obviously, now is probably not the right time to pursue it again, but is that something that she and Severide will still want to pursue going forward? Or is she on a different path now that she is pregnant?
I think the way we talked about it, Severide was kind of all-in from the beginning. There are more complications, obviously, just on a basic level, for a female firefighter in terms of getting pregnant than a male firefighter, as we’ve talked about. But this season was really kind of a journey to get Kidd to the place where she can say, “This is what I want, and I can do this.” 

It started with seeing her cousin and kind of working through the depression her aunt had gone through after pregnancy, and realizing that that was something that was haunting her, and a burden that she was bearing. And talking it out in a way she never had, which I think really helped her move forward and decide about adoption. But then episode 20, which was the hospital episode where they almost adopted this baby, that was even more monumental, I think, because she got to see…she got to feel all the feels of that motherhood moment and the baby. And seeing Severide with the baby. And she and Severide kind of clashed a little bit, but by the end, I felt like they had just gotten closer and closer. By the end of that episode, I think she had decided to sort of leave it in faith’s hands, that she could handle whatever came, whichever way she was going to have a family. She was ready for it, whether that meant adoption, if that was what came first, or pregnancy. She was kind of throwing caution to the wind on all that and ready for it, ready to face the challenge, because of her journey over the season. 

As somebody put it, [she was] healing the kid from her youth that she had been over the course of this. But just between Natalie and the baby and all these different things, that got her a place where she could say, “Yeah, I can do it. If it’s [that we] adopt a baby, if it’s birth[ing] our baby together from pregnancy. That’s cool, too.” She was ready.

On a different note, Ritter (Daniel Kyri) didn’t get a proper goodbye. He’s a character who’s been around for a while, so what are you hoping to do when the show comes back to give him the goodbye he deserves?
Yeah, that’s a good phrase, “The goodbye he deserves.” I mean, we don’t know exactly how it’s all going to shake out yet, so we don’t have plans. But we do know how much we love these actors, both Jake [Lockett, who plays Carver] and Daniel, and these characters have been with us for a long time. Ritter, especially, but Jake, too. We want to do justice to them. 

How much we’ll be able to get them back next season, if we’ll see a little, or even maybe a lot, of one of the other, we’re not sure, but…yeah, we want to send them out, you know, I say with a bang, but that sounds so ominous on our show. No bangs. [Laughs.] Could be a bang. Could not be a bang. That’s all still up in the air, but yeah, we want to do it right, that’s for sure.



Relatedly, Carver told Violet he loves her, and they had that nice moment. With him exiting, are they going to attempt to do something long-distance? Or was this a “I love you, goodbye” kind of thing? 
That’s the question. Because the “I love you,” which has been bubbling and burning under the surface, it’s such a big step for Violet to finally say it and for Carver to finally say it. I think it’s so meaningful for both their characters, in terms of where they need to go individually, let alone together. But, yeah, there’s this major problem, a crisis, really, underneath, which is that…Carver has said, out loud, “I don’t think I can get healthy here. I don’t think I can stay in recovery and be in the place where all this stuff has happened that triggered it and started it.” 

So, you know, it’s a sacrifice either way. There’s a risk involved in him staying that is he willing to make? And is Violet willing to have him make [that decision]? Or would she not let that happen? Because she knows it could be the worst thing for him. So it’s the worst thing, best thing, and they have to figure that out.

Elsewhere, Pascal was able to clear his name. And then Mouch got promoted and Herrmann demoted himself. What can you share about how all of those things will shape the dynamics in Firehouse 51 next season?
Absolutely, those are going to be the profound building blocks of next season because Herrmann stepped back, Mouch has stepped up, and we have Pascal there. But, also, this lingering, lurking figure of the auditor [who is] saying the older firefighters are on their way out. And so all these machinations that have happened…there’s that guy. And then…it’s very timely, but CFD is like a lot of other places, where they are cutting back. There’s going to be changes, and there’s going to be surprises, in terms of who’s going and who’s staying, and how everything will get rearranged, and how they handle it as the 51 family they are; how they try to have each other’s back. But also, you know, save 51 as a whole, too. So, yeah, a lot of stuff to explore there next season.

What else has you excited about next season? 
I mean, obviously, exploring how Severide and Kidd are as parents and how that affects the firehouse and how it affects their relationship is a big one. But really just that  CFD shake-up and how, as Boden said, things always change. And Violet quoted him [that] change is inevitable. How they all react to that, and how we can keep these relationships, and also turn some of them on our head. 

That was such fun about having Pascal this year, and the great Dermot Mulroney come in, is it [was] not just watching that character develop, but seeing all sorts of new sides of our other characters because of him coming in. So, yeah, bringing in somebody new that may shake up the things, again, and we’ll see other sides to characters and see how they stick together, through it all, which they always do.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

CHICAGO FIRE, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC

RELATED:

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page or our Instagram.

And be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases made through links/ads placed on the site.

Related Posts

Filed under Chicago Fire

Comments Off on CHICAGO FIRE Season 13 Finale Post-Mortem: Andrea Newman on the Stellaride Bombshell and What Comes Next

Comments

Comments are closed.