How ‘Chicago Fire’ Wrote out Dermot Mulroney’s Pascal — For Now?

Heading into the One Chicago crossover, we knew that Dermot Mulroney would be missing from episodes in the latter part of the season, and so it made sense that it would set up Pascal’s onscreen absence. That’s exactly what it did, and the March 11 episode of Chicago Fire picks up with that storyline.

In the crossover, Pascal ignored orders from the FBI not to enter an apartment after an explosion to get hard drives that could have given them the information needed to figure out the exact chemical that killed a plane full of people and landed first responders, including Cruz (Joe Miñoso), Capp (Randy Flagler), and Novak (Jocelyn Hudon), sick. After he was arrested by the FBI, and when he got out of custody, Annette Davis (Annabeth Gish) had texted him to call her. So, how did the NBC drama write out Pascal in “Hit and Run”? Warning: Spoilers for Chicago Fire Season 14 Episode 14 ahead!

While Mouch (Christian Stolte) returns to 51, engine back where it belongs — a final favor for Pascal from Annette — the battalion chief is at his disciplinary hearing as the episode begins. And Severide (Taylor Kinney) meets Pascal’s surprise new assistant, Lucy (Jeanine Mason), who’d worked at a construction company before. But, as it turns out, that’s a clerical error, as Pascal informs Severide when he calls him into his office.

Peter Gordon/NBC

“They came down harder than I expected,” Pascal says. He knew that keeping his position wasn’t an option after what happened, but the CFD needed to make an example of him, and so he’s officially been terminated for conduct unbecoming and relieved of his duty, effective immediately. “This will be my last shift at 51.”

No one likes it, but Pascal says he knowingly violated federal law, and he’s not planning to appeal. “What’s done is done. I’ve made peace with it,” he tells 51. Details are being worked out about who will take over, but in the interim, Chief Hopkins will be overseeing 51, along with five other houses. (Severide describes him as “a real harda**,” when Cruz asks later.) Pascal intends to leave the place better off than he found it, and that means getting through his long to-do list — which Lucy, who does not want to go back to her old job since she was the only one doing anything — and meeting one last time with each lieutenant.

Mouch is first, and while he wasn’t going to file an after-action report on the funeral attack as a small act of rebellion, Pascal knows about it and tells him to get it done. (He also says Mouch’s reports were always his favorite to read, that he has a real way with words.) When Mouch asks what’s next for Pascal, however, the warmth goes out of the room. While there is a former colleague from Phoenix who’s been trying to recruit him for months, since the CFD says he’s unfit to be battalion chief, Pascal is thinking of taking it as a sign that it’s his time. Mouch insists they’re wrong, and when he pushes, Pascal dismisses him.

Mouch refuses to let it go, while Severide throws himself into figuring out who’s responsible for an incident during a call that had him worried, which could lose Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) after she was thrown from the aerial and grabbed on just in time. And that has Pascal coming down harder on her than he has in a while, wondering why the truck was in the position it was for that to happen. Sure, it may be a reaction to what CFD is doing to him, but she wonders why it always has to be her.

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When Kidd confronts Pascal about it, he admits that it’s because he sees so much of himself in her and only put her through it because he knew she’d rise to the challenge. Her thinking she’d fallen short somehow “was a failure of communication on my part,” he says. “Let me be clear with you now. You are an exceptional leader, Lieutenant, and I am proud to have been your chief. I know you’ve just suffered a deep loss, you’ll have to rally from that, but you also have to own your success, not be afraid of it. Those commendations in your office aren’t meant to be hidden. Make people see what I see in you. … Endless potential.” With that, they part with a handshake.

Herrmann (David Eigenberg) makes sure Pascal knows they won’t forget him: He made a Chief Pascal’s Cell Block box to keep their phones in during chow. “Nobody will forget what you did here, especially for Mouch, what you sacrificed,” Herrmann says. Pascal notes Herrmann sacrificed something for him, too.

Severide, off Cruz reminding him how much 51 needs him now as he’s ready to go after the man responsible for nearly killing Kidd, is finally ready for his meeting with Pascal. But they don’t need to have one, his chief says, nor is he worried about what Severide shares about almost crossing the line. His company is there to hold him accountable, just like he did Pascal after his wife’s death.

Pascal does try to leave without anyone seeing — avoiding everyone walking him out at the end of the shift — but Mouch catches up to him and gives him his report, insisting he read it before he really walks away from firefighting. In it, he makes sure that Pascal is recognized for his courage, commitment, and heroism, for shaping leaders and fighting for his people. He makes it clear that the CFD should be thankful to have had Pascal working for them — and that this is his calling. It gets through to Pascal, who’s reconsidering his future (Phoenix?) at the end.

In the final scene, Severide finds out that Pascal left him his office — and the captain’s manual sitting on the desk.

But will Pascal be back? That seems to be the question, given what showrunner Andrea Newman told TV Insider after the crossover.

Pascal has “really become the leader of 51, the kind of father figure at 51, and that was a chair that nobody thought anybody else could sit in after Boden [Eamonn Walker]. And I think Pascal came in as a real outsider, thinking he wasn’t a part of it, and that turned after he lost his wife, and everyone at 51 showed up for him. He really became a part of it in a way that was much more emotionally connected than he ever thought as a character he would be,” she explained. “So I think ultimately in this crossover and leading into it, he’s making the ultimate sacrifice for 51 and for P.D. as well, for his relationships with Voight [Jason Beghe] and with Goodwin [S. Epatha Merkerson]. He’s doing the right thing and putting everybody else first.”

She continued, “That’s going to have real consequences for him in terms of going forward on the show. He’s going to have a lot of struggles going forward with fighting the forces above him now that want him out. So he’s got to battle that and see if he can manage to fight his way back to 51. That’s going to be his challenge.”

What do you think of how Fire wrote out Pascal? What are you hoping to see in the rest of the season? Let us know in the comments section below.

Chicago Fire, Wednesdays, 9/8c, NBC