Wedding bells are ringing for Brett and Casey on Chicago Fire, in what will be one of the most talked-about Season 12 episodes for multiple reasons. Not only is “Port in the Storm” the hour in which Brettsey tie the knot, but it’s also the last episode for actor Kara Killmer, whose departure was announced before the season began. That means One Chicago fans are expecting a lot from the story, which was written by series showrunner Andrea Newman.
Newman took some time ahead of the episode’s airing to answer a few burning questions about “Port in the Storm,” including how she figured out Brett and Casey’s road to the altar, and approaching Brettsey’s big day while making it distinct from Dawson and Casey’s nuptials back in Chicago Fire‘s 100th episode.
It was after Severide and Stella’s wedding in the Season 10 finale that Brettsey hit the rocks, with Brett breaking up with Casey over the phone. Less than a season and a half later, they’re about to tie the knot themselves. How did Andrea get them from split up to their happy ending in a relatively short amount of time?
“The goodbye between Casey and Brett was such a tough one. It tore them both up, but they (and we) saw it as inevitable at the time,” she reflected. “We’ve seen both characters with other people in the past before they ever got together, but when Brettsey finally happened it was such an “aha moment”—a truly perfect match. This is addressed in the wedding episode and has been in past episodes, but they are both such good people, with such big, open hearts. That’s a rarity not only in life but especially in the career they’re both in, where they deal with trauma and pain on a regular basis, and developing a tougher, more abrasive exterior is par for the course.
To that end, once Casey was in Portland, we put Brett out there in the dating world, brought a couple of wonderful guys into her life to try and move on, and put Casey behind her. But at the end of the day, it felt like she and Casey were truly soulmates, and it became undeniable that Casey and Brett were meant to be together. Bottom line: there is no replacing Matt Casey. And for Casey, there was no replacing Sylvie Brett.”
As previously mentioned, Brettsey isn’t the first duo to tie the knot in the One Chicago universe. There have been several weddings in the franchise’s history, and most of them have been on Chicago Fire, going back to Chief Wallace Boden marrying his wife Donna almost a decade ago. With that in mind, how did Andrea approach writing “Port in the Storm” so that it felt new and unique to viewers?
“Of course as writers you don’t want to repeat yourself, but each character is so unique, and a wedding needs to match the characters,” she said. “It made sense that Brett, our true romantic, would want a wedding that is, as she says in [Season 12, Episode 2], “simple, intimate, and perfect.” But events conspire to turn that upside-down, and with Tony involved, all bets are off, despite the best of intentions.”
Another hurdle that the episode has to clear will be in viewers’ memories. The relationship between Casey and Gabriela Dawson was a huge part of Chicago Fire for its first six seasons (plus one hookup in Season 8), and there are still plenty of Dawsey shippers amongst the fan base. It’s something that the show has to take into account, especially since Brett was Dawson’s best friend for many of those years. Andrea discussed hitting this important milestone in Brett and Casey’s relationship while not forgetting Casey and Dawson’s history.
“I think there was a time where Casey and Dawson made sense, for each of them,” she told us. “But it was a union that didn’t survive the ups and downs of the job and of life for each of them, which happens.
“Brett loved Dawson, which at first is what kept Casey and Brett apart,” she continued. “but eventually there was a realization that the fact they both had loved Dawson was one of many things that bonded them. As Casey and Brett both grew as characters, it became clear that the fact they were both romantics, with a desire for family and connection beyond anything work would ever provide, made this union very different from what the Casey/Dawson union had been.
“And it feels very much like a union Gabby Dawson would be very happy about, as she travels the world doing her good works.”
But whether One Chicago viewers identify as a Brettsey shipper or a Dawsey fan, one thing they can all agree on will be the impact of Kara Killmer leaving the series. Killmer’s tenure as Sylvie Brett started back in Season 3, and following Monica Raymund’s departure as Dawson in the Season 7 premiere, she provided stability as Chicago Fire went through a number of short-lived paramedics. It will be a major change for viewers to not see Brett on Ambulance 61.
That was what made writing “Port in the Storm” particularly difficult for Andrea. While she’s penned several big Chicago Fire episodes in the past both by herself and with her writing partner Michael Gilvary (including the Stellaride wedding episode “The Magnificent City of Chicago”), she tackled both the Brettsey wedding and giving Brett a proper goodbye on her own. Well, almost, as one of One Chicago’s founding fathers lent her a hand.
“In writing this wedding episode I was constantly talking to Derek Haas, the creator of Chicago Fire,” she revealed. “[Derek] is now off writing a different show but [he] has the same affection and admiration for Sylvie and for Kara (they’re both from the same hometown in Texas, by crazy coincidence!) and to be honest I couldn’t have done it without his input!”
“This was a very tough episode to write,” she reflected. “I get weepy even thinking about saying goodbye to Brett—and more importantly to the exquisitely talented and lovely Kara Killmer. There was quite literally not a dry eye on the set for her last scene.
“Kara has made Brett one of the best and most unique characters on TV, in my opinion. [Brett’s] a woman willing and able to be romantic, vulnerable, and comfortable putting her heart on her sleeve, but also tough and capable of facing fear and danger head-on under the most stressful and dangerous of situations. That is such a tricky mash-up of qualities, and Kara navigated it all so beautifully and made it all so real and believable.”
Chicago Fire airs on Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. on NBC.
