The problem with Chicago Fire’s pregnancy storyline for Stellaride (aka Stella Kidd and Kelly Severide) is that it did not have to be this way. It really didn’t. There were many other ways to tell a story that showcased the highs and lows of parenthood, and even the fact that being a parent is about preparing yourself for surprises and yet still being surprised anyway. Chicago Fire didn’t have to choose this one.
Let’s start with the obvious: Chicago Fire isn’t the first show to run into the problem of having a long-term couple with the next logical step being starting a family, and yet have that conflict with the realities of the fictional job they’re doing. And the realities are what they are. Having a baby would realistically sideline Stella for a significant period of time, and that could end up affecting her career.
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Perhaps that is the point. Maybe the journey for Chicago Fire is to get Stella from unconvinced, to heartbroken about not being able to adopt, to happy but a little wary at finding out she’s pregnant, to devastated, and then explore what comes after. What does Stella want? What are her priorities? The show can take some time to figure this out for Stella, and then perhaps revisit the pregnancy question, with all its repercussions. But even if that’s indeed the case, there were still better ways to get there.
Case in point: NCIS: Los Angeles. The show had Kensi and Deeks struggle with infertility for a while, decide to adopt, welcome a teenager into their home, go through that adjustment period, and then in the last episode of the show, find out they were pregnant. By the time that moment came, it was a joyful bookend to a journey we’d followed for seasons, one that had already given them a family. And it didn’t feel like a consolation prize; it felt like an expansion of said family.
But the rub is in the order of things.
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Chicago Fire chose to end Season 13 with Stella pregnant, and Kelly and Stella seemingly overjoyed by this news. In doing so, despite some heavy setup about the two possibly adopting a teenager earlier in the season, the show set up an expectation. Even if that happened, the order would not be what we thought it would be at first. They’d figure out the baby, and then there would always be space in their family for more.
Instead, Chicago Fire opens Season 14 with a miscarriage that cuts really deep, not because we don’t understand it in real-world terms, but because we don’t understand it in fictional TV world terms. We know these things happen, especially so early in pregnancy. We just don’t understand it happening so often in One Chicago land, much less why, storytelling-wise, we ended in such a high to pick back up for the next season on such a low.
The storyline that’s coming is also, shall we say, familiar to One Chicago and to Chicago Fire in particular. Didn’t we see this with Joe and Javi? With Casey and the Dearden boys? I’d be the last person to say family only looks one way, but this is clearly more of a creative choice made to not keep Miranda Rae Mayo away from the action for so long, particularly after the show was forced to cut three important characters. And it is, perhaps, a desire not to deal with the ramifications of what would cost Stella, professionally, as interesting as those storylines could be.
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But we could have had storylines for Stella, even pregnant. We didn’t even need an entire season of her pregnant. There could have been a big time jump somewhere in there. After the birth, perhaps. We could have even had two time jumps, one to start the season to get her farther along in the pregnancy, and then one after the birth. There were multiple ways to do it, and a decision not to explore any of them.
I’m never going to be okay with that decision. What I do hope it brings is a renewed focus on the idea of family for Stella, and what that means. We saw the doctor tell her there was no reason she couldn’t get pregnant again. So, is that something she explicitly wants? The first one seems to have been a mistake; will they now try at some point? Are they leaving it all to chance? Will we see them discuss it? Once this decision is made, the show really needs to explore the emotional ramifications of it.
This shouldn’t be just about, well, now they get a kid some other way, so let’s forget about this thing Stella and Kelly went through—this loss. That’s not the way it works in real life. You don’t forget. You carry it around. Sometimes, it shapes you. So, if this is the road Chicago Fire is taking, they’d better be ready to walk it.
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But if we can go back to the beginning, I don’t think there was any need for it to be this way. We could have just had baby Stellaride, a happy pregnancy for one in One Chicago, and a good moment for the best couple on the franchise. The fans would have loved it. It would have given them reasons to invest, even after all these years. Sure, this is a drama, and we know what we’re signing up for. But when we get invested in these characters, we want to see some wins for them too, not just loss after loss after loss.
We can’t change what happened now. The show can still treat the after respectfully, and hopefully prove that this is all leading somewhere that makes sense. That there’s going to be emotional fallout, exploration. That Stella and Kelly are going to grow and change from this, or perhaps, for a bit, backslide and shut down. Any emotion is preferable to none. Hopefully, not all of those emotions will be transferred to this new kid and this new family. At least not for long. Sure, avoidance can be great for a while, but things always, always catch up.
Agree? Disagree? What do you think about this Chicago Fire Stellaride pregnancy storyline? Share with us in the comments below!
Chicago Fire airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.
