Chicago Fire on NBC season 14 fall finale review

SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Fire Season 14, Episode 7.

The Chicago Fire Season 14 fall finale moves on from some of the big plot points that the NBC show has been playing with so far. And it’s no surprise that it ends in a cliffhanger. But Chicago Fire has set its finale bar so high over the years that Season 14, Episode 7 is a pretty quiet midseason finale.

“Pierce the Vein” does see the welcome return of Kelly Severide the arson investigator. There’s a reason Severide puts his OFI hat on so regularly; it’s always really entertaining to see him in that position. Plus, it means getting to see actor Tim Hopper return as Captain Van Meter. This time, the duo look into a school fire that turns out to be a planned attack on the intensely disliked principal. Hopper and Taylor Kinney are in fine form here, and the last shot of the episode — that the arsonist is setting fire to the principal’s apartment building with him, Severide and Van Meter inside — is certainly a dramatic ending.

But here’s the thing: Chicago Fire has tried to kill Kelly Severide before a lot of times, and those predicaments have been a lot more intense. The end of “Pierce the Vein” pales in comparison to most of what Severide has been through, so it…