Chicago Fire on NBC season 14, episode 5 review

SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Fire Season 14, Episode 5.

Give credit to Chicago Fire for taking its usual Halloween episode and adding different layers to it. Season 14, Episode 5, “Ghosts” does really have a ghost in it, and the actual Halloween part is a bit of a reach. But what makes the NBC show work is when it uses the word “ghost” in a less literal sense. There’s a thematic connection that makes this hour a whole lot stronger.

The actual ghost story involves Joe Cruz, who spends the episode trying to locate a good samaritan who helped him during a fire at an apartment building. The elderly man informs Cruz that the woman in apartment K needs help, and Cruz is able to save her life. However, the man has disappeared into thin air. At the episode’s end, Violet Mikami tells Cruz that she responded to a call at that same building before it was renovated, and shows him a picture of one of the former tenants that matches Cruz’s mystery man. However, that gentleman passed away three years earlier — after living in apartment K. The implication is that Daniel Grady’s ghost gave Cruz a helping hand. It’s a heartwarming way to work in the Halloween angle, and certainly more effective than Chicago Med‘s haunted treatment room.