NBC Not Airing ‘Chicago Fire’ Thursday Night Due to Winter Olympics Coverage

Thanks to the Winter Olympics coverage, NBC is not airing a new episode of Chicago Fire Thursday night. The series has been on an extended break during the action in Pyeongchang.

The next episode, titled “The F Is For,” will not air until Thursday, Mar. 1 at 10 p.m. ET. This extended break for the show has been insufferable since the previous episode, “Law of the Jungle,” ended with an incredible cliffhanger.

Casey (Jesse Spencer) and Severide (Taylor Kinney) tried to stop a chemical plant from exploding while the other members of Firehouse 51 rescued everyone inside. They both needed to keep a valve closed. The second they let go, the plant exploded. The two jumped off the building, and into the Chicago River. Will they survive? We still do not know.

Casey and Severide have been on the outs the past few episodes, since Severide’s mentor, Grissom (Gary Cole) showed up and tried to drive a wedge between Severide and the rest of the team. Grissom does not think Severide has been living up to his potential, and it all seemed like Severide was seriously considering leaving. But after learning that Casey still has his back, it looks like Severide will be sticking around a little longer.

“I was thinking about how to do a different one than anything we’ve done before, and I was thinking about that [Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid] scene where Robert Redford and Paul Newman run and jump off a cliff as the super posse is closing in on them,” showrunner Derek Haas told TVLine on Feb. 1.

“I said, ‘[Casey and Severide are] kind of our Butch and Sundance. I wonder if we could do something like that?’ We just got into the writers’ room and talked about a bunch of different scenarios. We wrote it… and we kept going back to that Butch and Sundance idea. When the director of that episode was directing them, he was like, ‘Oh yeah, we gotta do this similar to the Butch and Sundance thing!’”

The rest of Chicago Fire‘s sixth season will feature two new faces. Up first is Army Wives star Kim Delaney, who will play Severide’s mother, Jennifer Sheridan. According to Deadline, Jennifer is a religious and often quotes from the Bible. She was a partier, but has tried to live a straight and narrow life since her divorce from ex-husband Benny (Treat Williams).

The second new actor is Damon Dayoub, who will join as a “confident, rugged man’s man” firefighter named Jake Cordova, reports Deadline. Dayoub previously starred as Detective Quincy Fisher on Freeform’s Stitchers and has a guest role in Fox’s The Resident. He also had a role on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie.

Photo credit: NBC