How Chicago Fire Wrote Out Severide While Taylor Kinney Takes Leave

We now know what will keep Lieutenant Kelly Severide away on Chicago Fire while his portrayer Taylor Kinney takes a break from the NBC drama.

At the top of this Wednesday’s episode, Severide’s wife, Stella, was greeted by an empty apartment while her hubby was off at an arson investigation training program in Alabama. (Kinney did not appear in the episode.)

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As OFI boss Van Meter explained to Boden, who was miffed that he lost one of his best firefighters with one day’s notice, the last-minute opportunity was just too good to pass up. And it’s not like it means Severide is going to transfer to OFI, Van Meter added.

While the rest of the firehouse was happy for Severide, Brett did note that she doesn’t envy Stella because she knows how difficult it is to maintain a long-distance relationship.

As we reported on Jan. 20, the longtime series regular is taking a leave of absence from his role to deal with a personal matter. The production was notified of Kinney’s news on that Friday, and given the unexpected turn of events, script rewrites were required to account for why Severide is missing in action.

TVLine helpfully came up with several scenarios for how the series could explain the firefighter’s temporary vanishing act, which included storylines about a rescue gone wrong and a trip to help out Matt Casey in the Pacific Northwest. But the show went with an explanation closer to our Office of Fire Investigation idea.

Chicago Fire fans, what did you think of the show’s explanation for Severide’s absence?

Launch Gallery: Dear <i>Chicago Fire</i>: We Need Some Happy Storylines, ASAP!

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