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'Chicago Fire' EP warns viewers of 'heartache' as Severide and Van Meter battle to survive in show's return

'Chicago Fire' returns with the eighth episode of season 14, titled 'A Man Possessed', on Wednesday, January 7, at 9 pm ET

When 'Chicago Fire' season fourteen ended its fall premiere back in November 2024 with a haunting cliffhanger, fans of the NBC show could hardly contain their excitement. The long wait for the upcoming Winter premiere is almost over as 'Chicago Fire' returns with the eighth episode of season fourteen titled 'A Man Possessed'. The episode airs on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, at 9 pm ET/8 pm CT, exclusively on NBC. As with all the other episodes of the first responder drama show, 'A Man Possessed' will be available for streaming on Peacock the next day. 

The logline for the upcoming episodes reveals, "When an act of arson harms someone close to the Firehouse 51 family, Severide must track down the perpetrator." As reported by Us Weekly, the fan-favourite characters of Kelly Severide, played by Taylor Kinney, and Tim Hopper's Tom Van Meter have been trying their best to solve an arson case involving a high school principal. Following up on a lead, the two arson investigators paid a visit to the Principal's residence right before a deadly fire broke out, trapping all three of them inside. 

'Chicago Fire' executive producer Reza Tabrizi spoke at length about the upcoming winter premiere in an exclusive interview with TVInsider. When asked about the ultimate fate of Van Meter and Severide, Tabrizi revealed, "The way the writers pulled the fall finale together where every storyline had its own cliffhanger was really interesting to basically continue as we get into winter premiere, but the Severide, Van Meter, and Mr. Cole element is obviously something that Severide himself has been in this situation a lot of times where he ends up in a position that he needs to MacGyver his way out of." 

Tabrizi added, "Now, this time obviously, Van Meter is there, who has experience with fire, but of course, things can't be that easy. So there's definitely going to be challenges as far as how they work their way out of danger and how much out of danger is for us to find out." Meanwhile, the adverse situation in which they find themselves will be conducive to Van Peter and Severide forging a deeper connection, as hinted by Tabrizi when he said, "Severide has found Van Meter to be that next almost father figure type dynamic. And as we've seen this season with Isaiah around and Van Meter and Severide having a conversation about fatherhood and all that, there's even more that they are sharing now, and they can talk about. So it is going to be interesting to see how that dynamic develops coming out of this situation that they're in now." 

USA Today confirmed that 'Chicago Fire' season fourteen has fourteen more episodes to air, with the finale episode for all three 'One Chicago' shows slated to arrive later this year in May. Alongside Kinney and Hopper, 'Chicago Fire' also stars Brandon Larracuente, Dermot Mulroney, Miranda Rae Mayo, Joe Miñoso, David Eigenberg, Christian Stolte, Jocelyn Hudon, and Hanako Greensmith in pivotal roles.