Chicago Fire is finally on the way back to primetime after an

extended hiatus, and the new season will fortunately feature the

return of Taylor Kinney as Kelly Severide. Less fortunately,

Season 12 will also include the departures of some stars. Now that another firefighter has been cast for Firehouse 51, I’m reminded of a past tragedy that makes me very nervous for none other than Alberto Rosende’s Blake Gallo.

Let’s start with the good news! Rome Flynn, known for The Bold and the Beautiful, How to Get Away with Murder, and most recently Amazon Prime Video’s With Love, joins the cast of Chicago Fire in Season 12. Deadline reports that Flynn will portray Jake Gibson, a new member of Truck 81 who left behind a life as an amateur boxer and comes with a dark past. He wins a spot on Truck after some heroics, although fans will have to wait until One Chicago’s return in the 2024 TV premiere schedule to find out exactly what happens. Flynn will recur in Season 12, although his role could expand, and he’s set to debut in the second episode of Season 12.

And under normal circumstances, I’d be nothing but excited about the arrival of a new firefighter who could mix things up at Firehouse 51. After all, a show more than 200 episodes in needs some new variables every once in a while, and an amateur boxer-turned-firefighter with a mysterious past fits the bill. But Season 12 isn’t arriving under normal circumstances, and I’m not just saying that because of the delays due to the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike.

Alberto Rosende will leave Chicago Fire after four full seasons, with his departure happening in the Season 12 premiere. That episode already has multiple cliffhangers to resolve; now, there’s the mystery of how Gallo says goodbye. In explaining his decision to depart Chicago Fire, the actor said that he was proud of the stories he was able to tell over the years, but didn’t drop any spoilers about his character’s fate.

With Rosende leaving in the season premiere and a new firefighter arriving on the scene to join Truck in the second episode, I can’t be the only one flashing back to how Chicago Fire said goodbye to Yuri Sardarov as Otis and introduced Gallo! While there was no announcement ahead of time in 2019 that Sardarov was leaving to suggest that Otis’ death could be imminent, fans will remember that the hit drama replaced Otis with Gallo in Episode 2 of Season 8 after a time jump. And flashing back to how Fire killed off Otis just makes me all the more nervous for Gallo’s fate.

Admittedly, Gallo isn’t the Truck firefighter who was left in mortal peril in the Season 11 finale, as Mouch bleeding out was one of Fire’s three cliffhangers back in the spring. And Mouch dying would free up a spot on Truck for Rome Flynn’s Jake Gibson to join just as Gallo dying would. But there would really be no surprise if Mouch died, since fans have had a very long hiatus to reflect on the fact that he was in very bad shape. Gallo dying? That would be a different story.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that nobody dies in the premiere and Gallo leaves for an entirely innocent reason. I’ve been assuming that Kara Killmer’s departure as Brett will involve a happy ending with Casey, so perhaps I should just be equally optimistic about Gallo instead of keep flashing back to Otis. Whatever happens, Rome Flynn could be a great addition to the Chicago Fire family, and arriving in Episode 2 of the new season just like Gallo did doesn’t mean that somebody has to die in Episode 1.