Kelly Severide is returning to 51. HELLO! understands that Taylor Kinney will be back with his Chicago Fire cast after taking an extended leave midway through season 11, with the character having been written into the first few episodes of season 12.
It remains unclear if he will return for the entire season or just the first batch of episodes.
In January 2023 it was announced that he was stepping back from the show due to an undisclosed personal matter, and scripts were rewritten to reflect the changes. ue to a personal matter, and scripts were rewritten to reflect the changes. He exited the show during the March 1 episode, which opened with Lieutenant Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) in the apartment she lives in with her husband Kelly, and she looked around as she left by herself for work.
The episode then cut to Firehouse 51 and Captain Van Meter walked into Deputy Chief commissioner Wallace Boden's office where they exchanged tense words.
"I want to explain," Van Meter said to which Boden asked: "Why you took my squad Lieutenant out of commission on a day's notice?"
"To be fair he could have said no but this is the best arson investigation training in the world, hands down," Van Meter continued, "a last minute opening like this is the opportunity of a lifetime for Sevreride. After seeing him hunt down that EV charger evidence last month I couldn't think of a better man."
"It doesn't mean he's planning a transfer to OFI," Van Meter then insisted, before sharing that he felt the expertise Severide will bring back will "benefit the whole department".
It later emerged that the training was taking place in Alabama.
By the end of the season, however, viewers discovered that Severide was no longer in Alabama and had agreed to help investigate a big arson case after impressing the instructors on his course – and had not informed his wife, Stella. Severide's decision to leave Alabama was discovered by Joe Cruz, who was informed by one of the academy's leaders.
When he asked Stella why no one had told him - Cruz had been covering for Kelly – it quickly became apparent that Stella had no idea of her husband's movements.
Season 12 would have premiered in September 2023 but the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike has pushed back production until early 2024 at the earliest.
After a negotiation session in mid-October the AMPTP, which brokers on behalf of studios, announced it was suspending talks with the union, which represents over 100,000 actors, because they were "no longer moving us in a productive direction".
As of October 31, the two sides are still negotiating, but SAG-AFTRA confirmed that they felt they were still far apart in terms of making a deal, and it is unclear when the strikes will end.
It is a major setback for Hollywood production, which has been at a standstill since May when the Writer's Guild of America went on strike; their strike lasted for 148 days and ended earlier in September after the two sides struck a deal.
The two strikes were unrelated though similar, with both industries largely arguing over better pay, particularly from streaming giants and their residuals, as well as better regulation over AI use of their likeness.