‘Chicago Fire’ Exit: Annie Ilonzeh Leaving Ahead of Season 9
Firehouse 51 is losing one of its own between seasons.
Annie Ilonzeh, who has played paramedic Emily Foster on Chicago Fire for two seasons, won’t be back for Season 9, Deadline reports.
The last couple episodes of Season 8 even set up an exit for her character. She performed a fasciotomy to save a man showing signs of compartment syndrome in his arm during a protest at the house in “Light Things Up.” After, Med‘s Will (Nick Gehlfuss) asked which trauma surgeon’s work it was, and when she told him it was hers, he commented that she’d missed her “calling.”
In the finale, she revealed that she’d decided to go back to med school and had applied, which caused a bit of conflict with Brett (Kara Killmer). She interviewed at Northwestern, but her application status was still pending at the end of “51’s Original Bell.” With news of Ilonzeh’s departure, it’s likely that she’ll get in.
(Adrian S. Burrows Sr./NBC)
How will this affect Brett? She’s not only going to be losing her partner in Ambulance 61, but her friend as well — and she just suffered a major loss in her birth mother.
“We were going to keep the pressure and the combustibility on her storyline,” showrunner Derek Haas told TV Insider about the plan for Brett’s storyline if the season hadn’t been cut short. “Now, we’ll have to rethink how we’re going to handle this story in the next season.”
Let’s just hope that whoever replaces Foster fits in well at 51.
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