Chicago Fire season 11 episode 9 spoilers follow.
Season 11 of Chicago Fire has ended with a bang this year, quite literally, as a grenade went off leaving Carver and Stella's lives in the balance.
But before that, we saw the similarly explosive return of Emma, the disgraced paramedic played by Caitlin Carver. She famously lied and blackmailed during her tenure, before getting fired for abandoning her partner on the job. Now she's back and working for IAD.
Related: Chicago Med showrunners talk Brian Tee exit
Showrunners Derek Haas and Andrea Newman opened up about this fan-favourite villain's surprise return and revealed that they always wanted to bring Emma back, as she offers a fun way to cause chaos for the main characters.
"I can just say that in this show, there’s nothing that Andrea and I love more than remembering an old villain and bringing them back to wreck some lives," Haas told TVLine.
"[Emma] was so good last year at playing that that bringing Caitlin back just was top of mind.
"We didn't know where or when we would fit her in, but winter finales are always fun for these kinds of [obstacles], and we wanted it to be a big surprise, but not be the end of the episode, because sometimes you want people just going, 'Oh, God, what else is coming?'"
Related: How to watch Chicago Fire, PD and Med
Newman added: "We love this character. We love our villains, but the character is so fun because she just does not see herself as a villain at all.
"So it's like the way our guys feel about her versus the way she sees her place at 51. She feels completely connected to 51, and that's a fun thing to explore, too."
Once the show returns in the New Year, Chicago Fire will explore how Emma ended up in a such a high-flying job following her dismissal and it seems like there will be trouble on the cards for anyone who gets in her way.
Chicago Fire airs on Peacock in the US, and on Sky Witness in the UK.
Best Entertainment and Tech Deals
Coronation Street X Joanie - Gilroy Retro Newton And Ridley Sweatshirt
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer and resident Welsh person at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016.
In his time he's covered a host of live events, interviewed celebrities big and small and crowbarred a countless amount of great/awful (delete as appropriate) puns into articles.
A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe's main interest is in video gaming. Although particularly a PlayStation gamer, he plays across Xbox, Nintendo and PC/Steam Deck, and likes to keep tabs on many games he's not got the time to play.
Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish (which you really should do).
