'Chicago Fire' Season 13 Episode 20 "Cut Me Open" Review

This episode of Chicago Fire Cut Me Open digs deep and stays with you. It starts with Severide and Kidd getting a call about Jade Taylor, a 19-year-old who’s gone into labor and made the incredibly tough decision to place her baby for adoption. She’s scared, emotional, and trying to hold it together. Stella Kidd and Kelly Severide, who Jade personally chose to adopt her baby, arrive at Med just in time. They’re flustered, too. They thought they had more time. No baby gear, no nursery set up, but they’re committed. You can tell they’re in it with their whole hearts. At the firehouse the team sets out to make sure once Stella and Severide come home with the baby they will have everything that they need. Just had they hatch a plan things get complicated. 

Dr. Asher checks on Jade and notices the baby’s heart rate is dipping with each contraction. Nothing too alarming, but definitely something to watch. They help reposition her to improve blood flow. Then comes the harder part, Jade starts showing symptoms of opioid withdrawal. She hadn’t told anyone, but now it’s clear. Dr. Asher sits Stella and Kelly down and explains the reality: the baby will likely test positive, and withdrawal symptoms in newborns can be intense, seizures, feeding problems, irritability. Long-term effects aren’t off the table either. But Stella and Kelly don’t blink. They say they’re ready. No hesitation. No fear. Just love.

Back at Firehouse 51, it’s audit day. Ambrose Sterling, an efficiency evaluator for the city, shows up unannounced. He’s there to assess whether 51 is running at the level that justifies keeping it open. The tension is immediate. Herrmann clocks him right away. Sterling has no firehouse experience, but he’s walking around like he owns the place, questioning everything from their call structure to the way they train. Herrmann tries to be civil but loses patience when Sterling criticizes their use of backup plans. Herrmann tells him point-blank, this is a job where having a second plan isn’t inefficient, it’s necessary. With Pascal out all of this is on Hermann and it’s stressful. 

Meanwhile, Cruz decides to take matters into his own hands for Stella and Kelly. Cruz and Hermann reach out to Cindy for suggestions. Cindy drops by the firehouse to let her husband Herman know she went on a local Buy Nothing group and posts a request for baby supplies. It catches fire, people start dropping off everything from strollers to baby clothes to diapers. It’s one of those quiet moments where the heart of 51 really shines. Everyone rallies around them, not with big speeches, just through small acts of kindness. .

Back at Med, Jade suddenly cries out in pain. Her water’s broken, but something’s wrong. Dr. Asher realizes she has a uterine rupture, a tear that requires emergency surgery. Jade is rushed to the OR and put under. Just before they take her in, she asks for her dad, who’s just arrived after two years of silence. He can’t go in, but Stella holds her hand through it all.

The surgery was successful. Baby Victor is born, eight pounds, six ounces, strong and healthy. Dr. Asher tells Kelly that Jade’s stable. It’s a moment of relief after everything. Stella and Kelly finally meet the baby they were ready to bring home. They’re glowing, scared, tired, but deeply happy.

The team has assembled almost everything that Kidd and Severide could need, but a car seat. The team has the auditors there and they know they just can’t take the rig out to get the present without him saying something. They decide to say they are going to refuel. Sterling tags along with 51 on a supply run and they manipulate the situation slightly to refuel and get a car seat. The task works, but once back at the firehouse Sterling ends up collapsing from heat stress, the crew reacts immediately. Cooling him down, getting him safe. For once, he stops analyzing and starts understanding. It’s the first time he sees what 51 actually is. Not a spreadsheet. A family.

And just when everything feels like it’s finally clicking into place, a nurse pulls Stella and Kelly aside. Jade has changed her mind. She’s decided not to go through with the adoption. Her dad has agreed to take temporary guardianship while she enters rehab. Stella is blindsided. She asks to see Jade, not to change her mind, just to check on her, but it’s too late. Hospital policy says no further contact is allowed.

The crew back at 51 hears the news through Damon. Ritter, and Herrmann start quietly packing up all the donated baby items. There’s no anger. Just a silent kind of heartbreak. They put everything into storage. Maybe it’ll be needed one day.

Later, Stella learns that Jade asked to see her son one last time. She just wanted a moment. But once she held him, everything shifted. The feelings she’d buried came flooding back. Her father didn’t talk her into it like Stella originally thought, he just supported her. And something Stella had shared earlier stuck with her. It gave her hope.

Before they leave the hospital, Asher hands Stella a small note from Jade. It reads, “thank you for holding my hand.” And Stella, full of love and loss, says quietly, “I hope she gets the life she dreamed of. “

There’s no fire, no dramatic rescue, no big finale. Just people doing their best in an impossible moment. And in the quiet of it all, Chicago Fire reminds us that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go with grace.

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