“Someone won’t make it.” Those are the words that get plastered over the screen of the Chicago Fire season 11, episode promo. It’s chilling to consider, but it’s plain as day. After next week, the 51 will be down a character.

But who? The show has done so much to develop each of the truck and squad members, and it feels like losing any one of them would be devastating. Of course, what the characters do for a living is deadly, and Fire does a great job of reminding us.

Here’s a rundown of who could be on the chopping block for next week’s shocker.

Who dies or leaves in Chicago Fire season 11?

The most obvious candidate is Sam Carver (Jake Lockett). He proved that he’s shaky in the field, which is why Severide (Taylor Kinney) had to help him out, and while his heart seems to be in the right place, one wrong move could mean the difference between life and death.

There’s also the fact that he’s the newest addition to the team, and is therefore the easiest to lose. It sounds callous, perhaps, but we know so little about Carver, and whether he’s someone worthy of our affection yet, that losing him would hurt much less than say, Ritter (Daniel Kyri) or Mouch (Christian Stolte).

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Then again, the show could pivot and kill off an established character in a shocking twist. It would be devastating to see someone like the aforementioned Ritter or Mouch die, and while peripheral characters like Chief Hawkins (Jimmy Nicholas) and Kyle Sheffield (Teddy Sears) would make sense to lose, their duties generally keep them out of harm’s way. It’d be very odd to see Hawkins charge into a burning building, which seems to be the setting for whatever goes wrong.

It’s interesting that the show would roll out such a major announcement so early in the season, as these sort of shakeups are reserved for premieres, mid-season finales, and finales. There’s always a chance the promo could be a misdirect, and the character who dies is simply one of the victims in the building, but we don’t think Fire would take such a dramatic approach.

It’s going to be a tense week, we’ll tell you that much.

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