The 5 Best Moments In The One Chicago 2025 Crossover Event

Never let it be said that the One Chicago Universe doesn't know how to stage a crossover. The three-part "In the Trenches" mega-crossover is the very first one the franchise has undertaken since the COVID-19 pandemic, and it manages to wrap up a large number of characters, keep the stakes high, and make you care about all of them as things go dramatically sideways. Even better, it's a chance for the characters from these three dramas — who work within feet of one another on the mean streets of their city without interacting too frequently — to spend time on cases and generally interacting in a friendly manner. But sometimes those connections can turn antagonistic when values clash and aims refuse to align.

But what were the very best moments? The most thrilling, the most touching, the sweetest? It's the ones that tell us the most about the show's characters and the ones that helped drive the story going forward. Here are the five best moments that took place during the "In The Trenches" crossover event.

The biggest conflict on display during the crossover was a fight between Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) and Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt). The pair clash over whether or not it's ethical for Voight and his team to demand Charles's doctors extubate a woman who stands accused of causing the explosion which has destroyed a city building and caused a cave-in within the subway system below them. The woman has been severely burned in the disaster, setting up Charles and Dr. Caitlin Lennox (Sarah Ramos) for a confrontation with Voight and Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati). 

Burgess and Voight want and need information from the woman by any means necessary, because Trudy Platt (Amy Morton) has been shot three times by employees of the woman. Trudy now lies between life and death in the same hospital. As if that isn't horrible enough, the woman's daughter, Ellie (Antonella Rose) is at the hospital waiting for her to awaken from sedation — and Adam Ruzek (Patrick Flueger) is trapped below ground with at least one of the perps. 

Charles and Lennox stand up for the rights of their patient, refusing to compromise her health, and hospital director Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) backs them up. Fortunately, Trudy survives two crashes and manages to give Hank the information he needs before it's too late. She comes through just in time to save Ruzek before the criminals in question make mincemeat out of him. In the end, Charles and Voight come away with new respect for one another — which is what a good crossover ought to do.

After seasons of earning a little bit of seniority in the field, "Chicago Fire" mainstay Violet Mikami (Hanako Greensmith) gets to step out and step up when she's put in charge of triage during the disaster. Her no-nonsense approach shows that she's ready to lead an entire squadron all on her own — and how a character reacts to her authority is an early indicator of that character's villainy, setting Violet on the path of being the moral compass of "Chicago Fire."

During her time heading triage, Violet helps a crashing patient survive. She does so with quick, impressive decisiveness. In that same moment Lauren Bates (Jennifer Regan of "The Heart, She Holler"), an old friend of Trudy Platt's who works in security at the building that's imploded, asserts herself by demanding attention for a friend. Violet notes the injury doesn't look severe, angering an impatient Bates. 

This is a big piece of foreshadowing that hints that Bates is the kind of gal who definitely isn't into being altruistic — while she also ends up having direct connections to the explosion and Trudy's shooting. Violet sensing that first definitely makes her smart, moral, and centered enough that fans of the show can trust her. It even makes her constant backbiting toward Chicago Gaffney mainstay John Frost (Darren Barnet) worthwhile. 

Nothing centers all three parts of "In the Trenches" more than the love story between Randy "Mouch" McHolland (Christian Stolte) and Trudy Platt. They start out feuding and fighting over the fact that the usually caring and sweet Mouch managed to forget Trudy's birthday, due to all the hubbub regarding him passing the lieutenants' test. The couple is at odds before Trudy gets shot, but there's nothing like a near-death experience to bring spouses closer together. 

A particularly touching scene takes place at Trudy's bedside after she's had surgery. A devastated Mouch struggles with Trudy's injury, sobbing at her bedside and begging her to come back to him. It underscores how much the best couple on "Chicago Fire" really mean to one another. Thankfully, Trudy pulls through, leaving Mouch one happy man — and giving him a chance to make amends with his wife one more time. 

Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo of "True Detective") and Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) also go through it during the crossover, but after seasons of watching them fight and be at loggerheads, they finally get their stuff together during the crossover and realize they need to devote more time to their relationship. After spending the beginning of their episode tentatively discussing children and their desire to experience some balmier weather, they finally stick to it and get out of town. Sometimes, romance really is the One Chicago franchise's greatest strength, and this pairing proves it in spades.

Of course, they have to deal with a whole lot of conflict first — Stella almost suffocates to death in the subway system, and Kelly almost has to listen to her lose her life — but in the end they don't back away from their emotions and they don't let go and let distance speak for them. Instead they communicate, and are richly rewarded for their faith in one another. For audiences who had to watch them fight for seasons, that's a real vacation.

The biggest surprise of "In the Trenches" is finding out how well Stella Kidd and Adam Ruzek work as a team. Both are spitfires with a bit of rebellion in them, so perhaps it shouldn't be too shocking that they hit it off professionally. But the crossover completely proves that they make a perfect combo — the kind of team that doesn't grow on trees.

They manage to smooth out each other's rough edges beautifully while trapped underground. When Kidd begins to panic over a lack of oxygen, Ruzek talks her down; when he jumps the gun and blames an innocent for the explosion, she stops him from going off half-cocked. The balance here is what's so introiguing and makes it the highlight of the crossover: it does what all such pairings should do and fleshes out both halves of the whole, making them the greater sum of their parts. That's what a good One Chicago crossover does at its best, and what putting Ruzek and Kidd together ultimately does for all three sections of the crossover.