Updated November 5, 2026, 4:46 p.m. ET
In one of his final moments in “Chicago Fire,” Joe Cruz (Joe Miñoso) has powerful parting words for his dear, late best friend, Brian “Otis” Zvonecek (Yuriy Sardarov).
“I’ll always be with you, brother,” Cruz said during an emotional farewell at fallen firefighter Otis’ memorial outside Fire Station 51. Miñoso suggested the powerful scene for Cruz’s farewell in the milestone 300th episode of the NBC drama, “Three Hundred,” airing Wednesday, Nov. 4 (now streaming on Peacock).
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“I just knew there had to be something between these two brothers,” Miñoso told USA TODAY. “There had to be some sort of final chapter, a closure to this relationship.”
The farewell has special meaning as it echoes Otis’ last words to Cruz before he died from injuries sustained in a mattress factory fire in 2019’s Season 8 premiere. Speaking in Russian, Otis told his best friend from his deathbed, “Brother, I will always be with you.”
For Miñoso, the tribute was more than Cruz’s farewell to Otis and the fire station. After 15 seasons, this was his own chance to “say thank you and goodbye to the fans.”
But walking across the stage without tears was another matter.
“I want it to be a moment of joy,” Miñoso recalled telling the episode’s director before filming. “I don’t want to cry through this scene.”
But as the cameras rolled, “there was such a surge of emotion.”
“I’m so happy that it had an impact,” Miñoso says.
Cruz also returns Otis’ wooden cane, a symbol of his late friend’s resilience. Firehouse 51 veteran firefighter Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) had given Cruz the cane to inspire him to recover from a spinal injury suffered in the season 14 finale. The cane had been hanging on a wall in Firehouse 51 since Otis recovered from his own devastating injury in season 6. In his final episode, Cruz promises to put the cane back on the wall, “where it belongs.”
Cruz had overcome all obstacles, regaining his ability to walk and maintaining hope of returning to firefighting. But ultimately, he decided to leave Chicago and put his family first, intending to move to Minneapolis with his wife, Chloe, and their growing family.
The real brotherhood continues off-screen. Miñoso and Sardarov remain close friends and recently collaborated on the short film “Long Lost,” written and produced by Miñoso. The two discuss a possible “Chicago Fire” rewatch podcast.
While Cruz leaves Chicago with his family, Miñoso will stay in the Windy City with his wife, makeup artist Caitlin Murphy Miles, and return to direct future episodes of “Chicago Fire.” But the actor hasn’t completely abandoned his longtime role.
“I grabbed my helmet, I grabbed a few things,” Miñoso says, adding that the actors presented him with an honorary Slamigan, a hybrid firefighting tool invented by Cruz that combines a hammer and a Halligan bar to pry open locked doors.
“The guys on the team introduced him to me during my ‘promotion’ night,” says Miñoso. “This Slamigan has already been assembled at my house.”
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