Chicago PD season 6 recruits The Brave’s Anne Heche

Former The Brave star Anne Heche has booked a recurring role in Chicago PD season 6 as another rival for Hank Voight and the Intelligence Unit.

Next season of Chicago PD has found its antagonist, and she’s coming from another recently cancelled NBC show.

Anne Heche will recur in multiple episodes of Chicago PD season 6, playing a high-ranking officer in the Chicago Police Department who inevitably butts heads with Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) and his crew.

Deputy Superintendent Katherine Brennan is described by Deadline as “a cunning and formidable opponent” who is “smart, to the point and political, but often self-serving.”

No details were given about how Brennan comes into contact with the Intelligence team, or how many episodes Heche will appear in next season, but she’ll be a familiar face to anyone who has been watching NBC.

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Anne Heche was a series regular as Patricia Campbell, the woman overseeing an elite unit, in NBC’s military drama The Brave. The series, which also starred Mike Vogel, was cancelled this spring after one season.

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We don’t know if Heche’s performance in The Brave is what brought her to the attention of Chicago PD‘s producers, but it might draw some additional eyes to the new season if fans of that show decide to follow her to One Chicago.

The bigger question for viewers is what kind of story the writers want to tell with Brennan, because based on this initial information, it doesn’t sound too far removed from the story that was just played out with last season’s recurring character, Lieutenant Denny Woods (Mykelti Williamson).

Both are higher-ranking Chicago Police Department officers who come into conflict with Voight. It doesn’t sound like Brennan has any history with him like Woods did, but she has the same general place in the big picture. Woods also had an eye toward the politics of policing and could definitely be described as self-serving!

The last thing Chicago PD wants to do is feel like it’s repeating the Denny Woods storyline, which dominated season 5 and didn’t quite pay off as much as the show hoped it would.

But conversely, if introducing Katherine Brennan can hit some of those big-picture story points that the Woods plot ignored in favor of his need for revenge—like the concept of police reform and the changing face of policing in Chicago—then we could see in season 6 some of the things we wanted to see this last season. We’ll have to wait until next month to find out.

The sixth season of Chicago PD begins Sept. 26 at 10 p.m. on NBC. Are you excited that Anne Heche is joining the cast? Let us know your take on this casting news in the comments.