Chicago PD season 6 midseason report: Hank Voight

What it means

The idea of an off-balance, even suicidal Hank Voight was a very interesting place for Chicago PD to start the season. The Intelligence Unit revolves around him; not only is he the leader on paper, but the officers under his command are influenced by his behavior and they’ve proven many times that they’re loyal to Voight. So if he spun out of control, the whole team was going to go.

Unfortunately, Voight’s emotional and mental health was only explored in the first episode back, and the context for why he was beaten up didn’t even make it into the episode (but you can watch the missing scene by playing the video below). There was a lot that could be done, but this is also not a show that lends itself to extended character explorations; it’s the most action-heavy of the three One Chicago series and sometimes that comes at a price.

What’s been interesting is that Voight has been more of a supporting character in the front nine episodes. Maybe that’s because the majority of Chicago PD season 5 was about him in some way, but he’s been less dominant than usual, which has allowed other characters and storylines to be in the foreground.

That’s not necessarily bad; Jason Beghe is still the engine that drives this show, and it’s not that he isn’t valuable. But the way the show is writing him is kind of analogous to Voight’s position within the team. He won’t be around forever; he’s already been arrested once and almost lost his badge in the last season. The team needs to learn how to stand on their own without him, and they are having to do that a bit more now. But they’ve still got a lot to figure out.