How Chicago PD could have written out Antonio Dawson

Chicago PD said goodbye to Antonio Dawson in the season finale, but it wasn’t a big farewell. Here’s how Jon Seda’s character could have left.

When Chicago PD producers announced that Jon Seda wouldn’t be brought back for next season, One Chicago fans expected his character Antonio Dawson would get a sendoff during the season 6 finale.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. The season finale “Reckoning” had Antonio in a moral quandary, given incriminating information that would bury the Internal Affairs cop re-investigating his cover-up.

But Antonio refused to use the cop’s daughter against him, and the last viewers saw of Chicago PD‘s fan favorite character was him popping another painkiller—clearly remorseful that his lack of action had led to the arrest of Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger).

There was no clear answer about if Ruzek’s arrest would also get Antonio in trouble, or where he wound end up if not in Intelligence.

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And there’s not likely to be one, since contrary to what fans are hoping for and have speculated about, there’s no confirmed plan for Jon Seda to come back in the season 7 premiere to wrap up Antonio’s story arc.

So where does that leave One Chicago fans, who invested so much in this character? And where does it leave Antonio, whose fate right now is frustratingly vague?

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Some of what happened in “Reckoning” did work; given that Antonio is devoted to his family, it made sense that he wouldn’t want to destroy anyone else’s.

Plus, given that the other cop’s daughter was a drug addict, certainly Antonio—now a recovering addict—could empathize with her. (It’s a stark contrast from what happened last season, in which Voight planted drugs on a recovering addict while trying to keep Alvin Olinsky out of prison.)

But Chicago PD fans still needed, and deserved, more answers. And there was an opportunity in the season finale which would have given Antonio a firm exit story, while also fitting perfectly with what’s been going on in the show for years.

What if Antonio had resigned from Intelligence? What if, given how his moral code has often been at odds with what goes on in the unit, he’d just come to the decision that he could no longer be in this team?

So much happens in Chicago PD that is morally questionable, and Voight even pointed out at the start of season 6 how Antonio balances him out. Antonio’s seen a lot over six seasons, and butted heads with Voight more than once (like this). If he just said he was done, that could be a poignant comment on a theme the show has toyed with but never fully executed yet—how working in the Intelligence Unit can catch up with you.

Plus, it’d give fans the hope that he’d go off and find something that would make him happy and perhaps allow him to spend time with his family. After all, his family was why he originally left the show once before to join the Chicago Justice team.

Or, if the show insisted on going the grim route, it could have had Antonio confess and be arrested for the death of that drug dealer. It would have been terribly painful to watch (and you could argue ending two seasons with two characters behind bars would be too similar), but that too would be appropriate. Antonio has tried to stick to his principles, and following them even when it’d change his life for the worse would make sense.

Anything would have been more rewarding than seeing him sitting in a car, taking another pill and telling us all we know about him is that his drug addiction—a storyline which many fans didn’t like in the first place—was taking control of him again. But Chicago PD left fans hanging, and left his fate up in the air.

For the latest Chicago PD season 6 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago PD category at One Chicago Center.