Chicago PD season 7 character preview: Jay Halstead

What should happen

When Chicago PD season 7 premieres, Halstead should be the one leading the charge against his boss. He’s the only one who knows that Voight was going to see Brian Kelton (recurring guest star John C. McGinley), and now Kelton is dead. Jay ought to be smart enough to connect the dots, and the outright murder should be against his moral code, even though it’s Kelton.

It’d be great TV for him to seriously push back against Voight, instead of another situation where the team is kind of shocked for half an episode and then rallies behind whoever’s in trouble. The best thing the show could do is have genuine conflict within Intelligence for more than a little bit, and Jay Halstead is a great character to do that with, being such a stand-up guy.

Since he was more of a supporting player last season, it’d also be great to have a plotline where Jay is featured, perhaps actually developing his personal life. It doesn’t need to be another affair; the whole Camila thing was a bust anyway. But Jay has to decide where his life is going—he just lost his dad, he got himself shot, and now he may or may not be getting involuntarily promoted.

It would make perfect sense if he took some time to figure out what he wants, decides to connect more with his brother (especially after everything Will just went through), makes a friend or builds on an existing friendship. How about some more scenes between Halstead and Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins)? We haven’t seen a ton of them together, and Atwater could give Jay some good advice about siblings and dealing with family-related drama.