Chicago PD season 7 character review: Hank Voight

Our Chicago PD season 8 prognosis for Hank Voight

The biggest need for Hank Voight in Chicago PD season 8 is someone to counter-balance him. It was Olinsky, then the producers killed off Olinsky. It became Antonio, but then the producers had Antonio shipped off to rehab (and now he’s in Puerto Rico). There’s no one in Intelligence who is in a legitimate position to tell Voight no. Either they don’t seriously question him, or he steamrolls over them. Just look at the season premiere; Halstead was never seriously suspicious of Voight, and by the next episode, he was looking for his boss’s forgiveness.

Voight needs someone who will push back at him, and who he will take seriously when they do. The show needs it, too, because its biggest flaw from a storytelling perspective is how it has only one real point of view. There’s Intelligence’s way (which is essentially Voight’s way) and that’s the right way. So who’s going to fill that position? Maybe it’ll be Atwater, since he took the bold step of telling the truth about Tom Doyle; that proved he’s not backing down from anything, and it would also give LaRoyce Hawkins more to do.

But what would be even more impactful is for Voight to get more self-awareness and start to evolve. Intelligence has changed drastically over the last few seasons and Voight, as the leader, can adapt to that. There are a lot of Chicago PD fans who say Voight is their favorite character, but there are others who don’t always approve of what he does. It’d be excellent if the writers heard that and maybe tempered him slightly. He’s just seen what’s happening with Upton, so maybe he throttles back just a little because of it?

He can still kick butt without always crossing the line or allowing someone else to. And we as fans would embrace him even more for having that ability to change.

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