Chicago PD season 8 character preview: Jay Halstead

What will Chicago PD season 8 have in store for Jay Halstead?

With Chicago PD season 8 coming in just a few weeks, it’s time once again to preview the new season for each character and look ahead to fresh episodes.

Where did your favorite character leave off when we saw them last? What are the big facts that fans need to remember before the season premiere? Where should they go next in season 8 for the best outcome? And is that where they’ll actually end up, or what direction is the show likely to take them in based on what we know so far?

Check out our detailed character preview, and let us know your thoughts on where you’d like to see each character go and why in the comments.

In this article, we’re profiling Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer).

Where we left off

Halstead definitely got the short end of the stick during Chicago PD season 7. It started out with him apologizing profusely to Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) after going against orders in the season premiere.

Two episodes later he was almost killed in the first One Chicago crossover event, when the man who’d unleashed a deadly infection on Chicago forced Jay to cut himself with the plan of infecting him as well. Only mere seconds stopped Halstead from becoming a victim.

Then Jay felt incredibly guilty after sending a murder suspect to jail in hopes of getting him to cooperate, only to have said suspect get killed and finding out that the man was innocent. In true Jay Halstead fashion he was so torn up about it that he tried to befriend the suspect’s widow and young child.

Unfortunately, she found out who he really was and decided to shoot him in the midseason finale. That landed him temporarily in the hospital but he was physically okay, if not mentally scrambled. And the season ended with his partner Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) being sent to New York, as Jay waited for her to get back.