Chicago PD season 12 has officially come to an end, and the finale most certainly did not disappoint!
The penultimate episode of the season set the stage for a very Voight-centric episode, and the finale found a perfect balance between spotlighting Voight’s battle with Reid and giving fans a fulfilling celebration of Burgess and Ruzek. It was a true full-circle episode, bringing a fitting culmination to the season’s main arc, while planting some major seeds for the next season.
To unpack how the finale came together and the implications its developments will have on season 13, One Chicago Center caught up with Chicago PD showrunner Gwen Sigan to discuss "the challenge of integrating a romantic milestone into the series’ signature grit, while maintaining the emotional stakes that shaped every character arc in the episode —especially for Voight, whose journey this season has been defined by introspection and the inevitable return of his darker instincts.
Sigan also opened up about what lies ahead next season, teasing a changed Torres, a complicated dynamic between Voight and Chapman, and a still-unresolved thread between Atwater and Val!
One Chicago Center: Obviously, the wedding was a huge part of the finale. Was it tricky to determine the scale and the tone of the wedding since PD hasn't really had a ton of them historically?
Gwen Sigan: Yeah, definitely. We're not known for weddings or really romantic storylines, so it was challenging to figure out. We knew we were going to have a lot of stakes in this episode, and we knew it was going to be very much a Voight episode. So, how do you fit a wedding into that and not make it feel jarring, and allow it to still be our show and to still feel like our show? We kind of settled on this idea that we would lean into the juxtaposition of giving Ruzek and Burgess this happiness that they deserve, but then also allowing us to see different POVs from our characters who are not in that same place. And I think by showing everybody's headspace and mindset, it kind of ended up with this very bittersweet tone, which I quite enjoyed, and it felt like it was in the pocket for our show.
On that topic, with Torres in particular, he gets lots of contemplative, quiet moments throughout the episode, such as when he enters the church to be in the wedding. He's dealt with guilt a lot this season. Would you say that burden of guilt that he's been carrying around has been lifted, and do you feel like we will see kind of a different version of Torres moving forward?
Yeah, I definitely think we're gonna see a different version of him. I don't think the guilt has been lifted. I think it's settling in pretty deep and sort of anchoring him a little bit. That moment when he walks into the church and we just see that this man who has grown up in a church is uncomfortable, is so foreign to him, and I think so destabilizing.
Next season, we're gonna see this person that has sort of been hit by all of his mistakes so hard, and is learning from them, but is also in this really delicate, vulnerable spot where so many of the foundations of his life don't feel like bedrocks anymore. To see him kind of have to get back into the light and what that journey could look like, is really exciting to me to write. I think it will be, it'll be really interesting and and a completely different version of this guy.
Jumping back a little bit in the episode, when desks are being cleared out, we see a couple of photos of Olinsky. Obviously, the episode has a lot to do with Voight and his inability or his reluctance to accept help from other people. How much does Olinsky's death inform that decision, because it felt important for the show to have those pictures of him present.
I think it harkens back to even last season and the very first episode of this season. [Voight] hallucinated Olinsky in the finale of last season when he was dying, and Olinsky said, you don't get to die yet. There's more and Voight remembered that hallucination pretty clearly.
Starting out this season, I think he was the most introspective he's been, because he was thinking like, if there's more, what is it? At the start of the season, he was definitely overworking himself. And then to us as writers, it sort of became Chapman. It became this hope and idea of something that I think he had cut himself off from, and believed, ‘I'm never gonna have a romantic relationship again. I'm never gonna have a partner again.’ And we sort of saw that there was this possibility that she represented that maybe there could be more.
Then by the time we got to the end of the season, I think that question was really central in our minds. Writing that finale, wanting to test Voight, who I think has been slowly trying to evolve this season, but we're testing him and asking is he still the same? Does that person from season one still live inside of him? Is he still the person who has these base instincts that one could argue are the same as Reid’s, right? Like that was the whole thing that Reid said.
We wanted to test that as much as possible and to me, Olinsky is such a part of that conversation because it not only was his partner, but it's also the thing that has sparked this whole sort of internal battle that he's had all season. So much of the good and all of the bad Voight, is represented in Oinsky and his relationship with Oinsky.
So, yeah, it felt very thematic to us to include that and to have him, to have the audience understanding a little bit of what's going on in his headspace too.
On the topic of Chapman, that closing scene between her and Voight is pretty impactful. Without getting too overtly spoilery, what can you tease about what is next for the pair from here? Will it sort of evolve in a different way?
I mean, I think she heard him. I think that she listened to what he was saying in that moment.
In my head, I think a lot of what he was saying is like, ‘I'm not capable of anything more,’ and I think she hears him in that moment. Also, I think the actions he took in the finale are something she can't really abide by. So there's definitely a boundary that has been drawn and almost a breakup of some emotional components to their relationship.
I think there will be fallout from it. For Voight, there's gonna be a cost to that. And then for Chapman, she's not leaving Chicago. She’s not leaving her job because of this man, so to see them professionally have to navigate a different sort of relationship, I think it'll be messy and pretty interesting.
Speaking of relationships, there are a lot of phone calls that go unanswered over the course of the episode, including one from Val to Atwater. Will we get to circle back on that couple next season?
We haven't gotten back in the room yet, so I think that there's everything's a possibility at this moment. It's all an opportunity. We saw Atwater grow a lot in that relationship with Val, it was sort of complicated, and I think it made him have to be honest and talk about his feelings, talk about emotion, and talk about his flaws. Things that he's he's not perfect at and kind of let somebody else be not perfect with him during it, but I also think we see in that last moment, when he was overwhelmed, his instinct was to isolate. So I think that's also kind of interesting and can spell a lot of different things in that relationship coming. We'll have to wait and see next season to see where it all kind of falls out.
Looking back on the season 12 finale, what is it about this one that makes it special for you? What is it about this one that kind of stands out from the previous ones you've worked on?
I think there are a few things. For me, the Voight-Chapman [storyline stands out as] it felt fresh because we just haven't gotten to see Voight get that close to some sort of romantic relationship. I think that felt really interesting and felt like we were seeing into his head a bit when he makes certain decisions. Then I think the other thing for me is I liked the way that it came together with the pacing and the emotion of it. Writing it, I wanted it to be like Voight was constantly just hitting walls throughout the whole episode, and that he was constantly having to ask himself a question of ‘Do I just go off on my own and do this the wrong way?’
He tried to fight it, the entire episode, until he made a decision that he couldn't walk back from and kind of got in the dirt with Reid. So I liked that we were able to have that question, but still have a lot of pacing because that was a challenge. I wanted it to move really fast, but also to feel like he was getting hit against wall after wall after wall. So it was fun. I think all the action turned out really well. That's what I'm gonna remember, really, the Voight storyline of it all.