Chicago PD turned a few heads last year, when one of its main characters was missing for the first two episodes of season 12. Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) was nowhere to be found, and the show explained her absence as being the result of an out of town conference.
Burgess had a brief phone call with her fiance, Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger), to inform those who were watching that she was going to be missing in action. Now that enough time has passed, though, the actress who plays Burgess has revealed the truth.
Marina Squerciati was secretly pregnant
Marina Squerciati revealed that she was actually pregnant during the filming of the first two season 12 episodes, which is why she requested that she be written out of the show for a brief period. She broke this news on New Year's Eve, when she revealed that she had become a mother.
"I thought I handled being a pregnant working mom with grace," she wrote on Instagram. "PS. THIS was the real reason I wasn't in the first two episodes of #ChicagoPD. I was having a baby. Have a great NYE, friends!"
This comes as a bit of a surprise for fans, given that Burgess' absence was assumed by many to be the result of One Chicago's load management strategy. It was previously stated that NBC was looking to cut down on episode costs for each of the One Chicago shows, and one of the easiest ways to do so was to not feature every main cast member in every episode.
Squerciati returned in the episode "Off Switch"
We've seen Chicago Fire characters like Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) and Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) miss random episodes with the reasoning simply being that they were busy. It hasn't been practiced as frequently on Chicago PD, but the decision to bench main cast members for an episode did occur in "Buried Pieces."
The episode decided to give Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) a break for a week by removing him from the action and placing the focus on the rest of the IU. It was not a stretch to assume that a similar choice had been made with Burgess. It's nice knowing that Marina Squerciati's absence was her decision, and we hope she continues to be present in future season 12 episodes.