Chicago P.D. Season 9 has seen a huge shift in the way that Hank Voight and Jay Halstead interact on the show.
That was especially the case during Chicago P.D. Season 9, Episode 12, where Intelligence began pushing to take down a new drug ring.
Along with a new informant (Anna Avalos – played by Carmela Zumbado), the team has a primary case to focus on for more episodes this season.
Behind the scenes, though, Voight and Halstead are now working in conjunction on cases, which might be a really good thing for the show itself.
Why are Voight and Halstead working together to lead Intelligence?
Earlier in Season 9, Halstead (played by Jesse Lee Soffer) figured out that Voight (Jason Beghe) had been behind the disappearance of the suspect who shot Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati).
What Halstead didn’t expect to find out was that the person who actually killed Roy Walton was his girlfriend at the time, Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos). The fact that he was kept in the dark about everything that Voight and Upton had been doing to cover up the disappearance of Roy Walton might have broken something inside of Halstead, and there are repercussions.
When Halstead confronted Voight about everything, he told his boss that he wanted to be in on all future discussions about bending the rules and privy to all of the information that Voight had about ongoing cases. Voight consented to that, and it has shifted how the leadership of Intelligence now works on cases.
Halstead takes on a leadership role within Intelligence
Jay Halstead helped entrap the brother of an FBI agent in order to get the FBI to stop investigating what had happened to Roy Walton. It was an impactful episode that sent Halstead on a new character arc, and that just continued with a suspect named Paco Gutierrez in the latest episode of Chicago P.D.
As Intelligence was trying to figure out how to deal with a suspect who had threatened their new confidential informant (Anna), Voight pulled Halstead aside to get his advice on what to do next. It was the second time in the episode that Voight had sought out Halstead’s opinions, and it led to a situation where they used Paco’s secret family as a way to get him to cooperate.
This “new” Halstead within the Chicago P.D. cast is an impressive character, and it adds a lot to the show by having him no longer being passive to what Voight does in each case. There are risks that Halstead is straddling or crossing the line with suspects, though, which also helps add another level of drama and intrigue to the show.
More new Chicago P.D. episodes to come
Within the updated One Chicago episode schedule for this winter, we won’t get to see another new episode of Chicago P.D. for a while now. The show doesn’t debut a new episode until after the 2022 Winter Olympics have ended, providing some time for fans to go back and watch earlier Season 9 episodes again.
Chicago P.D. airs Wednesday nights at 10/9c on NBC.
The writers need to understand why this series has been so popular. It’s because Chicago PD’s lead character Hank Voight did what needed to be done to get the bad guys. That’s what ‘regular’ law-abiding people want to see. As soon as the PD storylines decided to get political, they lost me – at least for part of Season 8. I love PD, it’s my favorite TV show, so I want it to do well. I’m glad they’re changing Jay’s character some, as long as they don’t make him watchdog over Voight’s behavior and decisions. Voight is so strong and believes in real JUSTICE. And I love that about his character.
Keep Voigt as he is we want justice and he sees to it to be done. Jay should not marry Haileigh, that was a mistake I live for Wednesday night w/ the three Chicago shows. the fastest 3 hours in tv. love the shows