Created by Dick Wolf (FBI, Chicago Justice) and Matt Olmstead (NYPD Blue, Prison Break), Chicago P.D. first premiered on NBC in January 2014. The series was renewed for an eleventh season in April of this year. According to Variety, after season eleven, there will be a large change to the show. Namely, Tracy Spiradakos (Revolution, Rise of the Planet of the Apes), who plays detective Hailey Upton, is set to leave the show.
Produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, Chicago P.D. revolves around the lives of those in the Intelligence Unit of the Chicago Police Department. As Variety notes, Spiradakos has been a part of the series since 2017, and she has been in approximately one hundred and twenty-seven episodes. There has not been confirmation yet about how many episodes Spiradakos will be in for the eleventh season.
Jesse Lee Soffer (Chicago Fire, The Mob Doctor), who played Hailey Upton’s husband Jay Halstead, just exited the series himself in the previous season.
According to NBC, the showrunner of Chicago P.D. Gwen Sigan (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Organized Crime) spoke about how they handled Halstead’s exit in the tenth season. Sigan explained, “We all really wanted to do justice for Halstead’s character as best we could—to who he’s been for the show— we really wanted to make that decision to leave his own decision. For it to come from him.”
She continued, “It felt important to keep him alive and keep him out in the world trying to do good. The idea of him getting back to who he was gave us that opportunity. The army’s always been integral to who he is. I think that time with the rangers shaped him, his morals, his compass, and it was fitting that he’d want to get back to that; to some sort of simplicity and an idea of ‘right and wrong.'”
As Sigan explained, Chicago P.D. was careful with how they chose to end Halstead’s storyline. Fans of the procedural series can see how they choose to wrap up Hailey Upton’s storyline throughout season eleven, which has yet to be given a premiere due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and the recently ended WGA strike.