A new year means a new crossover event in NBC’s Chicago franchise, and that’s exactly what’s happening for tonight’s two-hour crossover between the flagship Chicago show, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D. Executive producer Derek Haas talked with Entertainment Weekly about what the crossover event holds.
Haas said that Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) is the main focus of the crossover, calling the crossover “more character-based than plot-based in a lot of ways.”
Haas also said that the crossover episode is designed for people to have a big episode coming back from winter hiatus. “The main thing we wanted to do was give audiences a jolt from coming back from the winter finale with something bigger than they usually get. We usually just throw everything into the winter finale and then you kinda ramp back up for the season. It was (EP) Matt (Olmstead)’s idea to just start with a bang and have Severide be the catalyst for going right into a P.D. episode,” Haas said.
It may be hard to top the three-show crossover event that aired last year when Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med came back from hiatus. When the three shows came back from hiatus last year, they were tasked with the responsibility of saving Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) and trying to find Freddy, who stabbed him.
Haas also said that Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush) comes to Severide’s defense, which could strain her relationship with Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), since Severide and Lindsay used to date.
On Chicago Fire‘s YouTube page, a short clip from tonight’s episode has been released, where the firefighters at Firehouse 51 realize that Severide’s car was part of a car accident, but he’s nowhere to be found.
For Chicago Fire, this is their first episode back since Dec. 6, which served as the 100th episode, but for Chicago P.D., it’s their first episode back since the two-hour winter finale that aired on Nov. 16.
Chicago Fire kicks off the crossover at 9 p.m. and Chicago P.D. airs at 10 p.m. tonight to conclude the crossover. Next week, Chicago Fire returns to its normal timeslot of 10 p.m. Tuesday nights and Chicago P.D. returns to its Wednesday 10 p.m. timeslot tomorrow night.