Chicago P.D. Showrunner Talks Writing Out Atwater & Voight's Growth

Chicago P.D. ended Season 13 with another big moment for Voight (Jason Beghe), one that, unsurprisingly, involved the show's newest character, Eva Imani (Arienne Mandi). Voight and Imani quickly developed a kinship over the course of last season, and he got involved in her search for her sister, who had been kidnapped as a child. But finding Shari (Selin Çuhadaroglu) was nothing like what Imani expected.

After discovering her sister had murdered someone, and being almost killed by Shari, Imani opened Season 14 with the question of what she would do. Yes, Imani, as Voight told her, the choice was hers. They could bury it, or Shari could go to jail. Imani surprisingly chose consequences for her sister, hoping that'll help her. But as the episode ended, Shari decided she didn't want to see Imani again. What will Eva Imani do next?

The episode also set up Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins)'s exit, with his partner Tasha Fox (Karen Obilom) about to give birth to their baby. Will Kevin step away to focus on his new child? He's not the only person in the unit with a kid, so what makes his situation different from Kim (Marina Squerciati) and Adam (Patrick John Flueger)?

But the biggest curveball of the episode came at the end, when it's revealed that changes to District 21 meant Intelligence will now have FBI oversight, and in their very own bullpen. Can this FBI agent actually help the team, or will he just be a different type of antagonist for Voight and the rest of the unit?

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We talked to Chicago P.D. showrunner Gwen Sigan about Atwater's departure, whether the door is open for him to return, a possible romance between Imani and Dante (Benjamin Levy Aguilar), and what this new face means for Voight and the rest of Intelligence.

You enter this season having to write out a character in Kevin Atwater. Are we supposed to take whatever's coming for him as a goodbye or as a 'hopefully, we'll see you later'?
Gwen Sigan: You'll see in the way we wrote it. He's still in the world. He can come back. I love that we've been able to have people come back to the show in substantial ways. Last year we saw Tracy [Spiridakos] and [Jesse Lee Soffer]. And even just behind the camera, we've had people come back and work with us. And Jesse, a perfect example, has directed such strong episodes. So, of course, I would love that. The door is always open.

We solve the cliffhanger from last season by having Voight tell Imani: It's your call. That feels like growth for Voight, because the Voight of a few seasons ago would have just made the decision himself. Is that what you wanted to convey?
Sigan: Yeah, that was exactly what we wanted. We wanted it to feel like a little bit of an evolution, without obviously calling it out too much or putting it on the nose. But I think for Voight, exactly as you're saying, he's someone who usually would just make the choice and say, "This is how it's going to go. We're going to do this, this, and this. And I'll protect you. And we'll make sure it will work as best we can."

But we've seen him do that so many times, and we've seen the fallout. We've seen his relationships suffer. We've seen the unit suffer. And so, I think he has, whether he would ever admit it or acknowledge it, I think he has grown from that. And especially with Imani, who he just instantly had a kinship with and instantly kind of understood, I think he is really putting her first and letting her make a decision.

And he's very honest. We see him be very honest in that beginning of just saying, yeah, we can't know what's going to happen either way. And something's going to fall out either way. But we will deal with it as best we can. I loved that. I loved that he was a little bit different than we've seen him.

The premiere explored whether people really can change. And we see Imani trying to hang onto the idea that they can. But she's sort of using that as an excuse to put Shari first, to live for Shari. Now, she's going to have to figure out how to live for herself, right?
Sigan: Yeah, she's not left with much of a choice. She's going to have to find out. And with this character, even now, even though Shari's like, "you can't visit me," in my head, Imani is still going to that prison. She's still writing letters. She's still calling. There's no way that woman is giving up on her family.

But she's really forced now in this situation to figure out what else she cares about and what else she wants out of life. And it's not necessarily going to be a completely streamlined straight shot to get those answers. But it's a really interesting journey of trying some things out and making some relationships with new people and people within the unit, and strengthening her relationships within the unit, and sort of learning what her identity is outside of the search for her sister.

Could one of those be Dante? Because they had a moment in the premiere, with Dante telling her that he's got her back. And we know Arienne [Mandi] and Benjamin [Levy Aguilar] go way back.
Sigan: Yeah, I think that these two characters… they're so drastically different in my head. But they're also, the pair of them both have this independence and this independent streak that I think allows them to communicate very clearly with each other and allows them to just have this little kinship and this thing that is even without them realizing it's happening.

They have each other's back. They seem to gravitate towards each other. And it's a really fun thing to explore and to grow that friendship and to grow that bond and sort of, yeah, see the two of them realize that they've been becoming close friends and what that looks like. And also, as partners on the job, what that looks like. And so, yeah, it's definitely something we're playing with all season, the relationship between those two.

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This season we're upping the stakes in a new way, bringing in the FBI. Not the FBI agent we wanted, but an FBI agent. What makes this a different threat and a different dynamic than what we've had before?
Sigan: This was new for us. I don't think we've ever had somebody in the actual bullpen with us presenting that kind of threat with those stakes. But he's also such a different character. So, he's hard to read. He's disarming.

And, yeah, we always want to put Voight in some sort of situation where there are stakes. But trying to figure out a way to do it differently is always something we come back to each year in the writers' room. And this year, I think we've found a way to make it very unique, very sort of revealing about Voight and where he's at in his life and where his mind is, and also where he is in sort of the evolution of his character and in this idea of: Have I changed? Have I not changed? Do I care if I've changed?

I think this storyline gives us this window into that part of Voight that usually he doesn't even want to look at. So, it's a nice duo between him and Charlie, who is the FBI character.

Chicago P.D. airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.