One Chicago Showrunners Discuss 'Reckoning' Crossover and the Return of That Fan Favorite Couple

One Chicago is once again in the crossover game, and it's doing so with a bang. Quite literally, as there are explosions, mysterious chemical compounds, near-death experiences for some of our favorites, and even some surprising developments in the three-hour event, titled "Reckoning Part I, II, and III."

But the crossover isn't just important because of what it sets up for the characters we get to follow every week on Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D. It's also especially exciting because of who we get to catch up with: Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), who departed from Chicago P.D. in Season 10 and 11, respectively.

For those who need a reminder, the two characters were married on the show. That is, until Jay quit Intelligence after having a crisis of conscience about the unit's methods. He then took a job with the Army, tracking drug cartels in Bolivia. Meanwhile, his wife, Hailey, stayed behind and worked for Intelligence one more year, falling deeper and deeper into a spiral as Jay failed to contact her and ultimately sent divorce papers.

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Last we saw of Hailey, she was moving on from Intelligence and starting fresh, away from the team and away from Jay. But in this crossover, the two cross paths once again, and we don't have to tell you that sparks fly. They always did when Jay and Hailey were together. That's how they ended up married. But does that mean we should interpret how they left things in this episode as a happy ending?

Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald, Chicago Fire showrunner Andrea Newman, and Chicago P.D. showrunner Gwen Sigan discussed the status of Hailey and Jay's relationship, how the events of the crossover affect Stella Kidd (Miranda Rae Mayo) and Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) on Chicago Fire and Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram) and Dean Archer (Steven Weber) on Chicago Med, and the logistics of putting together such a big-scale crossover.

I have to start by asking about Halstead and Upton. Gwen, do you feel like bringing them back was about paying a debt to the fans, or was it just a matter of right place, right time?

Gwen Sigan: I think it was both. I think we know how beloved they are. I think we all wish that we'd had more time with both of them, and especially the pair of them together on screen. So, yes, that was certainly part of it, and knowing that the audience would love to see them back together, as would we. And then, I think once we really got into what this episode was going to be about, what this three-hour sort of movie was going to be, and the themes we wanted to tell, it felt really appropriate. It felt like the right time. It felt like it really matched what we were trying to say with this thing. It all sort of aligned together, and it made sense right now to bring them.

This episode didn't quite fix them, but it did open the door for them to get back together. Did you leave it like that so people can write their own ending, or would you at some point want to revisit the two of them and see what that future looks like for them?

Sigan: Yeah, I think we'd love to revisit. There's still so much between the pair of them. It wouldn't have made sense, I think, in this one opportunity to completely tie a bow on it somehow. It just wouldn't have felt real, and they still have a lot to sort out, but I like that it could be both of those things. You know, you can imagine it yourself, and then hopefully there'll be an opportunity one day if it all works out for them to come back and we get to tell some more, because there's still a lot to tell.

As you sit down to plan a crossover like this, how do you break down the episode? What's the process like? Does it involve drinking some wine together and flipping a coin to see who's in danger from each show?

Allen MacDonald: [laughs] I mean, we definitely drink wine together, but that has nothing to do with the writing process.

The thing is, Andrea, Gwen, and I designate a writer when there's a crossover. As soon as we find out that there's going to be one, we do that. And those three writers from the three shows are the ones that get together, and they function as a writer's room, and they break the stories. So, we're involved for sure, every step of the way, as far as going through the documents, hearing their pitches, and giving notes. But they're the ones that interface with everybody and write the actual scripts.

On this, it was, for Chicago Fire, Victor Teran. On Chicago Med, it was Meridith Friedman, and on Chicago P.D., it was Edgar Castillo. And they're just really talented writers who really helped make this happen.

Is there something you wanted to do in this crossover, or something you've always wanted to do that you couldn't? Or is there something you got to do in these episodes that you didn't think you could, because of logistics or budget reasons?

Andrea Newman: I think the wild idea for a couple of years that we thought was impossible was the plane. You know, flying a plane, landing a plane. It's not a movie. It's a TV show. And it's a short amount of time we have to do this stuff.

And so, we didn't think… I was the one from the beginning who was like, there's no way we're getting this done. There's no way we can do this. And these guys were a little more, I think, probably hopeful about it. And at the end of the day, we have this magical cast and crew who make this happen and bring it to life as a thriller suspense three-hour movie. It's unbelievable.

But yeah, we knew a plane was always like the thing we hadn't done. You've got to top yourself. You know, you've got to bring it to the next level. And so, the plane we'd never done.

And I think more importantly, really, at the end of the day, was the idea of really plumbing the depths of the characters by invoking their history and bringing back the fact that we have such scope on these shows, we have over a decade [of history] for all three of these shows. So, we wanted to explore that and explore what we can dig into and what's haunting our main characters from the past and get to know them a little better that way. That was a big part of the jump-off point, the past and how it catches up with you, and the reckoning of the past and the present.

The episodes do a great job of not just setting up a future outside of One Chicago for Hailey and Jay, but of setting up what's coming next for the characters we still follow, like those from Chicago Fire. Kelly was very rattled by what he saw. Stella obviously lost someone close to her. How will it weigh on them as they keep thinking about starting a family?

Newman: I think Cruz speaks to that in particular. Not only does he have two kids and he's dealing with that, but his youngest child is named Otis. That's his best friend who died in the line of duty. So, these things are never out of any of our first responders' minds. The risks that they put themselves in every day and the impact that has on their families is profound.

And for Kidd and Severide, we've heard them both, especially Kidd, express "How can you be a good parent? How can you feel like you're being the best parent you can be if every day when you leave the house, you are going to a job where you could die?" I mean, that's just the truth in these jobs, these lines of work. So yeah, that is something that hangs over, I think, all of the shows in a way… that there's never a moment where you're not thinking about the potential ramifications of the danger.

That comes into play in the Chicago Med part of the crossover, for Hannah and Dean, especially. It's almost spelled out. Why is Hannah taking risks when she's pregnant? How does she balance that with the need to help? Dean gets very upset. Now, after such an emotional moment between them, what's next for Asher and Archer?

MacDonald: Well, I think that it's kind of cracking open the polite exterior they've maintained with each other the whole season as they've tried to maintain their friendship, despite the fact that they're having a child together. And the pressure of this situation and Hannah's decision to go out into that ambulance… which I think is very heroic, and I think she did safely.

I think what pissed Hannah off is Archer thinking that he can decide for her what is correct and what action she should take, almost as if she were a child. Now, he doesn't mean it that way. He's just worried about her, and he's worried about his child. But you can see some big differences boiling up there. And so, I would say this is the beginning of tensions maybe ramping up between them that continue through the end of the season.

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A big theme of this episode is going back to the past and perhaps reckoning with who you were and who you are now. Jay tells Voight at one point that he's changed. This is something viewers can see, but Jay hasn't had a front row seat to. What is going through Jay's head there? What makes him go "oh, he's not the same man I knew"?

Sigan: I think it's the way that Voight, within these three hours, deals with the choices he made in the past and the way that he recognized it, and then speaks really openly about it. He immediately sort of tells the team what happened when he realizes it's an issue. And that's something we wouldn't have seen years ago.

He tends to be incredibly guarded and protective of the team, and also someone who goes to sleep each night and doesn't ruminate on things he's done wrong. It just doesn't exist in his head like that. And so, the fact that Jay's witnessing him do that and also sort of take responsibility and then be really open and forthcoming, it's not the Voight he would have known a few years ago. I think that's what he notices and why he speaks to the fact that he seems different.

The Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D. crossover aired Wednesday, March 4, on NBC. All new episodes of the shows air every week on Wednesdays, starting with Chicago Med at 8/7c, Chicago Fire at 9/8c, and Chicago P.D. at 10/9c.