Chicago P.D. has a reputation for season finales with sky-high stakes and often involving members of the Intelligence Unit in mortal peril. That seems to be the case for Season 11 in the spring 2024 TV schedule, with Voight kidnapped by a serial killer with some pretty gruesome tendencies in the penultimate episode. Showrunner Gwen Sigan spoke with CinemaBlend about how nervous fans should be for the finale, as well as one element of the serial killer story that I didn’t realize was a product of CGI.
Shortly after the Intelligence Unit connected the dots that CPD lock up time keeper Frank Matson was the killer, fans got a frightening reveal: Voight had been kidnapped by Matson and seemed to be coming out of a drugged state, and clearly in Matson’s clutches, which… is not a great place to be, judging by all the victims who have died in his hands!
The Season 11 finale on May 22 – called “More” – will also be Tracy Spiridakos’ last episode before she leaves Chicago P.D. as Hailey Upton. When I noted to Gwen Sigan that there aren’t many more stressful ways to set up a finale than one character kidnapped by a killer and an actor on the way out, the showrunner previewed how nervous fans should be about the episode:
It’s gonna be intense. I would say it’s an intense ride. It’s definitely a thrill. You’re not going to really be on your seat for the whole time, but there’s also a lot of really interesting sort of epiphanies throughout the episode and growth for our characters. Yeah, it’s gonna be a good one. I’m excited.
The finale evidently won’t just be one solid hour of plot twist after plot twist after plot twist, if there’s time for character growth as well! I’d say that bodes well for the episode, given that it will be a farewell to Upton after seven seasons. Of course, there’s still no saying how P.D. will say that farewell or what kind of state Voight will be in, so Gwen Sigan’s promise of an “intense” episode is easy to believe.
Chicago P.D. doesn’t always include serialized stories in a given season, going more of a procedural route most of the time. The showrunner confirmed that this particular story with the killer was always going to build to Voight being abducted, saying:
It was always the plan. We knew we wanted something really psychological and strange and dark, and something that you could talk about a lot of themes with. That is really why we chose to do a serial killer, and we wanted it from the beginning to be a story about Voight and about connection, and it really started that way with Noah and then as you’ll see, in the finale, it sort of ends that way as well. It’s about connection and intimacy and vulnerability with people. So yeah, it was always the plan.
Voight was making the case personal long before Matson kidnapped him, starting with taking Noah into his home and getting stronger after Noah was murdered with his eyes stapled open as part of the then-unidentified killer’s trademark. And Chicago P.D. hasn’t left the eye stapling up to the imagination, but showed the victims’ eyes up close.
Much like FBI: Most Wanted elsewhere in the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe, Chicago P.D. can use the 10 p.m. ET time slot to get a lot darker than shows like FBI and Chicago Med in the 8 p.m. hour. When I noted that I was surprised by some of the more gruesome parts of the serial killer story to air on NBC, Gwen Sigan acknowledged with a laugh that “We’ve been able to be pretty dark with what we’ve been allowed to do,” then went on:
10 p.m., man! I know. And the funny thing is that it was a writer’s pitch in the room, the eye pitch that he staples eyes open. And it was such a [realization] like, ‘That’s him.’ As soon as we knew that, we were like, ‘That explains this man, that he needed to see that connection.’ But then seeing it – it’s one thing to write it, but then when you see it! And that was all CGI, and they did it so well. It just looked so gruesome. But that to me was more shocking than I thought it would be for sure. [laughs] It’s a gross image… It really does add stakes.
While I haven’t exactly watched and rewatched the scenes with the eye staples over and over again to catch minute details, I have to admit that I didn’t realize the visual was a product of pure CGI and not some kind of makeup prosthesis. That certainly makes me feel much better for the actors playing the victims, because the eye stapling is pretty nightmarish to see and surely wouldn’t be pleasant to do even if achieved safely with TV magic on a set.
Hopefully Matson doesn’t make it to that stage with Voight in the Season 11 finale, although the promo confirms that he’ll give the sergeant the opportunity to make the phone call to somebody he loves:
Tune in to NBC on Wednesday, May 22 at 10 p.m. ET for the Season 11 finale of Chicago P.D., following the cliffhanger-tastic Season 12 finale of Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. ET and the Season 9 finale of Chicago Med at 8 p.m. ET. If you expect that you’ll be missing the One Chicago action over summer hiatus, you can find all three shows streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription. Also, check out what Gwen Sigan shared about “class act” Tracy Spiridakos’ return for the full eleventh season!