What’s a wedding without some tears? But the waterworks at Burgess and Ruzek’s nuptials during Wednesday’s Chicago P.D. season finale weren’t the kind that you want to see.
After Reid announced on the news that Intelligence operations were suspended and its officers were either stripped of their police powers or reassigned to patrol, the unit set about to taking down the dirty deputy chief on the downlow. Alas, all their leads led to a dead end, literally — the only person who could corroborate Reid’s shady deeds was killed as Voight was bringing him in — leaving Voight to take desperate measures. Chapman begged Voight not to do something that both of them couldn’t turn back from, but when Reid was shot and killed by Otero’s son, it was clear that Voight hadn’t taken her words to heart.
Warning: The following contains major spoilers for the Chicago P.D. Season 12 finale. Proceed at your own risk!
What’s a wedding without some tears? But the waterworks at Burgess and Ruzek’s nuptials during Wednesday’s Chicago P.D. season finale weren’t the kind that you want to see.
After Reid announced on the news that Intelligence operations were suspended and its officers were either stripped of their police powers or reassigned to patrol, the unit set about to taking down the dirty deputy chief on the downlow. Alas, all their leads led to a dead end, literally — the only person who could corroborate Reid’s shady deeds was killed as Voight was bringing him in — leaving Voight to take desperate measures. Chapman begged Voight not to do something that both of them couldn’t turn back from, but when Reid was shot and killed by Otero’s son, it was clear that Voight hadn’t taken her words to heart.
Otero’s son wanted to go home, and Voight had no legal right to hold him in a safe house, Voight told the team, adding that the kid was calm. And now that the truth was out about Reid, Voight surmised that the investigation into Intelligence will disappear.
Chapman saw through Voight’s explanation and confronted him at Burgess and Ruzek’s wedding about how he told Silva what to say about Reid in exchange for immunity and his brother’s release. He also told Otero’s son how his dad died and gave him Reid’s location, sanctioning his death, Chapman argued.
“It’s not who you are. I know you. You told me you believed there could be more,” an emotional Chapman said, to which Voight flatly replied, “I don’t get more.”
As a beaming Burgess walked down the aisle to her smiling groom and the couple finally got hitched, Chapman couldn’t help shedding some tears for herself and Voight.
Below, showrunner Gwen Sigan breaks down Voight’s actions and what they mean for his relationship with Chapman. The EP also talks about the challenges of fitting #Burzek’s wedding into the dramatic finale and why viewers didn’t hear the pair’s vows.
TVLINE | The last thing Reid says to Voight before he dies is, “You’re worse than me.” How much is Voight taking that to heart? How true are those words?
The thing about Voight [is] he’s not a man that necessarily overthinks or self-reflects or is very adept at processing emotion in the way most people would. So in that moment when it happened, I don’t think he took it in completely. But I think those words are going to be living in his subconscious for a while. And so, I think it will constantly replay itself in interesting ways to come.
TVLINE | He’s a character who’s always walked that thin line and done very questionable things. To paraphrase Chapman, has he truly crossed a line he can’t come back from here?
That’s the question that the audience is left with. It’s the question that Voight is kind of left with. We’ll see. We’ll see where he goes from here. I think he thinks in his head, at this point in time, that what he did was worth what he gained from it and was worth the cost, too. But that’s an easy thing to say in the moment, and then six months later, [he] might not feel the same. So it leaves us with this great continuing question to keep playing with. Like you said, he has this capacity — and it’s not the best capacity — that he can go to these dark places, and he can make these choices, but can he always live with them?
TVLINE | Him telling Chapman, “I don’t get more,” is really interesting. What does he mean by that?
When we wrote that line, to me, it was really like he’s saying, “I can’t have it. I can’t have more,” and in my mind, that’s a little bit like, “I don’t know how to do it. I don’t have the capacity for it,” and also him realizing that it would be too much cost for whoever is with him. Like, it would just not be good because he’s not built for it. It would be dragging somebody into the dirt with him. So I think he thinks he’s kind of being noble in that moment. There’s a lot of different ways that I sort of saw that and then to see how Jason [Beghe] played it was really interesting because I think he kind of saw it in the same way like, “I don’t know how to do it. I can’t have it.”
TVLINE | What Voight does in this episode, how does that change how Chapman feels about him?
Chapman can’t abide by it. It’s the line he crossed, morally and ethically, that is something that she can’t stand by. That’s where she’s drawing the line. And also, the entire episode, she was basically trying to convince him not to go to this place that he went to, right? Like, she was the angel on his shoulder, basically, pulling him out, and even from that first scene they had together in the teaser, basically telling him, “You cannot shut me out. I’m going to help you,” and he just refuses to let her. And so, by the end of it, she’s realizing that any other hope of anything else is not going to happen. So in my mind, it’s almost like a breakup for Chapman, and it’s this big sad moment for her.
TVLINE | Chapman, clearly, is aware of what Voight has done. Are the others picking up on what he did, the strings he pulled and what he set into motion?
It’s this great thing where we see in that final scene a lot of unease on each of their faces, and it was an interesting thing to shoot, because, obviously, these actors know their characters so well. So some of them were like, “Yeah, no, I put it together.” I think it’s going to be a question of how much do each of them know, how much do each of them want to know? Are they going to turn the other cheek and not try to dig into it? Are they going to dig into it and find nothing? Do they believe that this all just worked itself out? I think each one of them is going to handle it a little bit differently, and we saw the start of that in that scene of them each realizing, “This doesn’t feel quite right, does it?”
TVLINE | The other big event in this episode was the long-awaited Burgess and Ruzek wedding. What was your goal with these nuptials and fitting them into this finale?
It was difficult to fit it in. We knew we had these two completely different sort of elements that we wanted to put into the finale, which are these high stakes for Voight, and this really sort of emotional journey for Voight and Chapman and Reid, and then also this long-awaited happiness, this long-awaited almost cathartic wedding for Ruzek and Burgess. And so, it became how do we fit those two things together in a way that feels like our show and doesn’t feel almost like we’re stopping the show to go and show a wedding? So I think we managed it, in my mind, in a really nice way where it still feels like the tone is our show, but we get to see Ruzek and Burgess have exactly what they would want. But we also are still with some of our other characters during it and seeing their POV and seeing how they’re feeling. And so, there’s this nice juxtaposition, which causes this very bittersweet tone through that last scene, which I really liked.
TVLINE | There were a couple of things that I was maybe expecting to see in the wedding that I didn’t. LaRoyce Hawkins told me he wanted to officiate, but I guess he didn’t get that, and I thought that Voight might walk her down the aisle. Was that ever a consideration?
We thought about who would walk her down. Voight was an option, and in the lore, she does have a father. So that was definitely an option. I liked Burgess walking down by herself. I thought it was kind of symbolic, and I also thought it was just like a very Burgess kind of independent, nice moment for her. So that was what we ended up settling on.
TVLINE | Was there ever any thought or conversation about whether we should hear them actually exchange vows?
We did. We talked about it a lot. We considered it. Again, it just became about there’s so many different strings, so many different elements, and to me, when we sort of attempted that and thought of it in our minds, it took things into a much more sentimental sweet, almost too sweet sort of tone. So that’s why we chose to sort of juxtapose it more with the conversation between Chapman and Voight.
