Chicago P.D. EP Explains [Spoiler]’s Surprise Cameo in the Season 11 Finale
The following contains major spoilers from Chicago P.D.’s Season 11 finale. Proceed accordingly.
Chicago P.D.’s Season 11 finale put Voight through the wringer — so much so, that he wound up seeing dead people. Well, one dead person.
Wednesday’s season ender placed the sergeant in a rarely vulnerable position: brutalized, bleeding and barely awake while being held captive in a basement by Matson (Dennis Flanagan), the serial killer Intelligence had been after for months. Voight refused to crack under torture, but while alone and near death, found strength in a hallucination of his old partner Alvin Olinksy (special guest star Elias Koteas), who was killed at the end of Season 5.
As Voight faded out of consciousness, virtually accepting his fate, a vision of his beanie-loving friend urged him to get up — “You don’t get to die yet” — and that was enough for him to hold on until Upton came to his rescue.
Intelligence’s head honcho has seen his fair share off loss over the years, including his son Justin and wife Camille, but showrunner Gwen Sigan tells TVLine that Olinksy was the only fitting choice for that scene.
“I think for where [Voight] was and what he was thinking about, the perfect person was his old partner,” she shares. “He needed someone to basically tell him, ‘You’re not done. Wake the f—k up,’ and they had to be Olinsky.”
“In my mind, there’s so much there between the two of them — so much that never got closure, never got resolved,” the Chicago P.D. boss continues. “But I think Voight carries it around every day, that this person he loved, and that he was responsible for in some element, ended up dying. He feels guilt and he feels shame and he feels responsible for that.”
Olinksy’s piercing words, though a figment of his imagination, pushed Voight to continue fighting for his life. It also cleared the way for his later conversation with Upton, where the seasoned cop questioned whether he was good for his figurative daughter and encouraged her to do what makes her happy no matter what that would mean for him. (Read our interview with Sigan about that emotional scene here.)
“It allowed for him to be a bit more introspective than he ever is, to be able to ask those questions,” Sigan explains. “All that came out of, I think, seeing Olinsky, even if subconsciously.”
Olinksy’s cameo was years in the making, and we have Jason Beghe to thank for it. The actor pitched an idea “a while ago,” and it was discussed over the years before it finally came to fruition in Wednesday’s finale.
“[The finale] finally seemed like a perfect fit because the stories aligned and also, just logistically, you’ve got to get him in a place where he’s vulnerable enough physically to have some sort of hallucination,” Sigan notes. “For years, we’ve been talking about how nice it would be to bring [Olinksky] back in some way. As soon as we knew it was going to happen, Elias was down, which I’m so grateful for.
“It was really special for him to come back and to see everybody,” she adds. “Everyone was very emotional on set to have him back there.”
How are you feeling about Olinksy’s surprise appearance in Chicago P.D.’s Season 11 finale?
