CHICAGO P.D. Fall Finale: Rick Eid on the Killer Twist

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Wednesday, December 5 episode of CHICAGO P.D., “Descent.”]

On the CHICAGO P.D. fall finale, Dawson’s (Jon Seda) addiction ended up being the least of his problems: his daughter was kidnapped and held hostage. The terms for her release were complicated, as the demand was that the officers release Antonio’s dealer…who got caught in a bust. (The same bust where Dawson’s own addiction started to come to light.)

The situation escalated from there. Though the team was able to get Dawson’s daughter to safety, when Voight, Dawson, and Ruzek found her kidnapper, the men let (a high) Antonio attack him—until Dawson accidentally threw the man out a window, to his death.

“He, through his own actions, he’s created a really, really complicated and messy situation,” CHICAGO P.D. showrunner Rick Eid acknowledges. “The only way out of this messy situation is to rely on his friendship with Voight and Ruzek. It comes back to this idea of family. It can be messy, it can be ugly, and filled with conflict and anger, a lot. But at the end of the day, when you need it the most, it’s family.”

“That’s what he’s going to need to pull himself out of the situation both legally and emotionally,” he continues. “This is a guy who is in the middle of an opioid addiction. He needs help dealing with that. A man is dead and he’s high. That’s not a great look for a policeman. So what happens? We pick up in real time [in the next episode] from where we left off.”

Of course, not everyone from the 21st District knows the truth. “We live in that place of who knows what, what people know, don’t know, what the plan is, how they plan to get out of this,” Eid teases. “The goal was to leave them in an incredibly complicated situation and then to see how they get out of that situation requires people to do things and take risks. But ultimately, it’s about family, it’s about loyalty, it’s about protecting the people you love, no matter what.”

But while Voight and Ruzek stood by and watched what went down, Eid says the men won’t “live in a place of regret” over not stopping Dawson.

“We’re going to live in a place of now what?” he says. “Voight stays present. Voight can understand the rage toward a man who hurts a child; he’s not terribly sympathetic to that type of human. I think it’s more now what, how do we deal with this? Voight prides himself on being the protector and being the guy who can help his family members. Will he able to?”

Dawson will have his own struggles as his daughter deals with the ramifications of her attack—“There may be more to come on that,” Eid warns of the EMT’s comment about the marks they found on her body—and he contends with his actions.

“We’ll definitely see how this situation impacts Antonio,” Eid says. “How it changes the way he views being a policeman, how it changes the way he views Voight, Ruzek, other members of the team…There’s a lot of scrutiny. [And] they make a decision, the three of them—or the two of them.”

To be continued…

CHICAGO P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC

RELATED:

• CHICAGO P.D. Boss Previews the Team’s Reaction to Dawson’s Addiction Reveal
• CHICAGO P.D.: LaRoyce Hawkins on How a Recent Tragedy Impacts Atwater’s Reaction to Dawson’s Spiral
• ONE CHICAGO: NBC Orders More CHICAGO MED, CHICAGO FIRE, and CHICAGO P.D.
• CHICAGO P.D.: ‘Descent’ Photos
• CHICAGO P.D.: LaRoyce Hawkins and Marina Squerciati Show Off the Real—and Reel—Elements of the 21st District

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