CHICAGO P.D. Post-Mortem: Rick Eid on What Comes Next After That Burgess Twist

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Wednesday, November 13 episode of CHICAGO P.D. “No Regrets.”]

CHICAGO P.D.’s Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Ruzek’s (Patrick John Flueger) brief reunion at the end of the ONE CHICAGO crossover had an unexpected consequence: Burgess is pregnant.

When she found out—after getting injured on the job—Burgess told her ex, but initially planned to terminate the pregnancy. Instead, by the end of the hour, she decided to go through with it.

“We were talking about these characters at the beginning of the year, and an interesting dynamic for a cop is having a kid—especially a female officer,” CHICAGO P.D. boss Rick Eid explains. “So we started saying, what kind of complications would that create? What’s it like? You’ve got to be worried, you have to go on desk duty, you have to manage your career in a way that you wouldn’t have to if you didn’t have a son or a daughter. What would you do if you weren’t married, if it wasn’t expected, if you wanted to have a kid, but you weren’t necessarily planning to have a kid and the issues that might raise for your career. And then the deeper we got into the season, we decided to do it.”

Complicating matters is that the former couple is in murky waters with their own relationship. “It puts everything under a microscope: What are we? What can we be? What were we? What do you want? What do I want?” Eid teases. “I think this is an interesting real-life issue to explore with the added complication of you work together she’s part of the Intelligence unit of the Chicago P.D.”

Ruzek made it clear he would support Burgess no matter what she chose, but with her opting to move forward with the pregnancy, they’ll have to contend with how much of his help she actually wants.

“He wants to be part of the process,” Eid says. “The question is, does she want him to be part of the process? It’s an interesting position for him to be in, because he likes to control the situation, and in this situation, he has no control; it’s her call. And he’s trying to find a way to be part of it without dictating any of the conditions to it, because he doesn’t have the control or the power in this situation. He gets that, in his own way, he gets it and he’s modern—but he’s still Ruzek.”

But the duo aren’t the only ones who will have to grapple with the news—eventually their colleagues will need to be looped in. “We explore that over the next three or four episodes,” Eid previews. “Will she tell Voight? When will she tell Voight? What does it mean when she tells Voight? Does she have to go on desk duty? She loves her job and she’s ambitious as a professional.”

“We get into that in episode 10 and episode 11,” he continues.  “It’s an interesting dilemma. [The pregnancy is] the best thing that happened to her and the most confusing thing that’s happened to her.”

Are you excited that Burzek is having a baby?