The weeks are finally counting down until the heroes of NBC's One Chicago arrive back in primetime, but the return of Chicago P.D. will mark the beginning of the end for one character. Tracy Spiridakos is set to leave the hit series in the upcoming Season 11, which means that fans have a limited number of episodes left with Detective Hailey Upton. With P.D. returning early in the 2024 TV premiere schedule, showrunner Gwen Sigan dropped some new details about Upton that leave me with one very important question.
While Tracy Spiridakos was all smiles to celebrate Season 11 beginning and had a fun pose to reveal a doll version of Jay Halstead behind the scenes, Upton sounds like she won't have many reasons to smile or celebrate early in Season 11. Speaking with TVLine, showrunner Gwen Sigan teased "a big season of growth and change for Hailey Upton," and elaborated:
We find her at the start of this season in a precarious place; wanting to move her life forward after finally taking off her ring, finding that it’s more difficult than she’d like. There’s a lot she still has to confront in herself and doesn’t necessarily know how to do so.
Upton spent much of Season 10 struggling with the absence of her husband, after Chicago P.D. wrote out Jesse Lee Soffer by sending Halstead abruptly back to the army without consulting his wife, before finally taking off her wedding ring. Gwen Sigan of course didn't drop all the spoilers about how exactly the detective wants to move her life forward, but I imagine that it could be an uphill battle.
According to TVLine, the episode description for the Season 11 premiere has Voight standing by her, which... might not be for the best for Upton. I'm not the only one who remembers what his insistence on keeping their secret did to her mental health in Season 8, right? Called "Unpacking," the Season 11 premiere will also involve Upton shadowing a crisis prevention team and her "approach to policing at odds with the team’s mental health clinician."
And while there's much more unknown about Upton's final arc than what the showrunner has revealed so far, there's one question I have that eclipses all the others: how many episodes will Tracy Spiridakos appear in?
I ask that partly as a fan of Upton and her journey over the course of Chicago P.D., but mostly because I can't help but think back to how the show said goodbye to Jesse Lee Soffer's Halstead in Season 10. Soffer only appeared in the first three episodes of the tenth season (available streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription), and only one of those was really devoted to sending him off. While Soffer returned behind the scenes to direct, Episode 3 was the last time fans saw him as Jay Halstead.
And I'm really hoping that we have more than just three episodes of Tracy Spiridakos as Hailey Upton in Season 11 for a longer arc leading to the character leaving, however that happens. After all, Chicago P.D. still has a cliffhanger to resolve after Ruzek's fate was still uncertain at the end of the Season 10 finale, and the eleventh season is only expected to run for 13 episodes after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Can we hope for at least half of the season before losing Upton?
That remains to be seen, and I'm still crossing my fingers that Jesse Lee Soffer makes at least a cameo to give some Upstead closure – and perhaps a happy ending – before Tracy Spiridakos officially leaves. Whatever happens, at least the comments from the showrunner shed some light on what to expect to tide fans over in these final weeks before One Chicago returns!
Tune in to NBC on Wednesday, January 17 at 10 p.m. ET for the return of Chicago P.D., following Chicago Fire (with Taylor Kinney coming back as Kelly Severide) at 9 p.m. and Chicago Med (with a new character to fill Will's shoes) at 8 p.m. In the meantime, here's a look at how I want Fire, P.D., and Med to resolve their cliffhangers from back in the spring!
