Jay Halstead’s Chicago PD exit will play out as a big season 10 storyline. After a decade of playing one of Hank Voight’s best Intelligence members, Jesse Lee Soffer will end his stint on the police procedural sometime this fall. Both NBC and the actor have been mum about the exact reason for his departure, but questions about how Halstead will be written out of Chicago PD have become a favorite topic of conversation among fans.
Chicago PD season 10 is set to debut this week alongside the rest of the One Chicago shows. According to the official plot details for the premiere, the episode will be centered on the fallout from Anna Avalos’ death in the season 9 finale. This creates a new conflict involving Halstead, his long-time partner and new wife, Hailey Upton, and their boss, Voight. There’s no mention of Soffer’s upcoming departure from the show, although fans can expect that his farewell narrative will play out throughout a few episodes and will be a big part of Chicago PD season 10.
That is what showrunner Gwen Sigan tells TV Line in a new interview ahead of the police procedural’s small-screen return. Without delving into spoilery details, she says they tried to ground Halstead’s final story as much as possible in an effort to highlight just how great he is as a person. She also expresses her hope that fans would ultimately like how the character is written out amid the sadness of Soffer’s departure. Read Sigan’s full quote below:
Hopefully, it all makes sense when everyone sees the episode that he’s departing in, and we did build to it, and we did have a chance to do that. We tried to keep it as grounded [as possible] and do justice to Jesse and how great he is. He puts in a very good performance in all of it. It’s going to be really impactful.
There is limited information released regarding how Soffer’s departure from Chicago PD will play out. What’s confirmed, however, is that he won’t be finishing the whole season, as he is set to exit sometime in the first half of the show’s upcoming year. Considering Sigan’s latest revelation, it’s possible that whatever conflict Halstead, Upton, and Voight are in will play a part in his eventual departure from the show. Whether that means he dies on duty or he leaves of his own accord is difficult to say. But to make matters worse, it has also been confirmed that newlyweds Upton and Halstead are heading towards a split in the next couple of episodes.
Somehow, it’s comforting to know the writers put as much care into executing Halstead’s upcoming exit from Chicago PD. He is one of the most important characters on the show, not only because he is part of the original cast, but because of what he represents in the series. For years, Halstead has functioned as Intelligence’s moral compass. Multiple times, he pulled Voight back to the light when he was veering too far down a dark path. Between that and the tragic end of his new marriage to Upton, it’s imperative that NBC justifies his departure, so that the show can move forward without him.
