‘Chicago P.D.’: What We Know About Tracy Spiridakos’ Final Episode & Exit Arc
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Intelligence will be losing at least one of its members in Chicago P.D. Season 11, but exactly how long do we have with Tracy Spiridakos‘ Detective Hailey Upton?
“We’ll see her in the whole season. She’s here the whole time,” executive producer Gwen Sigan told TV Insider. Back in October 2023, when Spiridakos’ exit was announced, an episode count for her in Season 11 wasn’t revealed. Spiridakos debuted as Upton in Season 4 then was upped to series regular for Season 5.
This means there’s plenty of time for Chicago P.D. to set up how Upton will be written out, something the Season 11 premiere began to do. She and Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), who left to run a squad in Bolivia tracking down the worst cartels and then didn’t tell her about extending his work overseas, have divorced. (That came after she took off her wedding ring last season.) We’ll have to wait and see if however Upton is written out involves Halstead in any way or if there’s even hope for the two of them.
“She’s struggling,” Sigan told TV Insider. “I think that neither of them knew that this is how that would end — at least for now — that this is where their relationship would go. So I think she’s angry. I think what I see that anger as is more internal anger. It’s faced inward at this point, and where it’s coming out externally, it’s coming out at the job. And it’s also kind of triggering a lot of other things that have built up in her and a lot of other things that I don’t think she’s ever dealt with.”
She continued, “This is a woman prone to abandonment issues because of what she’s been through in the past and because of her family life. And so it’s going to be really interesting to see that struggle this year and to see that it really becomes not so much about Jay, it’s more so about her and realizing some things about herself that she needs to work on and work through so that she can get to the other side and so that she can see that maybe there’s a whole world out there for Upton that she hasn’t been able to explore yet. So I’m excited. I think it’s going to be a really nice arc for her this year.”
The premiere also saw her admit to Voight (Jason Beghe), “If I’m not shutting down, I’m angry, and I don’t know why. I’m not mad at Jay. I’m really not. I should be good. I should be moving on by now. We all should be moving on. But I’m not, and I don’t know why. I wasn’t paying attention with Cam. And I can’t be a good cop if I’m angry. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do. … I’ll do it. Anything. How do I fix it?” He didn’t have an answer for her.
Figuring all that out is part of her arc in Season 11, Sigan confirmed. “We’ve got some fun ways to do that. It is always hard to tell a mental health story or to tell an internal story on a show like ours, but we’ve got some clever ways to do it. So it will be her dealing with what’s going on, figuring out what’s going on, and then yeah, finding ways through it and finding ways to grow.”
Right now, it’s looking like Upton could very well choose to leave Intelligence and CPD altogether, but anything can change between now and the end of the season. How do you think Chicago P.D. will write out Spiridakos’ character? Let us know in the comments section, below.
Chicago P.D., Season 11 Premiere, Wednesday, January 17, 10/9c, NBC
