[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 4 “The After.”]
The latest Chicago P.D. is a tough one for Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe): A past case, the first one he worked after his wife’s death, pops up again, and it starts looking like solving it (there’s a copycat, working with the original serial rapist) isn’t going to be so easy.
But then the search warrant they need goes through, thanks to a “confidential informant” … which, yes, as seemed to be the case after some earlier troubles, doesn’t exist and is a lie told by ASA Chapman (Sara Bues)—for Voight. It could’ve ended her career and taken his with it, Voight argues when Chapman stops by his house at the end of the episode. He doesn’t want her lying for him or protecting him because that’s not how it works, he stresses. She argues that he doesn’t get to dictate her choices, and she made a choice, risking her career for the girl who was held and for Voight.
But does Voight push back because he doesn’t want her to become him because he knows he needs someone who’s not like him in his life? “I don’t know if that was a conscious thing, maybe subconsciously, but I think that there’s a lot that you could say, whether it’s true or not,” Beghe tells TV Insider. “Maybe he didn’t want her to [do what she did]. He’s a giver, he’s saving people, he’s doing this, which is a certain kind of a way to express love. Even his brutality in the earlier seasons—it wasn’t just because he liked beating the s**t out of people, he was trying to protect and help others, and he was that passionate about it. I am not justifying it. I’m just giving the explanation for what made sense to him.”
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It’s hard for him to be on the other side of that. “There are some people that can give but they can’t receive,” he explains. “It’s kind of like rush hour traffic: One direction is flying at 85 miles an hour and the other one is jammed. And I think that’s kind of a good metaphor for where Voight is. [He received] the love [from] his wife Camille, so here he is now in this maybe getting an opportunity to kind of open up that lane and let a little traffic through.”
Chapman also tells Voight she cares about him, she has feelings for him, and he doesn’t get to dictate those feelings. She doesn’t expect anything from him, but she’s going to make her own choices. But how does he feel about her?
“All we know is that last moment. I’m not going to interpret that moment for you, but going forward, we’ll see—from what I know of Hank Voight, if he was shocked about this, it’s not like he’s going to [go], ‘Oh, that’s crazy. No, get away from me,’ and avoid her and be a child. He’ll confront it, be honest as he can with himself and with her,” says Beghe. “There’s a lot to consider that seems rational. And clearly she’s extremely attractive and he respects her. And so we’ll just have to wait and see what it is that they come to create together.”
After their talk, Chapman leaves for Denver for a couple of months for a federal case. And according to Beghe, there’s no one who is going to be filling that void of a sounding board for Voight, at least not that he’s seen.
This season, Voight’s also dealing with a new deputy chief in Reid (Shawn Hatosy), who thus far is not interfering with the unit. For now, Voight doesn’t really think about him, but “he starts getting a little too friendly and it kind of puts up his spidey sense, his little antennae. And he may be right to wonder, WTF?” previews Beghe.
What do you think of Voight and Chapman’s relationship? Let us know in the comments section below.
Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC