Luke Mitchell, Chicago Med
George Burns Jr/NBC
Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Med are coming back. For three shows going into their 15th, 14th, and 12th seasons, respectively, there’s no way to not just survive, but thrive, than to embrace change. The three One Chicago shows return on Wednesday, Oct. 7, to NBC: Chicago Med will air its premiere episode, “Shots Fired,” at 8/7c, followed by Chicago Fire‘s “New Blood” and Chicago P.D.‘s “Demolition.” And for all, things are looking different this upcoming season.
We talked to the three One Chicago showrunners about the upcoming premieres, with Allen MacDonald (Chicago Med), Victor Teran (Chicago Fire), and Gwen Sigan (Chicago P.D.) teasing that the theme for the upcoming seasons is very much evolution.
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Chicago Med is, perhaps, the steadiest. Season 11 ended with Dean Archer (Steven Weber) confessing his love for Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram), as the two hold their newborn baby. On the other hand, Mitch Ripley (Luke Mitchell) and Caitlin Lenox (Sarah Ramos) exchanged their own “I love yous” and committed to a real relationship together, despite Lenox’s prion disease diagnosis. Oh yes, and Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) was asked to resign as the Executive Director of Patient and Medical Services at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center due to suspicions she improperly leaked medical records.
MacDonald teased that “with the premiere, the big surprise is you think the story is over, you know, that all the possible damage that could be done has been done, and then you get a surprise later in the episode.” Very Chicago Med.
For the season, though, he shared that “the theme of the season is moving into the unknown.” And that’s established right away in the premiere. “I feel like I took the characters, put them in a plastic bag and shook them up, opened it, and threw them back out. And we’re picking up when they’ve hit the table, basically. We are living in Miranda Lewis’ (Orlagh Cassidy) world right now at Gaffney, and it is everyone’s worst nightmare, including Sharon. And Sharon doesn’t like to take things sitting down.”
But we can expect the balance of power to shift. “The thing I will tease about the first half of the season is that Goodwin is not done fighting Miranda. Miranda holds all the cards. Miranda seems to be in the power position with all the leverage, but it’s not over. And Goodwin, by the end of Episode 2, you’ll see she has a very clever plan.”
Joe Eichorst, Da’Vinchi, K.C. McNeil, and Matthew Daddario, Chicago Fire
Elizabeth Sisson/NBC
If all of that seems like a lot, then it’s nothing compared to Chicago Fire, which left most characters in the middle of an emergency and at serious risk of death. The episode ended with Truck 81 and Squad 3 trapped in a burning building, as Severide (Taylor Kinney) is heard calling out “Mayday, Mayday.” When the Season 15 premiere opens, we’ll learn not just if they all make it out — with the added worry that Joe Minoso‘s departure from the show has already been announced — but whether Severide is sticking around in Firehouse 51 or leaving for OFI, not to mention if he and Stella (Miranda Rae Mayo) will adopt foster kid Isaiah.
Teran teased, “We are going to see the exciting conclusion of that harrowing call we saw at the end of last season. And I don’t think it’ll disappoint. It goes absolutely sideways. And spoiler alert, there are civilians in that warehouse. And that’s going to ratchet up the stakes of this call and what happens. So, stay tuned for that.”
But we also get to see what happens after. “We’re going to see real consequences come out of that call. And they’re going to affect our whole house, not just for the episode, but for a long time going forward.”
That ties into what’s coming this season for the show. “We’re trying to embrace a lot of new dynamics and interpersonal conflicts within the firehouse. And we’re trying to shake things up for our characters in all these different ways.”
Enter the probies. “There are four new firefighters. They’re probationary. So, they’re not full-fledged firefighters; they still need a last bit of training in the field. And they’re going to come and really shake things up in the house. And different characters are going to react in different ways to these guys. They all have sort of fun, interesting, different personalities. We’re thinking of it as like an infusion of new blood after 14 seasons.”
Teran is taking over as showrunner on Chicago Fire this season after the departure of Andrea Newman, and he’s got his priorities for the season. “Priority number one, don’t screw it up. Don’t be the one that sinks the ship,” he joked.
“For me, that’s really about understanding what is great about the show, and not messing with that, and playing within the parameters of that.” But he’s also bringing some new ideas. “I think I’m attracted to maybe a little more inner conflict among our characters than we’ve been doing the last few seasons.”
Sounds a tad concerning; we’re not going to lie. “I think there’s always been great conflict and great dynamics within the firehouse. But I think that the new dynamic between Severide and Kidd, for example, is something that… I don’t want to wreck anyone’s ideas of what a marriage is, of what this particular relationship is. But things get shaken up, people go through things together and separately, and we’re not going to shy away from any of that.”
LaRoyce Hawkins, Chicago P.D.
Lori Allen/NBC
Over on Chicago P.D., the cliffhanger was more focused, but no less devastating. The finale saw Eva Imani (Arienne Mandi) finally find her sister, who was kidnapped as a child, only for Shari (Selin Çuhadaroglu) not to remember her or trust her. Not just that, Imani and Voight (Jason Beghe) discovered Shari was responsible for at least one murder, and she even tried to kill Imani as well. The episode ended with Imani asking Voight if her sister is going to go to jail, or if they can make it all disappear. The answer, whatever it is, will surely change Imani and perhaps even Voight.
Sigan teased that “this season, we are definitely leaning into the theme of reinvention, transition, change,” adding that we’ll be “seeing our characters who are all in these points of their lives where there is some sort of reinvention happening for them.”
This is especially true of the premiere, titled “Demolition.” Sigan told us, “For this premiere episode, we wanted to kick that idea off in a big way. So, you’ll definitely see the 21st District looking different than it’s really ever looked.”
Now, that’s something we didn’t expect. What could be happening in the district and how will it affect Intelligence?
“We’re making some big decisions, answering some questions from last season. And for our characters, they’re also each sort of individually dealing with changes. It’s been three months since the events of last season, and we see that they’re all in a different place than where we left them.”
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Sigan had another big challenge: writing out a character who has been around since the first episode in Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins). “We really wanted to find a way where Atwater was making a big choice himself. It wasn’t something that was just happening to him; he was going to be the author of this and give him something that felt really organic to who he is, and felt like something his character has earned.”
“We wanted it to be that he, through this case and through the events that are happening in his life, he gets to a point where he gets to make a decision that’s really positive and a decision that for him, it’s almost been like years in the making. And we just wanted it to feel authentic to him, but also feel positive to who this character is and what he’s meant to the show. And I think we captured that. I hope we captured it.”
She also teased what that departure would look like. “It’s a really beautiful performance by LaRoyce. And then we were lucky enough to have Jesse Lee Soffer direct it, who’s obviously a member of the family, and I think he just killed it. So, yeah, I’m really proud of the way that it all came together and turned out.”
One Chicago is coming back, and we’re going to have to say goodbye to some of our favorites, but if MacDonald, Teran, and Sigan are to be believed, there’s still a lot of life left on these shows and a lot of stories to be told.