[SPOILER's] Death in the Chicago P.D. Season 12 Finale Explained: A Recap
Voight's connection to a shocking murder raises plenty of questions — but also solves all of Intelligence's problems.
Deputy Chief Charlie Reid (Shawn Hatosy) was a mystery from the moment he appeared in Chicago P.D.'s Season 12 premiere. As the series unfolded, so did Reid's motives, and they weren't great.
It turned out he was a corrupt cop who worked with and protected some of the city's most dangerous criminals — while also recruiting other officers — to control Chicago's streets in the way he saw fit, ensuring his vision of safety. However his reign was violent, sinister, and powered by blackmail. He even attempted to recruit Voight (Jason Beghe) by using the knowledge of Torres' (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) illegal relationship with CI Gloria Perez as leverage. His plans nearly worked and collapsed the Intelligence Unit, but when you have Sgt. Voight working against you, you're bound to fall.
"For me, he's doing what he has to do and he makes sense, what he's saying," Hatosy tells NBC Insider. "He's not wrong, and his intention is to take out the worst of the worst... I don't think they wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, 'I'm the worst.' I think they actually believe they're doing good. So that has worked for me over the years. I've played some pretty awful people, and I think that a successful character to me is even if he is bad, even if we have seen him do unimaginably bad things — if an audience even after that can say, 'But I sort of sympathize with that character,' to me that's a successful character."
Showrunner Gwen Sigan sensed a passion and understanding of the role from the moment she met with the Pitt star.
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"I remember some of the first conversations we had with him and it being very clear he’s a pro," she says. "This guy’s a professional, and he wants meaty stuff, and you know, he’s really invested, and I think it was clear, 'Oh he’s gonna be like the perfect guy [for the role]... I think he inhabited this character, made it his own, and it wouldn’t have been what it is without him."
So how did Reid, and ultimately Hatosy, meet an untimely end on Chicago P.D.? Read on the find out — and what it all means for Voight.
How Shawn Hatosy's Reid died on Chicago P.D.
In the end, it wasn't the Intelligence Unit or Voight who took out Reid — at least not directly. The culprit was Renny Otero, the young son of drug smuggler, Jesus Otero, who was killed by Reid's hitman in the season's penultimate episode "Open Casket."
As Reid, Voight, and their fellow officers gathered outside of court for the preliminary disciplinary hearing for Intelligence, Renny assassinated Reid as revenge for his father's murder. As he lay in a pool of his own blood, Reid told Voight, "You're worse than me," with his dying breath.
How Voight was involved in Reid's murder
As a tearful Chapman explained during Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Ruzek's (Patrick John Flueger) wedding, Voight may have not pulled the trigger, but he stacked the cards against Reid through a series of careful manipulations that would ensure his death.
"You released Renny. You told him how his dad died, how he suffered," Chapman said. "And then you gave him Reid's location. You sanctioned Reid's death."
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Voight's lack of a denial confirms Chapman's suspicions, which effectively ended any romance that could have happened between the two, as the ADA clearly disapproved of his actions. She now sees the sergeant as someone who is comparable to Reid, who himself echoed the same sentiment with his last words.
In the end, Voight was only ensuring that a dangerous, compromised figure high up in the CPD could no longer control the streets of Chicago. In turn, the investigation into Intelligence was dropped, the unit saved, and Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) and Burgess got their jobs back. So, was the Intelligence leader in the right or wrong?
"I think that we wanted to leave it open and to have the audience questioning that," says Sigan when asked that very question. "What Reid has been doing? It’s sort of this idea of intent. You know, they had different intent, but are their acts the same? They both sanctioned death, basically."
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Sigan continues, "I think Voight does not see himself as the same. I think that that question is gonna keep coming up in his subconscious. I don’t think that it’s gonna really leave him. I think it will have an impact, but I think he believes what he did was for the betterment of his team, the city, everybody involved."
