Spoilers are ahead for the Season 12 premiere of Chicago P.D., called "Ten Ninety-Nine."
Chicago P.D. returned for Season 12 in the 2024 TV schedule to pick up where the Season 11 finale (available streaming via Peacock subscription) left off back in the spring. While a month of a time jump passed from the brutal case that ended with Upton deciding to leave the Intelligence Unit, Voight hasn't processed his very near-death experience and the hallucination of Olinsky... unless burying himself and his team in cases counts!
The premiere (which didn't feature Marina Squerciati as Burgess) ended in a shockingly abrupt tragedy when a member of the team was shot in the head and killed, leaving me wondering if the unit is really ready for what we know of Upton's next replacement, particularly after some comments from showrunner Gwen Sigan.
What Happened In The Season 12 Premiere
The good news for fans of Chicago P.D. is that the One Chicago cop drama didn't start Season 12 by killing off a longtime character, although Ruzek came close with a gun to his head in "Ten Ninety-Nine." A detective by the name of Martel joined the unit between seasons to fill Upton's vacancy, and she had a fun dynamic with Ruzek that evidently went back to their Academy days. P.D. didn't waste any time in introducing her, with a handy chalkboard listing the names of all the members of the unit and their callsigns.
The chalkboard included some nice Easter eggs for longtime fans, with the callsigns for 5021 Charlie (Olinsky), 5021 George (Halstead), and 5021 Henry (Upton) still listed. Unfortunately, they'll need to erase 5021 Sam from the board, because Detective Martel died in the same episode that introduced her. She was with Ruzek with they heard shots fired and jumped out of the car to investigate, only for her to take a bullet to the head while Ruzek could only look on in shock.
I for one wasn't shocked that something happened to take Martel out of action before the end of the episode, because Martel was not the person who had been announced as the new member of Intelligence in Season 12. That said, I wasn't expecting her to be shot and killed either! It was particularly surprising because she had proven herself as an incredibly capable member of the team with a level head, a knack for the kinds of cases that Intelligence tackles, and a backstory with Ruzek.
And considering how showrunner Gwen Sigan described the upcoming new addition to the team, I have to wonder if the rest of them – especially Ruzek – will be ready for her.
What To Expect From Toya Turner's New Character
News broke over the summer that New Amsterdam and Chicago Fire alum Toya Turner had been cast to join Chicago P.D. as a new series regular. Not much was known about her character at the time beyond that she'd be a CPD patrol officer. When I spoke with Gwen Sigan about the upcoming story for Burzek, I also asked what Toya Turner's character brings to the show that fans haven't seen before. The showrunner shared:
I'm very excited for Toya's character. She's great. Toya's character is Kiana Cook, and she has been a police officer for a few years, so she's not coming in green to us. She's a good cop, she's an experienced cop, but she is a beat cop when we meet her, so she's working the beat. She's a patrol officer, and we'll learn a lot about her background and why she's still a patrol officer after a few years, and what's happened to her within the system. But she's someone who is very sure of herself.
Kiana Cook coming to Intelligence from patrol hopefully means some fun scenes involving Platt, and having a cop around who is very sure of herself would normally sound like a good thing. Coming into the unit in the wake of a death definitely doesn't qualify as a normal circumstance, though, and I'm curious to see how ready the team is to welcome somebody fresh off of patrol into the high stakes and even higher danger of this job. Gwen Sigan went on:
She's a character that doesn't think she needs validation, really, and she's an active cop. She likes to be on the street, she likes to be active and boots on the ground. She's someone that comes in and is able to fall in love with the Intelligence Unit and what it has to offer in a way that we haven't gotten to see in a while, probably since Torres got to start out on the show. It's been really nice, and I think it offers up a lot of new relationships and dynamics in the unit, to have this breath of fresh air come in and be somebody new.
The comparison to Torres makes me wonder if we'll see one of the longtime team members take Cook under their wing in Season 12. After all, Torres had Halstead as his first mentor before coming to rely on Atwater, and those interactions helped him truly feel like part of the team early on. Gwen Sigan pointed out how Cook is coming into Intelligence with a different kind of experience compared to Torres, though, saying:
She's definitely been an officer longer than Torres, because we really pulled Torres through from the academy almost. So he was very fresh, and she has been a few years in. She definitely has experience on the streets, working in districts, and we'll learn she also has experience as a tactical officer, which is sort of a little like Chicago's idea of S.W.A.T. They're a unit that's called in for really active situations, serving warrants or getting guns off the street. We'll see she has that built into her police philosophy as well.
All in all, it should be interesting to see if Martel's death has an ongoing affect on the officers of the Intelligence Unit. Chicago P.D. isn't usually serialized from week to week, but it seems unlikely that Ruzek would be able to shake the events of the Season 12 premiere off too quickly, and I'm more curious about his reaction to Cook than any of the others. Keep tuning in to NBC on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET for new episodes of Chicago P.D., following Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. ET and Chicago Med at 8 p.m. ET.
