Believe it or not, the spring season of One Chicago in the 2024 TV schedule is more than halfway done already. Fortunately, all three shows have been renewed for the 2024-2025 season, and now a former Chicago P.D. star has announced some exciting news. Jesse Lee Soffer, who starred as Detective Jay Halstead across ten seasons, is returning to his former show to direct an episode before the end of Season 11. The confirmation comes shortly after star Jason Beghe previewed to CinemaBlend what to expect from the last two episodes before hiatus begins.
Let's start with the return of the former series regular!
Jesse Lee Soffer Returns To Chicago P.D.
Jesse Lee Soffer announced that he would be directing on Chicago P.D. via Instagram Story (which has since expired), showing a sign with his name and "PREPPING DIRECTOR" printed on it. This will be his second time directing his former show, as his first return to P.D. after leaving as Jay Halstead was behind the camera. When that Season 10 episode aired in 2023, he shared with CinemaBlend that he'd felt "an itch" to try his hand as directing as far back as Season 4.
While fans may have been holding out hope for Soffer to reprise his role as Halstead in Tracy Spiridakos' final season as Hailey Upton, it's hard to imagine P.D. finding a director with more hands-on experience in the One Chicago world than the former star. Brian Luce, an executive producer and tech advisor for P.D., shared some photos of Soffer back on set to direct:
That sure beats just seeing Jesse Lee Soffer on set as a doll, courtesy of Tracy Spiridakos! In the comments of another Instagram post, Luce confirmed that the former Halstead actor is directing Episode 12 of Season 11, which is particularly interesting in light of the season running for just thirteen episodes. Assuming that the plan remains for thirteen, this means that Soffer is directing the penultimate episode of Season 11, and brings us to what Jason Beghe previewed!
What Jason Beghe Told Us
Jason Beghe's Hank Voight was at the center of Chicago P.D.'s most recent pair of episodes, which told a two-part story despite a break of a few weeks between them. After the character decided to bring a victim into his home and then joined forces with an SVU detective to try and close the case, the two-parter ended in tragedy and shone a light on what Beghe described as "the problem" with Voight.
So, the serial killer was still at large as of the end of the two-parter that wrapped on March 20, but that's not the end of the story in Season 11. When I noted to Beghe that Chicago P.D. doesn't do a lot of two-parters, he shared:
All I can say is that I enjoyed doing those two episodes, and I think that we're going to have a two-parter at the end. The last two episodes that'll pick up the story again. For me, a fun moment is in a fun scene, which is in a fun episode, which is in a fun show. There's a lot of work.
Season 11 ending on a two-parter presumably means Episodes 12 and 13 will be closely tied together. Jesse Lee Soffer will therefore direct the first half of the pair unless something has drastically changed to alter the episode count for the season. It also sounds like the serial killer might not be revisited in the episodes that are left before the final two, despite the fact that SVU Detective Josephine Petrovic will be back in the episode on March 27.
All in all, all signs point toward Soffer directing a pretty pivotal episode for his second turn behind the camera on Chicago P.D., and that's worth getting excited about! That's not to say that two-parters aren't a lot of work for everybody at the show. Jason Beghe went on:
I was pretty tired at the end of two episodes in a row where I was in practically every scene. That's a lot of work and a lot of lines. It's not like I just do a 14-hour day. Then I gotta go home and learn the lines. It's a lot, but it's an honor and it's fun. I love the show, and I respect it, and I want it to be good, so I do my best. Sometimes I feel like, 'Hey, that was good!' Sometimes I feel like, 'It could have been better.' But either way, I try to give 100% and 100% is different every day.
Given that the next episode, called "On Paper," will be the eighth of Season 11, fans still have some time to wait before seeing Jesse Lee Soffer's second directed episode of Chicago P.D. For now, check out the promo for the March 27 installment:
Keep tuning in to NBC on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET for new episodes of Chicago P.D. The clock is ticking on Tracy Spiridakos' final season as Hailey Upton, and "On Paper" looks like it could be a juicy one for her. Fans who miss Halstead can always hold out hope that Jesse Lee Soffer's presence on set could mean a cameo in one of the last episodes of Season 11, but a surefire way to see him in action is the revisit the first ten seasons streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription.
