Spoilers ahead for the Season 14 premiere of Chicago P.D.! I still can't believe we're on Season 14!
Chicago P.D. is officially back for its 14th season on the 2026 TV schedule, and Wednesday’s premiere had no shortage of action and twists. On top of some changes coming to the 21st District, Imani is now dealing with the return of her sister, Shari, who doesn’t know who she is. Unfortunately, the premiere had an update on the two that is pretty heartbreaking after all they’ve been through. I spoke with the showrunner about it, and I'm pretty much in my feels.
The end of last season saw Intelligence’s newest officer, Eva Imani (Arienne Mandi) looking for her sister, who was taken from their family as a young child. Shari had been raised by a criminal and sex trafficker, and developed Stockholm syndrome. While Imani and Shari reunited in the finale, Shari didn’t know who she was and didn’t trust her, only trusting the “family” she was raised by. While a few months have passed in the Season 14 premiere, “Demolition,” not much has changed.
Imani has been visiting Shari in prison every day in the hopes of getting her to remember and trust her. However, Imani pushes Shari so much that Shari eventually takes her off of her visitors’ list, which Imani has a hard time believing, and it’s not going to get any easier.
As showrunner Gwen Sigan told CinemaBlend, it's "heartbreaking." She’s really going to be questioning her identity as the season moves forward.
Yeah, it's really heartbreaking. It's really, I think, the exact opposite of everything that Imani would have ever imagined and hoped for. So she's definitely in a place of having to find a way to deal with those emotions and also to deal with this void that's in her life, right? Like, she's had so much of her identity really tied up in the search for sister. And she's really invested everything in her life into that search. And it's over. She's found her sister. And now, for Imani, it's, ‘What do I do with all of that time, with that part of me that was constantly given?’ This is such a period of transition for her in this journey of, like, ‘Well, who else am I without it?’
We first met Imani at the beginning of Season 13, and she was really focused on finding her sister while also finding her place at Intelligence. Now, in the Season 14 premiere, it’s clear having Shari back and visiting her in prison has really taken up her time. To not be seeing results is disappointing, too, as Sigan pointed out, and it does not sound as if this story will be resolved anytime soon.
And she's forced into that because her sister won't see her. So she's forced into confronting that problem in a very Imani way. We see her trying to confront it actively and trying to be like, ‘I'm not gonna sit, I'm not gonna wallow, I'm not gonna let myself get too sad. I'm gonna get through this.’ So we see her try to do that in interesting ways all season.
I was so excited when Imani found Shari in the Season 13 finale, and then quickly devastated when she basically didn’t want anything to do with her. It sounds like this will be an ongoing storyline throughout the TV season, so it's hard to tell where this storyline will go, but it’s obvious that it will only continue affecting her and possibly her work on the team.
Chicago P.D. is very character-driven, and this is certainly not the first time the drama has dealt with an emotional storyline. it's one of the reasons I've stuck with this show for years. This storyline is no exception, no matter how devastating it has been so far.
Tune in to new episodes of Chicago P.D. on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, streaming the next day with a Peacock subscription.
