Chicago P.D. boss previews a disbanded Intelligence Unit and a partner for Voight in season 13 (exclusive)

Chicago P.D.‘s Intelligence Unit is no more.

When season 13 begins, Voight’s (Jason Beghe) team is still disbanded following the death of Reid (Shawn Hatosy). Picking up a month after the events of the season 12 finale, the show will dive right into the fallout of losing Reid. “What we find is that Voight’s simple solution that he thought he had found was not so simple,” showrunner Gwen Sigan tells Entertainment Weekly. “So the team is actually disbanded and we are, in this first episode, exploring how the heck is he gonna get them back together? The bullpen has just been empty for a month, so it’s a very different feel to our start.”

As for what that means for each of the characters, Sigan says, “Nobody is thriving. Some are doing better than others. Voight’s trying not to lose it. As we see through the first episode, he is trying his very best to remain calm and face his consequences and do the right thing. And we’ll see how that goes.”

If history is any indication, he won’t stay calm for long.

But Reid’s death wasn’t the only big event of the season 12 finale. Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) finally got married!

“They’re happy,” Sigan says of the couple. “They’re kind of in that honeymoon phase of still being really excited about the wedding and being happy together.” But that’s not to say they’re thrilled about their work situation. “Their lives are a little more complicated at the moment with work, but the two of them are very strong and happy together and that’s something we want to continue to look at: Now you’re married, you have this great family unit, but what comes next?”

And if the team didn’t have enough to deal with, there’s also the matter of a new face. Arienne Mandi joins the show as Eva Imani in the new season. “She’s coming from the ATF so she’s got a different background,” Sigan says. “She comes in hot. The first episode, she’s tracking a gun trafficker undercover and we wind up trying to find the same offender, so we end up working together. And it’s great because she’s coming in without any prior knowledge of Voight, so she’s not intimidated by him.

“She’s not this green, brand-new cop,” Sigan continues. “She’s been around and is able to be very honest with Voight right off the bat. We see her speak to him like he’s anybody else on the street. She’s a breath of fresh air.”

As for where she’ll fit in with the team, Sigan says she’ll become “a little bit of a partner for Voight whether he wants it or not.”

And it sounds like Voight might be in need of a partner, given that Sigan also teases a “creepy big bad” that she describes as “really gross.” When asked to elaborate, Sigan says, “I think I just mean dark. It’s very emotional [story] and kinda creepy. I’m leaning into the creepiness of it.”

Other season 13 episodes that Sigan highlights include a deeper look into the neighborhood where Ruzek and Burgess live, an “action-packed” hour focused on Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins), and an episode really digging into what happened last season with Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar). “He’s dealing with the darkness that we left him in last season,” Sigan says of Torres. “He is trying to find his way out of that and find new purpose.”

Overall, the showrunner says the theme of the season is “roots,” adding, “It’s been nice to do a psychological deep dive on everybody. There’s still a lot of stories to tell, even 13 years in.”