Chicago P.D. has had its share of explosive season finales, and the Season 10 finale was no exception. Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) and his team raced from blowup to blowup, dealing with both emotional bombs and actual C-4, in an attempt to keep Richard Beck (Lee Tergesen) from executing his deadly attack — and left the audience with a potentially devastating cliffhanger.
Season 10 brought significant change for Intelligence, beginning with the departure of Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer). Intelligence also added Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) to the team and saw the arrival of Kevin Atwater’s (LaRoyce Hawkins) father, Lew. More than anything, Season 10 put several of Intelligence’s members in danger, and no one more than Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger).
Chicago P.D.’s Season Finale Left Viewers in Suspense
After spending nearly a third of the season undercover, Ruzek begins the final episode no closer to determining what Richard Beck has planned than he was at the end of episode 18, “You Only Die Twice.” The last time viewers saw Beck, he promised Ruzek that he would be in charge of a “big event” that Beck had been planning. After several weeks of very little progress, Ruzek is terrified about what Beck might do and whether they’ll be able to stop him in time. When he learns from Samantha Beck (Caitlin Mehner) that her father has decided to implement his big plan that very day, Ruzek makes the dangerous decision to out himself as a police officer. The case seems to be coming together once he convinces Samantha to share what information she has, but things change when Ruzek and Sam tell her son, Callum (Graham Harvey), that they’re leaving town to go camping. Skeptical of their abrupt “camping trip,” Callum calls his grandfather, who tells him not to go — and not to trust Adam. Certain that his grandfather is right, Callum shoots Ruzek in the stomach before fleeing with his mother.
In a moment reminiscent of Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) dragging herself across a concrete warehouse floor after she was kidnapped and shot by Roy Walton in Season 8, Episode 16, “The Other Side,” Ruzek hauls himself across Beck’s attic and down the stairs to his phone, where he manages to call for help. Voight and Upton arrive first, and before the ambulance makes it to Med, Ruzek makes Burgess promise that she’ll get to Callum before Beck does. Burgess races to find Samantha and Callum as they are leaving town, and she and Voight end up in a stand-off with Richard Beck while he uses his grandson as a shield. Just as Callum and his grandfather are about to load into his truck and get away, Atwater arrives and takes the only shot that won’t also hit Callum, killing Richard Beck.
Voight, exhausted and likely blaming himself, ends Season 10 in a bar with ASA Nina Chapman. In the final seconds, viewers see that Voight’s arm is still covered in what is likely Adam Ruzek’s blood. There’s no update on Ruzek or how anyone else is dealing with the repercussions of the case — just Voight, brown liquor and Adam’s blood.
Adam Ruzek: Alive or Dead?
While there’s no telling when any of the Fall’s regular television shows will return due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, when Chicago P.D. does finally come back, it will have an important cliffhanger to wrap up. When Burgess departed from Med to find Samantha and Callum, Ruzek was still in surgery. Voight’s general demeanor while sharing a drink with ASA Chapman might have been a clue as to Ruzek’s fate, but he also could have just been reeling from the way the case played out. That’s why there’s one major question Chicago P.D. will have to answer in its premiere: what has happened to Adam Ruzek?
If Ruzek survives, he’ll likely begin Season 11 still in recovery from the shooting, though his body won’t be the only part of him that needs healing. Spending several months undercover with the Beck family was tough for Ruzek, who disagreed with Richard Beck’s white supremacist views. Ruzek was also constantly worried about Makayla (Ramona Edith Williams), the daughter he shares with Burgess, not solely because he wasn’t spending as much time with her as he would like but also because Makayla could be in danger if Beck discovers she is Black. Moving on from his undercover work will mean a lot of internal work for Ruzek — something he hasn’t always been good at before.
Should Ruzek not survive the shooting, everything will change. Burgess, who just reunited with Ruzek in Season 10, Episode 17, “Out of the Depths,” will lose her romantic and work partner, and Makayla will lose her father. Voight, who was already struggling with Jay Halstead’s departure in Season 10, Episode 3, “A Good Man,” will lose another stand-in son, and the rest of Intelligence will have to handle the loss of yet another team member. Intelligence will have to do some of the same reflecting on what went wrong that they would if Ruzek survives, but losing Ruzek will change how they process what happened — as well as how audiences engage with the show. Adam Ruzek has long been a fan favorite, so Chicago P.D. will have to grapple with whether it can afford to lose him.
What Season 11 Looks Like for Chicago P.D.’s Intelligence Unit
There are plenty of storylines Chicago P.D. can resolve or continue in Season 11. Regardless of Ruzek’s fate, the team will need to evaluate how his undercover stint changed things. Voight and the team will have to consider how Beck was able to get ahead of them, and Atwater might face repercussions from the shooting of Richard Beck — not internally, but potentially from Callum Beck. No viewer will ever forget the look on Callum’s face when he realized that not only was his grandfather dead, but also that he was shot by a Black man.
Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) will likely continue to be in emotional turmoil in Season 11. Her marriage to Jay Halstead is in flux, and her relationship with her job has changed. It’s also likely that Upton feels some responsibility for Intelligence’s relationship with the Beck family. Her pursuit and arrest of Sean O’Neal in the early episodes of Season 10 is what initially connected them to Samantha Beck, who was kidnapped in Season 10, Episode 12, “I Can Let You Go.” Ruzek didn’t meet Samantha when they solved her kidnapping, so when the team discovered that the Becks were connected to the death of a family in Season 10, Episode 15, “Blood and Honor,” he was the only one who could reasonably go undercover. Had Upton not engaged with O’Neal in “I Can Let You Go” or ever pursued him in the first place, they might not be connected to the Beck family at all.
Dante Torres, the newest member of Intelligence, has been conspicuously absent for a number of episodes, including the finale. Season 10, Episode 21, “New Life,” focused on Torres’ past and how it might interact with his future as a member of the police force. Should Torres continue in Intelligence, Season 11 will need to focus on how he is able to balance his neighborhood life and work life in a way no other member of Intelligence has had to do thus far. Kevin Atwater will likely spend more time at his Burnside apartment building, investing in the community and continuing to build his relationship with his father, Lew, in Season 11, and Voight will have to consider the role he wants to continue to play with his team and how his new friendship with ASA Chapman might impact the way he does his work. Ultimately, whether or not Adam Ruzek survives, there are big changes coming for Chicago P.D.‘s Intelligence team. Whenever Season 11 returns, the most interesting thing for viewers about the new season will be how they deal with whatever comes at them next.