One Chicago is coming back in full force.
Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, and Chicago P.D. all return with their new seasons on Sept. 21, and we’ve got intel on what you can expect from each show. There will be romance! There will be new characters! There will be fire… but on Med. It’s all a little confusing. Check out what you can look forward to from the NBC dramas below.
Remember that massive cliffhanger from last season? Yeah, get ready for more of that. “We’re picking up in the middle of that fire that you saw,” showrunner Diane Frolov tells EW of the Chicago Med premiere. And yet, episode 2 will jump forward in time “about a month,” according to Frolov, which will allow the show to examine the effects of said fire. “It’s tremendously impactful,” fellow showrunner Andrew Schneider says.
As for what else to expect from the season, Frolov previews a deeper dive into psychiatry. “We’re exploring it a little bit more. Charles [Oliver Platt] is going to have his own journey,” she says. “We’re also going to have a character that comes in diagnosed with schizophrenia that will recur so we can follow that through more. It’ll be very personal at times with Charles in his own journey to be interacting with these patients.”
Furthermore, the show is interested in exploring supply chain shortages and how that will impact the hospital. “What this does is allows our doctors to come together and be creative and find alternate ways to treat patients while at the same time, they’re often fighting for limited supplies,” Schneider says. “So it really kind of becomes an issue for everybody coming together in the midst of this.”
Chicago Fire
“There are roller coaters and then there are launch coasters. This season’s a launch coaster,” co-showrunner Andrea Newman says of Chicago Fire’s return. “We really come out with a bang, and it’s picking pretty much right up from where we leave off.” Reminder: We left off with newlyweds Kelly (Taylor Kinney) and Stella (Miranda Rae Mayo) about to have a terrible wedding night as a bunch of guys surrounded their cabin.
But don’t worry, the drama won’t last. “We’re delving into marriage for Severide and Kidd this season,” Newman continues. “For them, it’s really fun because things just get hotter. They’re kind of unleashed, in a way. We’re not shying away from the sort of heat between them. If anything, we’re amping that up.”
As for one of the show’s other couples, Brett (Kara Killmer) and Casey (Jesse Spencer) ended last season on a less exciting note. “Decisions have to be made,” Newman says. “I don’t think anything was definitive. I mean, obviously it’s a struggle. It’s a long-distance relationship and decisions need to be made.”
Voight (Jason Beghe) is not in a good place. “Voight is still emotionally dealing with the aftermath and the guilt that he is feeling for the fact that Anna [Carmela Zumbado] was put in the position that she was and how the events unfolded in the finale,” Chicago P.D. showrunner Gwen Sigan tells EW. “In typical Voight fashion, he’s not going to sit and wallow, so he’s taken that pain and he’s doing something active with it.”
Voight’s actions almost always impact Intelligence as a whole, and given the already complicated dynamic between Voight, Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), and Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), this isn’t exactly a simple situation. “They’re sort of all in this interesting little triangle together,” Sigan says. “The death of Anna and how he’s dealing with it in the first episode is affecting Upton heavily and is also affecting Jay. And it’s made more difficult by the fact that Upton is the one that pulled the trigger. She’s the one that caused Anna’s death, so there’s all of that emotional aftermath as well.”
On a lighter note, Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) will be joining Intelligence this year, adding some new blood to the unit. “He brings this fresh perspective on policing,” Sigan says. “He’s young and he has really strong motivators as to why he wants to be a policeman and what kind of police he’s going to be. So it’s a whole new dynamic and it’s fun to just start building these new relationships because it’s someone who is learning everybody for the first time and is learning this particular job for the first time.”
All three Chicago shows return Wednesday, Sept. 21 on NBC.
