‘Chicago P.D.’ Showrunner Teases Future of Burzek’s Established Relationship

After a lengthy time away, Chicago P.D. Season 12 made its return from its midseason break, and it has been nice to have the police procedural drama back. The last time we saw Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) and the rest of the Intelligence Unit, officer Kiana Cook (Toya Turner) found herself at the center of another episode. The fan favorite police procedural returns on January 22, and looking ahead to what comes next for the series, showrunner Gwen Sigan has given an exciting update, with a focus on the beloved Burzek romance.

For many seasons now, the Burzek romance has made a home in choppy waters. The couple, Adam Ruzek (Patrick Flueger) and Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati), have seen multiple engagements scuppered due to compatibility issues and other challenges. However, showrunner Sigan confirms that the Burzek romance is on its way to happiness. Speaking in an interview with ScreenRant, Sigan revealed that the procedural is setting aside the couple’s long-running “will they/won’t they” dynamic. Sigan’s comments read:

“Yes, there will be happiness, I promise. There will be happiness. They are going to make it down the aisle this season. They will have a wedding, do the full commitment, all of that. It’s been nice this season. We came into it knowing that’s where we wanted to end it. It wasn’t about the ‘will they/won’t they.’ We’ve played that so many times, so we wanted to do something different. Now we see the day-to-day of how they’re a couple.

This is their relationship, this is their bedrock, but also life keeps coming at you and, now, how do you deal with it as a couple? And seeing them grow together in all of these transitions and changes that they both have in their individual lives. So we’ve got Burgess becoming detective and then we have Ruzek having a pretty big storyline in the second half of the season here and both of them being there to support each other, but also how that affects your day-to-day and how your relationship has to morph in just a really normal, grounded way is what we were hoping for.”

The decision to move away from the uncertain bits of the Burzek romance towards a more established one sounds brilliant. Especially as it gives the show the opportunity to craft new challenges for the couple in an established relationship, even as their positions have changed. Burgess had, in earlier episodes of Season 12, come into a well deserved promotion. How that might affect Ruzek or not, remains to be seen and explored. Squerciati, however, does not expect it to bother Flueger too much, saying, “No, Paddy [John Flueger] was, like, joking. He’s like, ‘I kind of like how you boss me around.‘ No, not at all.”

There Is Potential for Even More Romance in Intelligence

The romance fever on Chicago P.D. is by no means exclusive to Burgess and Ruzek. Sergeant Voight and ASA Nina Chapman (Sara Bues) have got their own little fire going with the hardened Voight trying to come to terms with it. Voight’s surbodinate, Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar), has also been caught up in waves of love, albeit one that has the potential to drown him and those he works with. There is, however, one more romance that fans of the show have been excited to see make a return — Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) and Val Soto (Natalee Linez). The pair became an enticing prospect in Season 12, Episode 3, “Off Switch,”, and just like the rest of us, Sigan is happy to bring them back, saying previously:

“Val is back for that. I really liked Natalee Linez, who plays her. I’m excited about that. I think the fans will enjoy that one.”

Tune in to NBC on Wednesdays for new episodes of Chicago P.D. Stream past episodes on Peacock to catch up before new episodes air.

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