Hailey Upton is going to exit Chicago PD. She’s going to turn in her badge, like her ex-husband before her, and walk away from the people she’s been alongside for nearly a decade. It’s a tough realization, but one we ultimately hope is true because the alternative is, well, death.
Upton is being written off during the season 11 finale either way. We’re getting closer and closer to the episode in question, “More,” but the Chicago PD team have done an exemplary job of keeping crucial plot details under wraps. We still don’t know what causes Upton to pick up and leave the Windy City behind.
Hailey Upton panics during a serial killer case
We do, however, have promo photos from her last case. Let’s just say they fail to paint a picture of a stress-free day on the job. We’d actually go the opposite direction, and assert that Upton has rarely looked as frazzled and panicked as she does is some of the close-up shots from “More.”
The synopsis for the episode makes it clear that the IU are dealing with a very deranged enemy. It also teases a “vital decision” that Upton will have to make at some point during the episode’s runtime:
“As the months-long investigation into the serial killer reaches its close, Voight must outsmart the offender in a race against the clock. Upton must make a vital decision.”
Upton will work with Petrovic one last time
Upton appears to be working alongside Josephine Petrovic (Bojana Novakovic) once again, but both officers are out of their element and frightened in what looks to be a bizarre, yellow-tinged enclosure underground. There’s no context for how or why the officers are in this space, but their expressions do give off the impression that it has to do with the serial killer mentioned in the synopsis.
Petrovic is being primed to replace Upton in the IU based on the amount of screen time she’s gotten and how close she’s been with the veteran officer. It’s a trick that PD previously tried to pull with Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) and his successor, Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar), but much more effort has been put into this one.
Whether or not Petrovic has what it takes to become IU remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that Upton will leave pretty big shoes to fill.
