Chicago PD season 5 spoilers: What could lie ahead for Hailey Upton?

Hailey Upton is one of the new additions to Chicago PD season 5 — though by “new” we mean mostly on a full-time basis. You first got a chance to see her recur at the end of last season, and she’s now set to join Intelligence full-time. Tracy Spiridakos had a chance to get her feet wet in this world, and now she’ll be getting a good chance to really dive into the story and experience this world.

Apparently, there are no plans at all to ease her into the process of being a part of the show. Things are going to be crazy almost right away for her, both in terms of major cases that she has to take on and some personal storylines to boot. Here is what show executive producer Rick Eid had to say to TV Guide:

“She’ll have a lot of interesting cases to solve and moral dilemmas to deal with along the way and she’ll probably be involved in a romantic story line with one of our characters.”

Who could that love interest be? When you look across the board there are some interesting candidates, though we would probably prefer an Atwater than a Halstead just for the sake of mixing things up. Jay was contemplating an engagement to Lindsay at the end of this past season, so we don’t want to see the show just dive into familiar territory of him dating someone who ends up being his partner. Mixing things up is always the better course of action.

In terms of cases, we don’t really have a good sense as to any specifics just yet, but the fair assumption to always make with Chicago PD is that they are looking for some events that are inspired by real-life circumstances to go along with natural challenges that many police departments face in 2017. This is an era where departments have to contend with a difficult political environment. There is one group of people who do care and respect men and women in uniform more so than ever before; however, there are also other people who hate police and make the thoughts on them clear on a fairly regular basis. There is not a whole lot of middle ground, and this is something that the show is clearly aware of at this point in the run.

For Upton, our hope is that she gets a wide array of interesting opportunities to shine, and she’s not just thought of as a proto-Lindsay character who experiences many of the same struggles. Based on what we’ve heard about her so far, she clearly has a rather unique story to tell.

Want some other Chicago PD news and insight?

Then be sure to head over to the link here! Remember that new episodes air on NBC starting this fall, and the show is back in its familiar timeslot Wednesday nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. Even though some things with the series are clearly changing, there are some other elements about it that are clearly staying the same. (Photo: NBC.)