‘Chicago Fire’ / ‘Chicago PD’ exclusive: Derek Haas, Matt Olmstead on crossover’s impact on Burgess, Severide, and more
Tonight, “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago PD” aired their two-part crossover event, which served a wide array of different purposes. Not only did we learn of the circumstances surrounding Severide’s legal crisis, but we also saw him eventually be cleared for what happened. It was rather touch-and-go for a while, but he emerged (luckily) on the other side in one piece.
Along the way, we did also get a few other important character updates. Burgess is holding on in her partnership with Olinsky, even though he didn’t want to be paired up with her out of fear the job would break her heart. Meanwhile, Louie’s biological father didn’t turn up for a planned meeting, which made you wonder if that story would be over.
Luckily, we had a chance to ask some of these questions to executive producers Matt Olmstead and Derek Haas in the second part of our interview with the two of them. (Before we dive in, a reminder that you can check out part 1 over at the link here.)
CarterMatt – Now that Burgess and Olinsky are working together, what seems to be the plan there moving forward? Will he continue to be so hard on her?
Matt Olmstead – It’s not open-ended. We do have a journey in mind … The character we’ve established down in uniform, a lot of the [content] in that role was with her interactions with Platt, and there’s a lot of that we’re going to do moving forward. She was also comedic and light, and she gave us a little bit of a change-up. With her going to Intelligence, we don’t want to get rid of that part of her character, but you have to act a little bit differently when you’re up in Intelligence.
He really is tough with her for a couple of reasons … He thinks that she might be a little soft — she’s dated two guys within the district. Also, being tough with her is a confidence test — ‘If I’m harsh with her, is she going to run to Voight and complain about me? Is she going to break down in tears?’ All of those things would just confirm his suspicion that she may not be ready. She’s aware of that, so she has to do what he says and not break down.
In seeing that picture that Ruzek still has, does that make her look back and assess that relationship in any way?
Olmstead – It does, but [that doesn’t mean that she] can articulate and identify it. Right now, she’s having a hard time, and she’s guilt-ridden and [wonders] whether or not he went off and took a job because he wanted to avoid working with her. It rocks her. She’s dealing with that along with having to keep up to speed on a fast-paced job and then everything going on with Olinsky. She’s got a lot going on right now.
After everything that Severide has gone through over these past two episodes, does this change him in any way moving forward?
Derek Haas – It is in terms of Severide looking in the mirror and saying ‘I see a future before me that looks a lot like [my father] Benny’s, and I’m not sure I want that.’ It does shake him, and he makes some decisions moving forward in the second part of the season. Ultimately, he’s still him, but he may be ordering club soda and water a little bit more often at Molly’s now.
Are we going to see more of Louie’s biological father, or was what we saw with him not showing up the natural end of that story?
Haas – That is not the end of that story. That story does have an end, but we hope to keep flipping the expectations on that character and that plotline.