Why did Jesse Lee Soffer leave Chicago PD? Jay Halstead’s future
First and foremost, we should note (for those who need a reminder) that the writers did not kill Halstead off. Nor did they have him split up from Hailey Upton. There is still a possible future for this character, but we have questions aplenty as to how that would work. How do you bring him back into a world that is so morally questionable, especially since he needed to leave because of all of those gray areas? If the last thing he wants to do is become Voight, this is a very hard thing to reconcile.
The exit by Soffer from the show still appears to be amicable, though the reasonable for it remains vague. Our inclination is that it is financial in nature, given what we saw with Kelli Giddish on Law & Order: SVU and what we’re seeing within primetime television in general. If that is the case it could complicate a return as a simple matter of dollars and cents, but we can’t rule anything out. We do think there’s closure for Jay that needs to be had, especially since it wouldn’t be like him to just abandon Upton forever. The idea of him dying while away in the Army is devastating in its own right.
At this point, we’d say to prepare for just about anything with this show moving forward. For Jesse as an actor, we mostly just hope that he’s able to leverage this part into another exciting opportunity down the road. He deserves that, and it would be very-much cool to see him in a part that is different from this role in just about every way possible.
Related – Be sure to get some more news on Chicago PD, including other insight on what lies ahead
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