Chicago PD just wrapped up season 12 and Hank Voight has proven he’s still the same rough cop he always was!
Caution: This article contains SPOILERS for the Chicago PD Season 12 finale.
Chicago PD fans know that Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) has never been a “by the book” cop. After all, his initial appearance on Chicago Fire presented Hank as outright dirty to the point of threatening Casey to protect his son. Voight later went undercover to help CPD, and that led to him taking leadership of the Intelligence Unit.
Since then, Voight has been shown not just crossing the line but outright shattering it. He’s not above beating a suspect for information, threatening them with death or worse and going to extremes to protect his cops. The biggest case would have to be killing the man who shot his son and covering it up.
The last couple of seasons have shown Voight trying to rein in that maverick mentality. He recognizes that the public perception of the police has changed for the worse and doesn’t want to feed into that. Beghe has talked in interviews on Voight wanting to set a better example to the unit and prevent cops like Ruzek from becoming like him.
However, just as it seemed Voight was changing, season 12 proves that, at heart, he’s still the man willing to break any rules for what he sees as “justice.”
Voight’s clash against Reid led to a dark ending in Chicago PD
Season 12 of Chicago PD had Voight in his usual command role over Intelligence. He was shaken when the season premiere had the shocking death of new cop Emily Martel and accepted Patrolwoman Kiana Cook (Toya Turner) as her replacement.
Voight also met new Deputy Chief Reid (Shawn Hatosy), who seemed okay with Hank’s methods. They worked together well at first until Reid confronted Voight on how he was covering up Torres sleeping with a criminal informant with Burgess covering for him. Reid promised to keep it quiet as long as the IU did an occasional “task” for him.
It wasn’t long before Voight realized Reid was corrupt and using the team to try and cover his own tracks. When Voight’s secret investigation got too close, Reid had Torres arrested, Burgess suspended and the Unit disbanded.
Voight tried to find evidence against Reid but came up short with a key witness being killed. Voight was willing to take the fall for things to save the Unit. But as they arrived at the station for an Internal Affairs meeting, Reid was shot by Renny, the son of the drug lord Reid had murdered to hide his dealings.
With Reid dead, the case against the IU fell apart, Torres was free, Burgess was back on the force, and the Unit was back on track. But at Burgess and Ruzek’s wedding, ADA Chapman confronted Voight on her knowledge that he’d arranged for Renny to take revenge on Reid to solve his problem.
This means Voight just went to a new level of his own sense of “justice.”
Why Voight hasn’t really changed in Chicago PD
Voight has done a lot of shady stuff in his past yet held to a code of honor. That included always respecting the badge and the “blue wall” of cops standing by each other. Arranging the assassination of a fellow cop, especially a superior, is going too far even for Voight.
For all his talk to his cops on how they can’t do things the old ways anymore, Voight doesn’t practice what he preaches. He’ll still do anything to protect his cops and get the job done and while that may sound good to him, being as bad as some of the crooks he goes after doesn’t justify his actions.
For Voight, it’s all about the job, the badge and protecting Chicago. To him, anything he does is worth maintaining order on the streets, and he thinks he has to break the rules to do it. It’s who he is, and no matter how public perception grows or how his superiors feel or even how a woman he was attracted to wants him to be better, Hank won’t change that.
It’s a bit disappointing in a way that Hank felt he had to return to his base instincts to take down Reid. He might have been able to find a legal way to do it and trust Chapman and the system. Instead, he resorts to arranging a murder to keep the Unit going, which is a harsh move for him.
Chicago PD fans may agree with Voight’s back up against the wall and had to resort to drastic measures. Yet it also shows that, in many ways, Voight is still the nearly corrupt cop he started off as, and time won’t change his attitude. One can only hope this doesn’t end up biting Voight in the end as he can only go so far before that “old school” mentality is his undoing.
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