When it was announced that Toya Turner wouldn’t return for Chicago PD season 13, we just knew that the Dick Wolf show would do what it always does. Rather than allow Turner’s character, Kiana Cook, to say goodbye, we would get a one-line explanation.
Caution: This post contains minor SPOILERS from Chicago PD season 13, episode 1.
So, it wasn’t that surprising to get that one-liner at the start of the episode. While it didn’t go the way I expected, considering some of the teases throughout the summer, it was disappointing to see a character written out so easily.
Kiana Cook has a new permanent position in Chicago PD season 13
The start of Chicago PD season 13 picks up a month after the Chicago PD season 12 finale events. Intelligence is still disbanded, with Voight working hard on Commander Devlin to get the team back together. Voight is worried that he won’t get the people he wants back on his team.
He notes that he has already lost Officer Kiana Cook. While those still on the force are off Intelligence, they have been given spots with other units for now. Cook gets an offer of a permanent spot on a team, and she takes it, because she has to put her career first.
I did think that Cook would choose to leave, realizing what Voight had done and deciding that she couldn’t work for him. I’m glad that wasn’t the case, but I would have loved to see Kiana actually get a chance to say goodbye to the team.
Dick Wolf is likely never really going to change
The Dick Wolf universe is notorious for these types of exits in the middle of seasons. Law & Order just recently had a similar situation, with Mehcad Brooks written out of the show in between seasons 24 and 25, and then just a one-liner during the season 25 premiere to share that he had joined another precinct.
It’s disrespectful to the actors to do this sort of thing. Sadly, it’s clear that the decisions to remove actors from a show in the middle of the season is either for creative reasons or due to the network putting pressure on budgets, and this means that there isn’t the room for characters to come back.
There are instances where it’s possible to craft an exit, such as Chicago Fire getting the chance to do that with Ritter, but it’s not often. It’s time to normalize to at least offer one episode to write a character out, but I doubt the Dick Wolf universe is ever going to change.
Chicago PD airs on Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.
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