Series executive producers say that the relationship history will give more momentum to the storyline because Lindsay will have an emotional investment after seeing Severide.
- Jan 3, 2017
AceShowbiz - "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D." will debut the two-hour crossover, airing on Tuesday, January 3 at 9 P.M. and 10 P.M. respectively on NBC. The crossover will focus on Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and his recent identity crisis. It also features Severide's past relationship with Detective Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush).
Series executive producer Derek Haas says, "We thought a perfect character-based crossover would be Severide looking like he had committed vehicular homicide and Lindsay being the one that has to come and arrest him, and all the ramifications of that."
The firefighter was also an ideal crossover candidate as executive producer Matt Olmstead adds, "We knew that we hadn't overused that character too much on P.D." He says, "He hadn't really been around since that romance with Lindsay [several seasons ago]."
Olmstead then explains, "[The relationship history] actually gave even more momentum to the storyline because Lindsay would have an emotional investment to seeing him." He continues, "It really helped us out, because not only is [Henry "Hank"] Voight (Jason Beghe) kind of keeping an eye on her, and aware of the fact they used to date, but he's also smartly bringing her into it and letting her use that, because it's keeping Severide talking."
Olmstead also teases that Lindsay's current boyfriend Detective Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) will quickly think that Severide is guilty because of the fact that Severide used to sleep with Lindsay and he isn't realizing he's doing it until down the road.
"So it really destabilizes everyone, but not Voight, who's using all of these emotions and relationships to get to the bottom of what happened, essentially," says Olmstead.
Overall, Haas concludes the crossover as "fraught with drama" and "juicy" in its exploration of whether Lindsay is giving favorable treatment to someone who could be a murderer simply because she used to go out with him.
