Chicago PD: Calling Team Halstead

When Chicago PD returns for a second season on Wednesday night, we can’t help but turn our eyes towards Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) after that don’t care, let’s go there, hook-up at the end of Season 1. Especially since it sounds like things will continue to be hot and heavy for a while. But what about the show’s first secretive, almost-pairing–the one between Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush) and Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) that left Voight (Jason Beghe) in a massive tizzy?

“People are trying to make this work!” Soffer laughs to The TV Junkies. “There is a little bit of a triangle, because Lindsay and Jay, they have their moments like, ‘Do we? Do we not? Are there feelings? I don’t know.'”

While PD‘s season kicked off with those two potentially exploring those feelings, they were quickly put on hold when Voight made his wishes known and Lindsay started falling for Chicago Fire‘s moodiest, broodiest dude, Severide (Taylor Kinney). It’s a tricky relationship to maintain given that it spans two series and has to take the actors’ busy schedules into account. Now, it looks as though there might be some scripted hiccups for them moving forward, too. As we saw from the heartbreaking Chicago Fire Season 3 opener, Severide has been a little absent lately, becoming a mountain man and heading off to the cabin to deal with his overwhelming feelings.

“Both actors on both shows were really generous in terms of showing up for a minimal fee, but then it was more of a scheduling problem because they’re so dominant in both shows. We want to keep them alive, but it could be difficult,” showrunner Matt Olmstead says. “And then Severide, as we’ve established on the show, he’s prone to going off on his own and having a few cocktails to make things go way. So that might cause a problem with him and Lindsay. He and Lindsay are cut from the same cloth. They’re very similar, so that could be a complication going forward, Severide’s headspace based on the collapse.”

Does that mean there’s hope for Halstead and Lindsay when we return after all?

“No. No, no, no. For now. For now,” Olmstead teases. At least Soffer has a more optimistic view for those shippers out there.

“We care about each other. They want to take care of each other, they want to protect each other. There’s definitely a flirtation there, but it’s like, how much do you want to poke the sleeping dog? Daddy doesn’t want it to happen, and I think Jay definitely takes that into account. And Lindsay and Severide have their little thing going too. So that’s how they start but we’ll see.”

For now, there’s definitely one thing that Soffer is looking forward to more of during Chicago PD‘s second season: more stunts and good old fashioned police work. Aside from the time he accidentally left a car in drive during an offensive driving training and jumped out while the car started rolling away, it makes him feel a little … badass?

“They make fun of me on the show because everyone wants to do the scenes where we’re doing some intense interrogation or whatever, and I’m like, ‘Hand me the assault riffle where I kick down that door!’ That’s what I want to do because it’s going to look cool,” he wraps with a laugh.

Are you Team Halstead or Team Severide? Let the polling begin in the comments below!

Chicago PD returns Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC/Global. Come back to TheTVJunkies.com tomorrow morning for our full review. In the meantime, here’s a little preview of Wednesday’s return: