In NBCs hit show Chicago P.D., the real world can be a cold and grim place, full of murders and assaults, ruined lives, broken relationships, and systemic wrongs that go unchecked. It helps to have a group of characters that people like at the centre of the story. But what happens when those same characters are the ones who make the world so cold and dark?
Since the first episode, the Intelligence Unit of the 21st District of the Chicago Police Department has been bending, if not breaking, the law. The IU, which is led by Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe), will do anything to get justice, even if its against the law. The characters are all good and fiercely loyal to each other. Even so, likeable? In some cases, maybe, but not so much in others.
Here is a list of Chicago P.D. characters ranked by how much people like them. This is based on how good they are at their jobs, how well they get along with other people, how strong their relationships are, and how satisfying it is to see the right actor in the right role.
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1. Trudy Platt
The last entry may have been controversial, but this one is clear-cut. Staff Sergeant Trudy Platt is by far the most likable character on Chicago P.D. Trudy seems like someone who would be a lot of fun to hang out with in real life. She gives tough love and cracks jokes from behind her bullpen desk.
But her desk job doesnt show how good of a cop she really is, and when she gets a chance to shine (like in Season 4s All Cylinders Firing), she shows that she is one of the best on the show (Voights respect for her means a lot). She gets along well with the other characters, and so far, Mouch McHolland from Chicago Fire is the only character on the show who has been able to date her for a long time.
The actress who plays Trudy is another thing that makes her the most likable character on the show. Amy Morton is a Chicago theatre legend and one of the few local actors to have a lead role on any One Chicago series. She gives the same feeling of the place as the shows on-location filming, and sometimes even better. Morton gives the show a natural sense of realism like a bar-cut pizza coming to life.
2. Hank Voight
This might be the most debated spot on the list. Is Hank Voight likable? Yes, of course, he is. Hes on TV, and a handsome, charismatic actor plays him. Is he more likable than Lindsay, Burgess, and everyone else? Thats a harder question to answer, in part because the show itself isnt sure how likable Voight is or is supposed to be.
On one hand, the characters honesty is most clear in how he treats his fellow officers. Even after everything thats happened, Voights respect is still important to the show, and whether a character has it (like Mykelti Williamsons ex-partner turned IA auditor) or not (like John C. McGinleys murderous mayoral candidate) is a good indicator of how the show wants us to see that character.
On the other hand, hes not a good cop. He might not be on the take, as the audience was led to believe in Season 1, but the fact that he always uses violence to get what he wants has always been a red flag, and it has become even more obvious as police violence in real life has become more of a focus in recent years. Does his stomachache outweigh his friendship with Lindsay and Jason Beghes performance as a sensitive tough guy? Its not clear.
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3. Erin Lindsay
Erin Lindsay, played by Sophia Bush, was the only female detective in the Intelligence Unit. When she left at the end of Season 4, it took two characters to take her place. That shows how important her character is, both in the shows world and to the show itself. Lindsay wasnt a princess in trouble, but she also wasnt a supercop. In the series, she was shot, kidnapped, and became addicted to drugs. She quit the police force, but she came back to save her partner/lover Halstead.
Lindsay and Halstead, also known as Linstead, were a great but doomed couple, but it was Lindsays relationship with her sergeant that really made her stand out. Voight took her under his wing when she was a troubled teen, and their friendship as adults was one of the most moving parts of the show.
When Lindsays trainwreck mother, played by the late Markie Post, came back into her life in Season 3, she was stuck between her birth mother, who was never there for her, and her surrogate father, who was always there for her. When Lindsay left Chicago for a job with the FBI in New York City, she said a tearful goodbye to Voight. When Halstead was finally ready to propose, she ghosted him, which wasnt the kindest thing she could have done, but it was part of what made Lindsay so interesting and likable.
4. Alvin Olinsky
Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas) is a lifer who has been around for a long time and has seen a lot. Even though he loves his wife and daughter, the stress of his job makes it hard for them to get along. Also, Olinskys many years of working undercover have made him weak and prone to violence.
His friendly demeanor in the squad room makes him seem like someone who would be fun to grab a beer with. He is good at his job because he is always loyal to his partners, but it is that loyalty that gets him killed in the end. Olinsky is arrested and sent to jail for taking the blame for a murder that Voight did. While Voight is trying to get the charges dropped, a fellow inmate stabs Olinsky to death.
Like Dawson, Olinsky has a lot of the same qualities as Voight. This made it hard for him to fit in with the rest of the cast. But ace character actor Koteas makes him even more likable with his performance. Koteas is a hard actor to dislike, especially for older millennials who liked him as Casey Jones in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. He made Olinsky feel and care about things until the end.
5. Kevin Atwater
Kevin Atwater, played by LaRoyce Hawkins, was Burgesss first partner and the first patrol officer promoted to detective on the show. He is also the only Black person in the Intelligence Unit and, with a few exceptions, the only Black regular cast member who doesnt play a recurring role. In Season 6, a South Side alderman played by Wendell Pierce gave him an unexpected mentor, but being Black and a police officer has left him more alone than most people. All of his on-screen relationships have also happened outside of work.
Atwater is often asked to be the face of Chicagos ongoing racial and police issues, but in the last two years, thats almost all hes done on the show. Hawkins has a big part because he goes up against a stubborn CPD after a white detective shoots an unarmed black suspect in the back and then gets killed by an unknown attacker.
Atwater can act as rough as any of his Intelligence Unit colleagues, but neither he nor the actor who plays him should have to carry that weight on their own. Even though he might not be the most likable character, he is the most sympathetic.
6. Kim Burgess
On Chicago P.D., Sgt. Voight is supposed to be the main character, but Kim Burgess is often the audience stand-in. From her first days as a patrol officer in Season 1 to her promotion to detective in Season 4, Burgess is the shows eyes, ears, and heart.
Her on-again, off-again relationship with Ruzek (aka Bruzek) is the longest-running love story on the show, but Burgess is the exception that proves the rule because what makes her so likable is not her personal life but her job. Weve been with her from the start, so her successes and failures hit us harder than almost everyone else.
One big thing that makes it hard to like her, though, is that in Season 3, Burgess shoots a Black teen who wasnt even hurt. As the states attorneys office investigates the incident (which serves as an introduction to the world of Chicago Justice), Burgess feels not only sorry for what she did but also that it was the right thing to do. Thats not the characters or the actors fault, but its an unsettling reminder of how the show has changed how it deals with police violence over time.
7. Hailey Upton
When Detective Hailey Upton and actress Tracy Spiridakos joined the main cast in Season 5 to replace Erin Lindsay, played by Sophia Bush, they both had to work hard to get there. Even though the show took some time to focus on other people, it was clear from the beginning that Upton and Halstead would end up together.
Even though it might seem like the show was cynical by replacing one beautiful, driven detective with another, Upton has shown that she is very much her own person.
Even when her stories are similar to Lindsays, Uptons answers show how to break harmful cycles. Upton is the one who gets Halstead to go to therapy for the traumas he hasnt dealt with yet. She can talk to Voight in a way that Lindsay could never do. In Season 8, when history repeats itself and Upton is offered an FBI job in New York City, she tells Halstead how she feels about it. After five years and counting, its clear that Upton cant be replaced by anyone.
8. Jay Halstead
The men of Chicago P.D. are kind of soft-spoken tough guys like Dick Wolf. What makes them unique is that they serve something bigger than themselves. Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) gets this twice because he is both a dedicated cop and an Army veteran whose time in Afghanistan left him scarred inside and out. In a Season 6 episode, a fellow vet threatens to bomb a mosque, which brings Halsteads pain to the forefront and makes him realize how close he is to breaking down at any time.
Halsteads strength is a big part of what makes him likable, especially in the middle seasons of the show when he was getting over his breakup with Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush) and starting a new, stronger relationship with Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos). Like his fellow P.D. hottie Adam Ruzek, Halstead is often defined by his relationship on the show, but he seems to be learning from his mistakes and growing. Umstead got married in the midseason finale of Season 9 after a very short courtship. Halstead finally got to put a ring on someone.
9. Adam Ruzek
Sometimes a character is likable not because of what they have done, but because of what we want for them. This is what happened to Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger). He was hired for undercover work with the Intelligence Unit right after he graduated from the police academy, and he was quickly taught how the group worked. Besides his relationship with Kim Burgess, Ruzeks main storyline is the threat to his soul as he gets more and more involved in violence and manipulation.
But Ruzek doesnt go all the way into darkness because of his love for Burgess. From the first season, when Ruzek was engaged to someone else, their relationship has been up and down, hot and cold. Ruzek has found in Burgess someone who is just as committed to police work and eager to prove themselves as he is. Their love story is the best part of the show, and its also Ruzeks best trait. People just want to see these two teens get together for good.
10. Antonio Dawson
Is it the fault of a character if theyre not likable? Antonio Dawson, the second-in-command of the Intelligence Unit, is played by Jon Seda. He has all the qualities of a great main character for a Dick Wolf show: Driven, smart, tough but sensitive, willing to break the rules for justice, and, of course, too good-looking for his own good. Hes a police officer on the edge, and its hard for him to keep his personal and work lives separate.
The issue is that he is not the main character. He is part of the group and works for Sgt. Voight (Jason Beghe), is also a loose cannon with a strong sense of right and wrong. After a while, it was clear that the show didnt have enough room for both Dawson and Seda.
During Season 4, he was sent to the one and only season of the spin-off Chicago Justice. When he came back to P.D. in Season 5, he still didnt have enough to do, even though he had a sweet romance with an EMT from Chicago Fire (Kara Kilmer). In Season 6, he got hurt on the job, became addicted to painkillers, and went to rehab. In Season 7, he left the show off-screen, which was a bad way to go for a character who started out with so much promise.
11. Sean Roman
When Sean Roman (Brian Geraghty), Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) new partner, is introduced at the beginning of Season 2, he gives a bad first impression. First of all, he doesnt like female cops, which would be strike two if this werent Chicago P.D.
He doesnt like them because his last relationship with a woman was a big mess, which would strike three if this werent Chicago P.D. Then Burgess is shot on the job while Roman is fighting with his ex-girlfriend, which definitely strikes three.
Still, he and Burgesss slow-burning attraction is worth something, and he proves himself to be a good partner just before he, too, gets shot on the job. While he is getting better, he thinks about his job and decides to quit the police force and move across the country to San Diego. As a gentleman, he asks Burgess to go with him, but Burgess, being a Chicago cop, decides to stay. Probably a good idea.
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