Chicago P.D. returned in the 2025 TV schedule with plenty of consequences for the members of the Intelligence Unit, including Kiana Cook deciding off-screen to join another squad after the wild Season 12 finale. The Season 13 premiere (available streaming now with a Peacock subscription) introduced her replacement, and showrunner Gwen Sigan opened up about what to expect from Officer Eva Imani, played by Arienne Mandi.
Toya Turner isn’t the only One Chicago cast member over the years to be written out over summer hiatus. Chicago Fire did something similar to start Season 14 by giving Damon an off-screen reason to leave 51, and Chicago P.D. even did it years ago with Lisseth Chavez’s Officer Vanessa Rojas.
The first episode of Season 13 quickly tested Imani’s mettle by teaming her up with Voight while most of his team was off-limits, and she impressed him enough that he offered her a spot in his unit complete with a “long leash.” While she only agreed on the condition of being on board “just for a while,” showrunner Gwen Sigan shared that big plans are in store for the character.
During the One Chicago press junket attended by CinemaBlend and other outlets, I asked Sigan about Cook’s exit and Imani’s arrival, and she shared:
We’re very excited for the new member. I think she came in as a fully formed character. It’s really nice. We gave her quite a bit to do in the first few episodes, and she just killed it. But the character is really designed to, in many ways, become a bit like a partner for Voight. We wanted to explore sort of this new side of him, by seeing it in somebody else. There are a lot of similarities that you see between the two of them.
Voight is the one P.D. character who never truly has an official partner by virtue of the power dynamics within the Intelligence Unit, although he has leaned more heavily on some than others at times. The last time we saw him in a pseudo-partnership with a member of his team was arguably in Upton’s last season; the Season 13 premiere paired with the showrunner’s comments indicate that a different kind of dynamic is in store with Voight and the newcomer.
Imani was introduced on Chicago P.D. while undercover and armed, eventually revealing that she worked for the CPD’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. She made it clear early on that while she liked to do things her own way, she was willing to go along with Voight and cross lines for what they see as the greater good. It remains to be seen if that means they’ll be positive or negative influences on each other. Sigan went on:
She’s also very different than some of our members in the unit as well, and so we get a lot of new dynamics. She’s somebody who has no idea who Hank Voight is. She doesn’t really care. She’s coming in in the first episode, a bit not respecting authority, a bit thinks she knows the answers, a bit just very confident, and that doesn’t necessarily play well with others, which I think, for Voight is really refreshing. [He’s] really just, ‘I understand it. I see this person, I get her.’ So it’s been really fun, and I think it adds a lot of new dynamics to the whole unit.
All in all, it sounds like Chicago P.D. has plenty in store for the newest member of the Intelligence Unit, and I’m curious to see how well she gets along with the others. Burgess and Torres hadn’t even met her yet in the Season 13 premiere, as it wasn’t until the end that they got their badges back. In fact, based on the promo for the next new episode, Torres is going to be right in the center of the story:
Tune in to NBC on Wednesday, October 8 at 10 p.m. ET for this new episode of Chicago P.D., focusing on Torres and presumably featuring Imani in her first case on the full team. As always, P.D. rounds out the network’s night of Windy City action with Chicago Med at 8 p.m. ET and Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. ET. All three shows also release their newest episodes streaming next day on Peacock.