‘Chicago P.D.’s Jason Beghe and Gwen Sigan Tease ‘A Lot of Stakes’ for Season 13 Premiere (Exclusive)

Chicago P.D. Season 13 is almost here, and star Jason Beghe and executive producer Gwen Sigan shared with PopCulture.com what to expect.

In “Consequences,” airing on Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, “Voight teams up with an unlikely ally to take a killer off the streets while fighting to bring his Intelligence unit back together.”

Fans will remember that Season 12 ended with Deputy Chief Reid (Shawn Hatosy) getting shot and killed, resulting in the Intelligence Unit being disbanded. This means that everyone has been trying to acclimate to their new jobs or having no job, and by the time Season 13 rolls around, a month has passed, Sigan confirmed.

“It’s been four weeks since the events of last season, and we discovered very quickly that Intelligence is still disbanded,” she revealed. “So they have been scattered to the winds. They’re all working in different areas of the CPD. They’re all struggling with that, and really, this mission of the first episode is can Voight get them back together, and what that might take, and what that might look like. So it’s very generalized. A lot of stakes as we’re all working without each other in the first episode.”

“And another thing that’s exciting going forward here is that pretty soon, we meet a new character who’s really interesting, and it’s particularly exciting for me because Voight and she not only have distinct similarities, but we end up working together a lot. So it’s an exciting, new part of the show, I think,” Beghe, who plays Sergeant Voight, added.

Following Toya Turner’s exit, Arienne Mandi has joined as a series regular, portraying Officer Eva Imani, a former soldier and military contractor who thrives in dangerous situations. Having so many scenes together already, Beghe admitted he’s “low-key crazy about her.”

“As a person, she’s just so easy and fun to be around,” he shared. “And we put in a very long, hard day at work. We really have a lot of fun, and I do. I have done now so many scenes in the month to start an episode where we have so many scenes together, and it’s really just a lot of fun. And it just makes all the difference. So she’s the dream.”

Meanwhile, Voight is under a microscope following his actions in Season 12, including being manipulated by Renny Ortero. When we see him again in the Season 13 finale, he’s doing things by the book instead of going off the rails and is being the “squeakiest wheel he can possibly be and begging, cajoling, trying everything he can” with Commander Devlin, played by “wonderful actor” Joel Murray.

“He’s a fantastic actor and a very funny, interesting, talented guy,” Beghe continued. “But he is, of course, resistant. And so Voight is doing everything he can, and he’s capable of quite a lot. So he’s starting with baby steps, but I think if he has to pull out a baseball bat, he will. But he’s gotta get his team together.”

On a happier note, the Season 12 finale also included the long-awaited wedding between Burgess and Ruzek, a.k.a. Burzek. Sigan admitted that writing for the married pair has “been very fun.” She continued, “I think they’re in a very good place. They’re definitely in that honeymoon phase.”

“They’re very happy in that phase together, but they’ve also had all these complications, of just life in the first few episodes that we see, and how are they dealing with that now together, and also how does your life change when you are a married couple and now they have this child, and there’s sort of these bigger life questions they start asking themselves this season, and it’s been fun to see how they deal with all of this together as a unit, even though they’re very different people,” she shared.

“They come from very different backgrounds, which is something we explore a little bit this year,” Sigan said. “So, I think fans will have a nice time watching them because they are still growing and still developing with each other and then outside of each other, too. So it’s been nice.”

Chicago P.D. always knows how to bring the action, and nothing is ever predictable, so it’s hard to tell what exactly will happen in the season premiere and how Intelligence is surviving not being together. But luckily, fans won’t have to wait too much longer. Season 13 of Chicago P.D. premieres on Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, streaming the next day on Peacock.