New Love Interest for Atwater! ‘Chicago P.D.’ Boss Gives the Scoop

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To say that Chicago P.D.‘s Officer Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) hasn’t had luck when it comes to love would be an understatement. But it sounds like that could change in Season 12.

The third episode of the season (which premiered on September 25) is Atwater-centric. “We were looking at Atwater as like, okay, last season we talked a lot about who he is and sort of the way that he deals with everything, and so much of him is how empathetic he is, but also how responsible he is,” showrunner Gwen Sigan tells TV Insider.

“I almost feel like he didn’t really have a choice, that is how he was raised and had to be from a very young age,” she continues. “And it’s this beautiful thing about him that he wants to be everything for everybody all at once and wants to be accountable. But as we saw last year, there’s burnout in that and there’s stress in that, and it is not always sustainable and it can affect your mental health and it can affect you not being able to take care of yourself.”

That led to the plans for Atwater in Season 12, which includes this new love interest. “We wanted to offer him kind of a solution or at least something that makes him look at life differently and have a different perspective and maybe have something that’s just for himself, and that is something that can help find him balance as well. And so we’re doing that in Episode 3,” Sigan reveals. “You’ll meet a new character who’s a love interest for him, and it sort of surprises him and makes him think about maybe life a little bit differently, and then we’ll see how that affects the rest of the season. It’s allowing him ways to see that there are different ways to kind of deal with it and be able to deal with your stress and allow yourself to take care of yourself as well as other people.”

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We’ll have to wait to see if his arc this season also includes becoming a detective. Sigan has told us that there is a promotion coming for someone, in Episode 6. It really could be any of the officers—Atwater, Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati), and Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) have held that rank all series—based on her teases. Because the story of a promotion itself isn’t all that interesting (the job is the same, as we’ve seen with Intelligence over the years), it’s about “How do you make it something that really reveals something about who this person is and is not just a piece of paper?” she shares.

What are you hoping to see with Atwater and this new love interest? Let us know in the comments section below.

Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC