‘Chicago P.D.’ Preview: Patrick John Flueger Says Martel’s Death Is a First for Ruzek

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It’s safe to say that Officer Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) is in shock after Detective Emily Martel (Victoria Cartagena) was shot in the head in front of him at the end of the Chicago P.D. Season 12 premiere. And so heading into the season’s second episode, airing on October 2, he’s doing “as well as one can,” says Flueger.

“They’ve known each other for a long time, over a decade. I think it’s one of the first times for him—at least on camera—that he’s watched a friend of his get plugged like that. So I think it’s kind of shocking,” he tells TV Insider.

“I love the call out part. I love the ‘Martel! Martel,’ because usually everybody calls back, ‘I’m good, I’m good.’ And I think it’s one of the first times that I can remember that when he calls out, she doesn’t respond,” Flueger continues. “He’s lost people along the way, but it hasn’t been shoved right in his face like that in the same way.”

Introducing Martel and then killing her off in the same episode like she was connects to Sergeant Hank Voight’s (Jason Beghe) arc for the season.

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“We knew in the room that the story we wanted to tell was really dealing with Voight and how he’s been affected by the events of last year and most especially, I think, two pieces, which is that Upton’s gone, and then also that he had this near death experience and that he remembers a lot of it and he remembers what it felt like, and he remembers that this was all just going to be gone,” showrunner Gwen Sigan explained to us after the premiere.

By introducing her as having been with the unit for a month already and ending the premiere with her shocking death, “you’re emphasizing that this is how death happens, that it can happen instantaneously, it can happen without you having had any time to prepare for it and without being able to tie up loose ends or say goodbyes or figure out what your life was worth, that it can just be gone,” she continued. “And so to us, it felt thematically like the perfect story and that it would also trigger all the themes we want to tell this year, which are kind of identity and self and crisis of self and transformation and all these things that you think about a lot when you’re thinking about your own mortality.”

Following that, the second episode, which sees Intelligence having to deal with the aforementioned tragedy and a manhunt across the city, “is really just an adrenaline ride, and I think you’re in the shock the whole episode. Our hope was that you almost as an audience member feel the same anxiety that Ruzek’s feeling. It’s a real-time episode, so you’re like 42 minutes of being in that moment with Ruzek and feeling what it feels like to have just seen that happen,” Sigan previews.

What are you hoping to see after that death? Let us know in the comments section below.

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