‘Chicago P.D.’s Jason Beghe on Ruzek’s ‘Voight-like Behavior’: ‘That’s Part of Who He Is’

Intelligence Has Your Back

For exclusive news and updates, subscribe to our Chicago P.D. Newsletter:

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 14 “Marie.”]

Chicago P.D. delivers an intense conclusion to the two-parter that started in “Zoe” with the latest episode. Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) is very much like Intelligence’s leader, Voight (Jason Beghe), in his pursuit of the serial killer who once again kidnapped a young girl, known as Zoe (Anabelle Toomy).

Cronin (Eric Sheffer Stevens) manages to find Zoe in foster care and kills the woman who had been watching over her before taking off with her. But by the time the unit traces their steps, he’s bleeding out and Zoe isn’t with him. Ruzek has no problem hurting him more to try to get him to give up Zoe’s location. In fact, it takes Voight yelling at him that it’s “enough!” and Burgess (Marina Squerciati) pushing him back for him to stop. That’s something we’re used to seeing from Voight, so how does he feel about it coming from Ruzek?

“What Voight wants out of his team is for his team to be themselves. And that is a very Voight-like behavior. But of all the people that have ever been on the team, Ruzek is more like that than any of the other characters; naturally, that’s part of who he is,” Beghe tells TV Insider.

“And if you’ve noticed, Voight used to slap people and do things that were way outside the lines. He’s kind of reined it in and that’s part of the new policing and he has to change and evolve and ultimately, he wants to do his job well. He understood that you can’t do that anymore, so he had to find other ways to do his job well, and he doesn’t want Adam to fall into that trap either,” he continues. “So in that moment, I think Voight understood his reaction, but he also understood, I gotta jump in and get him out of the way of himself and that we can get to point B without that.”

Related

'Chicago P.D.' Stars & Their Real-Life Partners: All About Their Relationships

This won’t necessarily lead to Voight keeping an eye on Ruzek going forward. “I don’t think Voight thinks like that. He’s not a worrier,” explains Beghe. “It’s only in the last couple of seasons where he’s actually started to kind of have really any self-reflection. A little mantra Jason has as an actor and as a person is, ‘It’s good to be interested as opposed to interesting, right?’ And Voight is very interested, but also, even when he looks at himself, he’s not interesting. He’s not like, ‘Oh, I feel bad.’ It’s more like, ‘There’s a problem, there’s a fault, there’s a weakness. How do we fix that? How do we resolve it?’ So it’s the same with his team. It’s not like, ‘I don’t like you, you’re a bad person.’ It’s just this, ‘We can’t do, stop.’”

Cronin doesn’t give up Zoe’s location, even once they offer him a deal; he sends them to the wrong location. But before then, he talks and talks and talks about nothing for so long that Voight leaves Ruzek in the hospital room with him and goes and gets the aforementioned deal.

That scene “was so complex,” notes Beghe, who praises Stevens’ performance. “You got to see this conman, this liar, this psychopath, and this charming guy and this just complete liar, psychopathic, narcissistic [guy], and that guy nailed that.”

He also raves about Toomy, revealing he told her mother the same thing he told Haley Joel Osment‘s, that she is “unbelievable. That’s gifted.”

There is good news for Zoe by the episode’s end. With Intelligence working hard to identify her, they’re able to locate her grandmother, who comes to get her and reveals her name: Marie.

George Burns Jr/NBC

Elsewhere in the episode, as much as he wants to have his father (Jack Coleman), who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, home with him, Ruzek realizes that he can’t provide the care he needs. By the end of the episode, Bob’s moving into a care facility near Ruzek and Burgess’ home. But what’s so heartbreaking is that after Ruzek tells him that, Bob asks him to remind him of his name.

What did you think of the conclusion to Zoe’s story? Let us know in the comments section below.

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