Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) has been through a lot over the past two seasons and showrunner Gwen Sigan has recently shared some insight about how Burgess will deal with the traumas she has endured.
In the Season 8 finale, Burgess was kidnapped, assaulted, shot twice, and left for dead. It was the same episode where Detective Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) prevented Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) from killing Burgess’s assailant only to shoot and kill him herself.
When season 9 premiered, Burgess had to take time to heal and began showing symptoms of PTSD from the trauma she survived and the fear that the man who shot her was still out there, completely oblivious to the fact that Upton killed him and Voight disposed of the body.
The entire incident was difficult for Burgess both physically and mentally and she needed to rely on her former fiance Detective Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Fleuger) to help her care for the child, Makayla Ward, whom she assumed custody of after Makayla witnessed her father murder her entire family. Burgess assumed the role of her mother and eventually was legally awarded custody, but when she and Ruzek returned to Burgess’ home to tell Makayla the good news, the babysitter had been brutally assaulted and Makayla was gone.
It was revealed that Makayla’s dad was behind the kidnapping and the plan was to collect a ransom to help him pay off some prison debts. Makayla was rescued by the end of the episode, but the stress and trauma of the incident took their toll on Burgess and in a recent episode we saw her PTSD manifest physically when she was visibly shaking when she began to relive what happened to her in her mind.
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At this point, she will have no choice but to face her traumas and showrunner Gwen Sigan explained to TV Line what we can expect to see.
“She will continue to deal with it,” Sigan told TVLine. “[It] gets to a point where she can’t really ignore it. She’s been in this space of denial in Episode 8 because it’s frightening. I don’t think she fully knows what’s going on with her body [and] doesn’t really know why it’s happening now.”
She went on to explain that we should expect we will see Burgess “push it away as much as she can until she can’t anymore and has to look at it.”
Eventually she will have to come to terms with what has happened to her, and it “shapes her in a new way this season when she finally confronts it and realizes, ‘This is something I have to have to deal with, [that] I have to figure out and make part of my life.’”
As she takes the steps to face her trauma, it will show her what’s really important in her life and it will “strengthen those bonds she has with her daughter, and with Ruzek.”
“He’s like her partner in life, and when you get out of some of that trauma, it’s about forming new attachments again,” Sigan adds. “So we’ll get to see that she can have some more strength in those relationships and clarity, and how much they’ve been there for her.”
Squerciati recently shared a sweet photo of herself with Fleuger and Ramona Edith Williams who plays her on screen daughter Makayla to commemorate the filming of the 200th episode:
Chicago P.D. airs Wednesdays at 9 PM CST on NBC and streams the next day on the Peacock app.
Chicago P.D. is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
