Warning: This story contains spoilers for Chicago P.D. Season 10, Episode 3, A Good Man
Wednesday marked Jesse Lee Soffer’s final Chicago P.D. episode, appropriately titled, A Good Man, which alludes to both Jesse Lee Soffer and Jay Halstead, the key character he has played for 10 seasons.
In the opening sequence, we are shown that all is not perfect between Halstead and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) as she is shown pining away for her husband as he avoids her while they are both incessantly tapping their wedding rings on hard surfaces.
As soon as the episode gets going, Halstead is first on the scene of a robbery and murder and comes upon an armed man, Lenny (Alex Mickiewicz) who is aiming his weapon towards the pharmacy as Halstead approaches. Lenny identifies himself as a former member of the Army, specifically Master Sergeant of the 3rd cavalry and shows Halstead his dog tags. Halstead tells him that he too was an Army Ranger as he instructs Lenny to drop his weapon and slide it over to him. Lenny tells Halstead that there are two armed robbers in the store room and that there might be civilians.
Halstead tells Lenny to clear out any more people trapped in the store and leave as well, as Halstead proceeds to the back by himself. He engages in gunfire with the suspects when a man comes to the doorway, calling for his pregnant wife, who then runs directly in front of the shooters. Out of nowhere Lenny comes in, grabs the pregnant woman, turns her away from the shooter, and gets shot himself. His heroic move saves the pregnant woman and her baby in utero, but gives the shooters enough time to get out the back door.
Halstead chases them, but is unable to catch them and he is left at the pharmacy to wait for the rest of his drove, including his wife, Hailey. He tells her that he hasn’t seen anything as heroic since his time in the military overseas. As his wife reaches towards his face to check some small bleeding, Halstead evades her touch as Voight (Jason Beghe) arrives at the scene.
The security footage shows the robbers brutally murdering the pharmacist as well as Lenny shooting at them from off camera. Everyone watching the footage agrees that Lenny is a hero, who definitely saved lives. They determine that the robbers were looking for an ingredient necessary to cook crystal meth.
Hailey and Halstead go to the hospital to see if Lenny could remember anything about the robbers and see the waiting room full of Lenny’s Army buddies. As they leave, one of Lenny’s friends, Nolan Brooks (Simeon Othello Daise) asks them if they caught the shooter, and they obviously have not. Halstead tells the man that he too, is former Army and the man tells him that while they are no longer active duty, they are working a specific narcotics ops with joint forces hunting multinational Cartel targets. Lenny is not involved in the program, but the man sings his praises as the most decorated out of all of them.
As they work the case, they find someone who was connected to the car used in the robbery. They take the man into custody and question him about who he sold the car to. The man is terrified of the individuals who bought it and Halstead makes ludicrous promises to the man if he agrees to give up the name of the person he sold the car to. Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) is absolutely shocked to see Halstead making such an unscrupulous move and even tries to confront him about it as Hailey watches stoically.
Halstead presents the assailant to the team, but they have zero evidence tying him to the crimes and Voight insists that they find some and shadow him. Hailey makes a discovery, but keeps it on the downlow and texts Halstead that she had some information. She discovered that the big hero Lenny was actually in on the crime and that their suspect had sent Lenny $400 from his bank account.
The two head straight to the hospital to confront Lenny. Through sobs, he claims that he’s dying and begs that they don’t tell his wife and kids. He goes on to explain that he was supposed to be the lookout and that no one was supposed to be hurt. He tells them that he turned on the robbers when they murdered the pharmacist and said that he did the right thing whan it counted. Before he can confirm who hired him, he goes into some kind of physical distress.
Hailey and Halstead leave as medical staff attempts to save his life, and Hailey says she wants to report what they learned to Voight. Halstead refuses to ruin the lives of the man’s wife and children and tells Hailey that the secret has to stay with them. Hailey confronts him about his recent change in behavior including lying to her, no-knocks, making bad deals during questioning, skirting evidence, and pulling away from her. A phone call interrupts their discussion, informing them that Lenny has died. Halstead insists that they don’t involve him.
Before the team can move forward, there is yet another robbery with more murders. Hailey tells Halstead that they need to go in and search Lenny’s house, but Halstead still wants to use his new-found powers of corruption for good and insists that he can get the information they need without hurting Lenny’s family and good name.
Halstead finds Lenny’s friend Nolan at Lenny’s house “standing watch” and the two have a quick chat and Halstead admits that Lenny was involved in the robbery. Nolan tells Halstead how rough Lenny has had it since they all returned. Nolan basically begs Halstead not to destroy the family and says that he was a good and honorable man “who just got chewed up.”
Lenny’s wife is heartbroken to discover that her husband was involved in the robbery. Halstead tells Lenny’s wife that he will protect Lenny if she will unlock his phone and allow him to access all of Lenny’s files so they can go after the real criminals.
Halstead gets the information he needs and secretly goes to the location where the criminals cook the meth. Hailey and Voight follow him. As they stake out the location, their prime suspect arrives while Halstead is inside the building.
Halstead engages with the man while Hailey tries to get in and provide backup and Voight takes the driver into custody. The suspect hits Halstead with a pipe and Halstead drops his gun. The suspect has Halstead down, so he pulls a knife out and stabs the suspect repeatedly, killing him, just as Hailey walks in. Voight joins them and Hailey calls it in. As they wait for the sounder to arrive, Voight and Hailey go right into cover-up mode and Halstead becomes increasingly disillusioned with the entire situation.
Hailey, who has now become a cover-up pro, tries to help Voight convince him to hand over the knife so Voight can once again, destroy evidence.
They next day, Halstead intends to tell the truth, but when he goes to see Chief Patrick O’Neal (Michael Gaston), O’Neal immediately sings the praises of Lenny and says that they want to give him a commendation through the Good Samaritan Act and make sure that his family is taken care of. He continues on to tell Halstead that he saved a lot of lives. After O’Neal praised Lenny and Halstead, Halstead handed over his badge and said he was resigning.
CHICAGO P.D. — “A Good Man” Episode 1003 — Pictured: (l-r) Jesse Lee Soffer as Jay Halstead, Tracy Spiridakos as Hailey Upton — (Photo by: Lori Allen/NBC)
Hailey is flabbergasted to hear the news and Halstead tells her that he’s going to be joining the special ops with Nolan and go to Serbia to hunt Cartel members. He assures her that he still loves her and wants to make it work and that it will only be 8 months. As a good man, Halstead could no longer be a part of the corruption he has seen and explains to Hailey that he needs to see very clear boundaries between good and bad and black and white, and that he just can’t live in this muddled gray.
Voight catches up with Halstead at the airport and tries to convince him to stay. Voight tells him that he understands that he doesn’t want to be him, but Halstead says no that it’s worse than that, he does want to be him, and he knows deep down that he’s not that person and he shouldn’t try. They shake hands and Halstead leaves.
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After the episode aired, Soffer took to Twitter to thank his fans for watching:
Co-star Tracy Spiridakos took to Instagram to bid her farewell to Jesse:
LaRoyce Hawkins, who plays Officer Kevin Atwater, shared his own tribute on Instagram:
Soffer has portrayed Halstead since the Chicago P.D.’s debut in 2014, appearing in every episode, as well as multiple episodes of Chicago Med and Chicago Fire.
The Chicago P.D. executive producers include Dick Wolf, Rick Eid, Peter Jankowski, Arthur W. Forney, Derek Haas and Eriq La Salle.
Chicago P.D. produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
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