NBC's One Chicago Crossover Promises a 'Big Splashy Story' for the Return of “Chicago P.D”.'s Upton and Halstead (Exclusive)

Breanne L. HeldmanWed, March 4, 2026 at 3:46 PM UTC

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Tracy Spiridakos, Sarah Ramos and Jesse Lee Soffer in the One Chicago crossoverCredit: George Burns Jr/NBC -

The big One Chicago crossover, featuring Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago P.D., airs Wednesday, March 4 on NBC

The three-hour event will see the return of P.D.'s Tracy Spiridakos and Jesse Lee Soffer as exes Hailey Upton and Jay Halstead

The actors and showrunners preview the reunion and the "big splashy story"

Bringing three shows together, coordinating their actors' schedules, their respective crews and still managing to tell a cohesive, fan-serving story is a massive undertaking. But Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. — collectively One Chicago — proved last January that it could be done.

For the latest One Chicago crossover, airing tonight on NBC, the showrunners set out to top themselves, and conversations about how to do it began last July.

"Every season, the first thing we talk about is how do we top the last one?" Fire showrunner Andrea Newman tells PEOPLE. "It's always a question of how do you top it in terms of the action, but also the character stuff. What are the really rich character things that you can dig into for these that will turn cards and expose new relationships or bring relationships to light or twists and turns that you can give characters that we haven't seen before? So it's character-based and it's action-based in terms of topping, and it's terrifying."

Taylor Kinney, Tracy Spiridakos and Dermot Mulroney in the One Chicago crossoverCredit: Peter Gordon/NBC

The official logline for the episodes sounds pretty terrifying as well. It reads: "Firehouse 51 is called to an airfield when a passenger jet suddenly goes silent mid-air, triggering a high-stakes emergency. Their discovery cracks open a bigger and deadlier mystery — one with consequences that could ripple far beyond the runway and put countless lives in jeopardy."

One way the crossover is bringing the fireworks this time is by welcoming back two beloved characters from P.D.: Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer, who left the show in October 2022) and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos, who left in May 2024).

The characters were married until Halstead left for Bolivia for a job with the army tracking down drug cartels. As Upton continued to work in Intelligence, he ghosted her and ultimately sent divorce papers. This reunion will mark the first time the characters have seen each other since.

Jesse Lee Soffer and Tracy Spiridakos in the One Chicago crossoverCredit: Elizabeth Sisson/NBC

According to P.D. showrunner Gwen Sigan, Wolf Entertainment president and COO Peter Jankowski first suggested bringing back "Upstead." "He was like, 'What if we bring back some legacy characters and make it a big splashy story?' And it worked," Sigan says. "It fit with a lot of the themes we were telling and felt like a great addition to it."

Soffer and Spiridakos didn't hesitate to sign on for the episodes when they got the call.

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"It was absolutely, like, instant yes. 100 percent," Soffer tells PEOPLE. "Get to go play with all our friends and see the cast and crew? No doubt. Let's make this happen."

Adds Spiridakos, "I was really excited to get to come back, and see everybody, see where the characters were at this point, and get to see all of our friends, and come back to Chicago. It was really, really fun."

Both actors also recognize that their characters had a bit of unfinished business.

"How it was left off with Hailey, she was looking into doing other things, and she just needed to get out of Chicago and start over," Spiridakos says. "And so, finding her to be in FBI, working in Detroit, I think it was exactly where I imagined she would be going and what she would be doing."

Soffer, meanwhile, had some catching up to do. "Halstead left the show, and then there was a gap of time of, like, a year and a half where he was ghosting Hailey, and I think there were divorce papers that happened. And I was not really aware of all of that. So I had to fill in the space of, 'Okay. He did all this stuff that I didn't live as the character, that I didn't get to shoot, and that Trace shot.' It was tricky. And it's a little ambiguous what he's doing. He's doing drug work for the military in South America. It's a little clandestine. It's cool, but there's some mystery there."

S. Epatha Merkerson, Dermot Mulroney and Jason Beghe in the One Chicago crossoverCredit: Lori Allen/NBC

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Having Soffer and Spiridakos back on set was a treat for Sigan, especially. "For our show, particularly, they're very well-loved," she says. "They brought a lot of good energy."

The One Chicago crossover event featuring Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. on Wednesday, March 4, kicks off at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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