The cast of Chicago P.D. hasn’t moved on from the shocking death of Alvin Olinsky. Elias Koteas’ character was fatally stabbed in prison during the May 9 finale, devastating audiences and fans alike.
“I’m still receiving the information. It’s still a little raw,” LaRoyce Hawkins, who plays Kevin Atwater told Us Weekly at the NBC Universal Upfronts on Monday, May 14. “It’s hard to imagine shooting another season without Elias Koteas. I know the fans look forward to seeing Olinsky on their TV screens, but we look forward to hugging the man and watching him grow. It’s gonna be tough.”
Marina Squerciati, who plays Olinsky’s partner Kim Burgess, admitted that she’s still pretty upset about the shakeup, getting noticeably choked up. “We’re generally called by the producers to tell us what’s going to happen because it is really hard for us to take and I don’t think they want a bunch of actors sobbing when they’re trying to work,” she said. “So we got the information at home, then we took Elias out to dinner. It’s hard, it’s losing … It’s hard, I get sad.”
While the stabbing happened during the penultimate episode, Olinsky was last seen alive on the finale, entering the hospital on a gurney. He later died during surgery. Since viewers never saw the body, some fans of the show have been tweeting that maybe he’ll be back.
“I saw a lot of fans saying that they think it’s not really true, like, maybe this is part of Voight’s big plan,” Jon Seda, who plays Antonio Dawson, added. “I started to believe it! I’m like, ‘Maybe he’s not dead, how genius is that?’”
“Get a hologram of Olinsky,” Squerciati chimed in.
Following the finale, Us Weekly spoke exclusively to showrunner Rick Eid, who explained that the decision to kill off Olinsky was strictly to move the story along.
“It just evolved from a storytelling perspective. Once we started down the road of Woods and Voight going at each other, Bingham’s body being recovered and Olinsky’s DNA being found on that body, we started playing it out to its creative, dramatic conclusion. It just felt like an interesting way to wrap up that storyline,” Eid told Us. “I think the real creative idea behind it all was that we felt like Voight killing Bingham needed to ultimately, cost him something. There needed to be a consequence to what he did. We thought that possibly losing his best friend became this interesting idea that we all gravitated toward. We could see this long arc playing out in that direction.”
Chicago P.D. has been renewed for a sixth season on NBC.
