Chicago P.D. ended Season 13 with Hank Voight taking matters into his own bloodied hands. In the finale, titled “Born or Made,” Voight killed Russ Kirby after disarming the man who had held Eva Imani’s sister Shari captive for decades, and the hour closed on a tense look between Voight and Imani that said more than either of them could.
The showdown came after Voight and Imani finally tracked down Shari, before Kirby was captured. Shari still could not remember her sister or the rest of her family, a crushing turn for Imani, who had spent decades searching for her kidnapped sibling. Voight had offered to help after learning about that search, and the two built a bond through the case because both were stubborn and full of fight.
The weight of the finale was not just that Kirby died. It was how it happened. Voight had ordered the Intelligence Unit to track Kirby down, and when Imani was lured into a trap while wrestling with Shari’s Stockholm syndrome, the unit rushed to her location hoping to save her life. Voight noticed Kirby was armed and about to fire, disarmed him, and then repeatedly slammed a door into his skull. Burgess had to pull a blood-splattered Voight away before he stopped.
That ending fits the larger arc the season built around Voight. Showrunner Gwen Sigan said the writers spent a lot of time on his relationship to violence and where it came from. They debated whether it was inherited, explored the idea that his father might have been abusive, and then reversed that assumption by revealing his father was the thing that kept him sane. Sigan said violence has just always been in Voight, and that the season also played with the idea that it is inside Imani too.
The tension now is not whether Kirby is dead. It is what Voight’s choice means for the unit, and for Imani, who was still staring at the man who had just helped save her sister and then murdered her sister’s captor. Sigan said she loved the look between Voight and Imani at the end of the scene, and that final exchange now hangs over the season as its clearest answer: Voight did what he thought had to be done, and the cost is already written on both of their faces.
