'Chicago P.D.' season 7: What's next for Adam Ruzek after his arrest in the season 6 finale?
When we first meet Adam Ruzek (played by Patrick John Flueger), he was still training at the Academy, until Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas) shows up and handpicks him to be a part of Hank Voight's (Jason Beghe) Intelligence Unit. Ruzek is a young, sometimes arrogant, and impulsive police officer. This annoys his colleagues in the first season but over time he gets more mature. He also gets into a relationship with officer Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and eventually gets engaged, however, his commitment issues force Kim to break off the engagement. Later, he gets into a fling-turned relationship with the new member of the team Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) but they end up parting as well. However, despite this, if there's one word that is perfect to describe Ruzek, it's that he is loyal.
In season 5, Ruzek is blackmailed by Denny Woods for information to take down Voight. But Ruzek remains loyal to Voight who then helps Ruzek get out of the situation. In season 6, however, Ruzek doubles down on his loyalty to Voight and the team, especially in the aftermath of Olinsky's death. When Antonio pushes a criminal out of a window during a fight in a drug haze, Voight sends Antonio away and tells Ruzek to pin it on him. However, Ruzek, aware of Kelton and Voight's feud, takes the blame on himself. Kelton does not let Internal Affairs drop the case, and in the final episode, Ruzek is arrested.
When 'Chicago P.D.' returns for season 7 next week, the synopsis suggests that after Ruzek's night in jail, he realizes that he struggles in small, confined spaces. So Ruzek might decide to take a step back and reevaluate his life choices. One thing we can speculate is that Ruzek might take some time to come back to the team seeing as he's now under investigation by Internal Affairs.
Perhaps Ruzek would decide to put his own life ahead of the team. We've also seen from the promos that Halstead and Voight's disagreements from the end of season 6 will continue and so this could create a rift in the team, with Ruzek having to choose between Voight and Halstead. Showrunner Rick Eid also suggested that one or all of Burgess, Ruzek, or Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) could be promoted to detective this season. Viewers can, at the very least, expect a major shift in Ruzek's behavior as the show goes forward.
'Chicago P.D' returns for its seventh season to NBC on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019.