Erin Lindsay

Erin Lindsay
Chicago P.D. character
File:Erin Lindsay.jpg Erin Lindsay
First appearance	CF: "Rhymes with Shout" November 26, 2013 CPD: "Stepping Stone" January 8, 2014
Last appearance	CPD: "Fork In The Road" May 17, 2017
Created by	Matt Olmstead
Portrayed by	Sophia Bush
Other appearances	SVU: "Chicago Crossover" November 12, 2014
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Special Agent, FBI New York Counterterrorism Bureau Detective, CPD (former) Officer, DEA task force (former)
Family	Barbara "Bunny" Fletcher (mother) Teddy Courtney (half-brother) Hank Voight (foster father) Camille Voight (foster mother; deceased) Justin Voight (foster brother; deceased)
Significant other	Jay Halstead (also ex-partner) Kelly Severide
Nationality	American
Police career
Department	Chicago Police Department Intelligence Unit (CF & CPD: S1) Patrol (pre-series)
Years of service	2000s – 2017
Rank	Detective
Badge No.	61317

Erin Lindsay is a fictional character from NBC's Chicago TV franchise, as a lead character in Chicago P.D. and a recurring character in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Chicago Fire and Chicago Med. Portrayed by Sophia Bush, she was introduced as a detective in the Intelligence Unit of the Chicago Police Department.

Background and characterization

In season 1 of Chicago P.D., it has been established from the very beginning that Lindsay shared a special relationship with Hank Voight, head of the Intelligence Unit. Her unwavering loyalty to Voight is explained as her background is gradually revealed. She is generally unfazed by the gangsters, drug lords, and physically intimidating suspects the unit encounter on a regular basis. She has mentioned that her biological father was in prison and that he would hit her and her mother Bunny, who was an on-and-off drug addict. Through Bunny, she has a half-brother, Teddy Courtney, who was taken by a pedophilia ring at age 13 and was found by NYPD detectives ten years later working as a male prostitute. Lindsay grew up on the street and by the age of 14, she had already been arrested 5 times on charges including misdemeanor, simple battery, retail theft, solicitation, and unlawful possession of cannabis. She became a CI for Voight, who, along with his wife, eventually took her in as her legal guardians. Actress Sophia Bush described the character: "Lindsay comes from the street so she already knows how all these people work." She completed high school at St. Ignatius College Prep and joined the Chicago Police Department. After graduating from the police academy, she spent four years on the west side of Chicago as a patrol officer, which she said was all the education she needed.

Because of her background, Lindsay is compassionate and sympathetic towards vulnerable young victims, especially girls, as she can relate with their situation. For example, she tries to get a 17-year-old prostitute and heroin addict, Nadia, to enter drug rehab twice. Eventually, she succeeds in convincing Nadia to stay clean and helps her get a desk job at 21st District headquarters.

Character arc

Chicago Fire

The character was first introduced in Chicago Fire, as one of the Chicago PD detectives the firefighters of 51 regularly come into contact with. She began a relationship with Kelly Severide, the lieutenant of Squad 3. They eventually break up when he spirals out of control following Leslie Shay's death.

Chicago P.D.

When Chicago P.D. premiered, it was established that she has been partnered with Jay Halstead for the past month. The first season coincided with the second season of Chicago Fire, during which she was still dating Lieutenant Kelly Severide from Squad 3.

In season 2, Lindsay was recruited for a DEA task force. In the episode "Disco Bob", Lindsay becomes disillusioned with the task force, with its seemingly-endless bureaucracy and the menial tasks her handler assigned to her (she was to spend a number of weeks with the target's wife, simultaneously pumping her for information and keeping her out of the task force's way), leading her to resign and return to the Chicago PD and Intelligence.

Lindsay's spiral downward begins with Nadia's death in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit crossover episode "Daydream Believer". Nadia was an unfortunate victim of circumstances as she was murdered by sociopath Greg Yates, who had intended to target Lindsay. With this knowledge, Lindsay feels guilty and responsible. She begins drinking and becomes addicted to painkillers, egged on by her ne'er-do-well mother Bunny. In the season 2 finale "Born into Bad News", she turns in her badge and resigns; it is revealed in season 3 that Voight actually filed for a three-week sabbatical on her behalf instead of accepting a resignation. She returns in the season 3 premiere after learning that Halstead's undercover operation had been compromised and that he was being held hostage and tortured by a drug kingpin wanted by the Chicago PD. She gets clean, moves back in with Voight, and cuts Bunny out of her life as part of Voight's conditions for returning to Intelligence.

In the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit crossover episode "Nationwide Manhunt", Voight sends Lindsay and Dawson to interview Greg Yates when he claims that some of the unidentified remains from the beach have ties to Chicago. When he tells her that her deceased friend Nadia talked a lot about her before killing her, she abruptly stops the interview and leaves the cell. At the end of the episode, Lindsay and Sgt. Dodds are driving down a dark country road, and they come across an abandoned police car – the officer was shot to death and lying a few feet away from the car. While Erin and Dodds are investigating – Yates, laying in wait in the woods, starts shooting at them. Sgt. Dodds is shot and drops to the ground. He calls for back-up and orders Erin to stay down – but she ignores his orders and runs in to the dark woods. While running in the woods, she falls and sprains her ankle and drops her gun in the process. She manages to pick it up and continue. There, she spots a cabin with door open. She checks the cabin and find a girl hiding, she hears a shot and tells her to not move and then goes outside. At that moment, Yates drove by in a pick-up truck. He almost hit Lindsay, who tried to fire at the fugitive as he passed by. Erin found the little girl’s father shot dead a few feet away. When she looked closer, she finds a note in the dead man’s mouth that said, "See you back home, Erin." Yates was headed to Chicago. The episode crossover to Chicago PD episode "The Song of Gregory Williams Yates", Voight benches Lindsay when he became concerned for her when Yates resurfaces and murders four nurses. Yates begins taunting her with notes left at the scenes, when she doesn't show to any of the crime scenes. At the station, when a homeless lady brings a box in the station. While everybody believes that it was a bomb inside, the precinct was evacuated. When it was deemed safe, Lindsay opens the box and inside is the nursing student’s hand with a note in it. It says, "Erin, why don’t you answer the phone when your mother calls?" All of a sudden her phone starts ringing believing that it was her mom, but when she answers, Yates was behind the line along with the kidnapped professor from nursing school, Nellie Carr. When everybody in the unit grew suspicious that he knew their every move, Mouse checks her phone. It was revealed that her phone had a spyware that was installed by the prison guard when she and Dawson had to surrender their phones. She goes back into the video call between her and Yates and she notices that he is in her apartment with Nellie, she is able to figure this out because of a picture of Lindsay and Nadia in the background. They go to Lindsay’s apartment and find Nellie, alive in the closet and Yates told her to stay in there and if she tried to leave, he would be outside ready to kill her. During the investigation, it was revealed that Nellie was short for Penelope Williams, she is Yates's sister, and that this was revenge specifically for her and his parents for giving him up for adoption in North Carolina. When Nellie's phone rings, it was perceived as a call from her mom but she is in station. Nellie and Lindsay answer it and it is Yates with Nellie’s father behind the line. Yates found him at a truck stop where he had stopped for a break, he is a truck driver. Lindsay leaves Nellie with Platt and runs upstairs to tell Mouse to ping Nellie’s phone and Lindsay keeps him on the phone long enough to get a location. He tells her to come alone. They were located at Yates's childhood house and calls Voight on the way there, after he goes to the wrong address thinking that Yates would be there, and tells Lindsay not to go there alone. Lindsay goes in, alone and finds Yates and he has Mr. Williams sitting in a chair with the back legs at the edge of a hole in the floor. Mr. Williams also has a noose around his neck and Yates threatens to let the chair go if Lindsay tries to call an ambulance for Mr. Williams. She puts her phone in her pocket and holsters her gun and listens to him talk about all of his victims, why he chose them and how he killed them. Meanwhile, Voight pulls up and goes into the house and while Yates is talking, he starts talking about Nadia and how Yates and Lindsay are similar in their upbringing. She asks why she is there and he tells her that every execution needs one thing, a witness and he throws his father through the hole in the floor and hangs him. He tells her to take him in, but he is walking towards her with an ice pick in his hand and when he yells at her to "Take me" she shoots him in the head. She tells him that it will be ruled a clean kill and then she goes out for drinks with Benson. Benson tells her about William Lewis, a serial killer that kidnapped Benson and how he got into his victims heads. Lindsay asks her how she dealt with it, Benson tells her that she is still dealing with it. She also tells Lindsay that her phone is always on if she needs someone to talk to. Lindsay also asked Benson if it was bad that she felt relieved that she was the one that shot and killed him. Benson tells her that Yates killed her best friend and then came at her with an ice pick, she tells Lindsay that it isn’t bad that she feels that way at all.

Since breaking up with Severide, Lindsay's main love interest in the show is her partner Jay Halstead. They share a close friendship, which has escalated to a more intimate relationship and cooled down at various times, due to Voight's vocal dislike for "in-house" romances. However, regardless of the status of their relationship, they remained loyal to each other as partners on the job and friends outside of it. Halstead is the only character other than Voight she has confided her past to in detail; likewise, she is the only character other than Mouse and Halstead's brother Will who knows about his traumatic past in the military. When Lindsay was on the federal task force, she starts seeing Halstead after work as they no longer had to worry about breaking fraternization rules. In the season 3 premiere, Halstead is the only one who persistently tries to help her, even after Voight had given up. Following her return from her "sabbatical", Voight tells Halstead that he no longer cares about the status of latter and Lindsay's relationship as long as Halstead is looking out for her. After some hesitation, she agrees to take the next step, and they go public with their relationship for the first time by kissing at Molly's. In the beginning of season four, they move in together.

In "Army of One", she sticks her gun down a pedophile's throat in the interrogation room when a kid is discovered to be found missing (and later found dead). In "Fork In The Road", she is brought to the review board when she was accused of assault.

She leaves Chicago in "Fork in the Road" to join the FBI's New York Counter-terrorism Bureau in exchange for her mother's freedom after she is found in possession of pills that were stolen by her boyfriend and his associates.

Erin is last seen looking at her cell phone when her boyfriend Jay calls.

In "Chasing Monsters", offscreen Olinsky lets Lindsay know that the body of Kevin Bingham has resurfaced. In "Breaking Point", a witness identified Olinsky and Lindsay as the people that were digging near the site where the body was found.

Partners

• Detective Jay Halstead (Seasons 1 – 4)
• Detective Hailey Upton (Season 4, episode 22)

Crossover appearances

In addition to her regular role on P.D., Lindsay has appeared in Special Victims Unit, Fire, and Med.

• Chicago Fire - "Rhymes With Shout" (November 26, 2013)
• Chicago Fire - "Tonight's The Night" (January 21, 2014)
• Chicago Fire- "Virgin Skin" (February 25, 2014)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - "Comic Perversions" (February 26, 2014)
• Chicago Fire - "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (March 4, 2014)
• Chicago Fire- "A Rocket Blasting Off" (March 11, 2014)
• Chicago Fire - "A Dark Day (1)" (April 29, 2014)
• Chicago Fire - "Real Never Waits" (May 13, 2014)
• Chicago Fire - "Wow Me" (September 30, 2014)
• Chicago Fire - "Nobody Touches Anything" (November 11, 2014)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit- "Chicago Crossover" (November 12, 2014)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - "Daydream Believer" (April 29, 2015)
• Chicago Med- Mistaken" (December 8, 2015)
• Chicago Med - Malignant" (January 5, 2016)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit- "Nationwide Manhunt" (February 10, 2016)
• Chicago Med: "Alternative Medicine" (October 27, 2016)
• Chicago Med "Inherent Bias" (November 3, 2016)
• Chicago Med: "Free Will" (November 10, 2016)
• Chicago Fire- "Some Make It, Some Don't" (January 3, 2017)
• Chicago Fire- "Deathtrap" (March 1, 2017)
• Chicago Med -Prisoner's Dilemma" (March 9, 2017)
• Chicago Justice- "Tycoon" (May 14, 2017)