This episode is one of those that reminded me why Dante Torres was such a refreshing and necessary addition to Chicago PD.
He is a good guy and even better police. He does things with integrity, always with the best of intentions while usually wearing his heart on his sleeve. But in usual PD fashion, the very core of who Torres is, is turned inside out. He’s forced to make a tough decision between doing what is right and doing what is necessary, and unfortunately, the latter wins out in this one.
He bites the bullet and covers up for another cop who is quite obviously not a good one, and by the end of the episode you feel for him immensely. He’s grown up constantly battling with the good versus evil mentality, has been questioned over and over as to why he became a cop, and even though he lies — it’s the best option he has out of a handful of bad ones — he’s still the good guy we’ve come to know and enjoy seeing on our screens.
One of the biggest takeaways for me in this episode was seeing Torres partnered up with Ruzek and enjoying it. Ruzek tends to find himself in similar hot water situations more often than not, having to make some not-so-great decisions himself. His sense of loyalty, especially for his fellow police, has always been the code he lives by, that’s who he is at his core, and while it has bitten him in the butt in seasons past, it was a nice thing to see in this episode. Because when it comes down to it, he doesn’t go off-book or play cowboy like we’re used to seeing. He takes a moment to look at things from Torres’ perspective instead, does so logically and has his back, and together, they make that tough decision.
In the last moments of the episode, Ruzek says to Torres, “this job…it’ll find a million different ways to break your heart.” It’s one of my favorite lines of the entire episode that perfectly sums up the hour and in a way, the series entirely. Their job isn’t easy, and we know it’s Ruzek’s way of wanting to make Torres feel better, to make sense of what has happened, of what they had to do. There is good and bad, right and wrong, but none of it is ever easy and it never will be.
That’s usually how it goes in this universe though, isn’t it? We watch these characters we love be put to the test week after week, making tough call after tough call. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes all there is, is just a harsh middle ground to land on, but still, we root for them and hope for the best. At this point, after all the hardships we’ve seen them go through, and the many more we know are coming, it’s all we can do.
Chicago PD airs on Wednesdays on NBC. New episodes return February 15th.