Chicago PD: Season 1 - Episode Six - "Conventions"

"Conventions"
Written By: Maisha Closson
Directed By: Alik Sakharov

Plot: Obviously NBC is trying to promote Chicago PD as much as possible, and they’ve done so by making the sixth episode of the series the second half of a crossover with Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. SVU detectives Tutuola (a grizzled-looking Ice-T) and Rollins (Kelli Giddish) are in the Windy City because there’s been a rape/murder in which the offender sliced off the ear of their victim. It’s a match to a similar spate of killings in New York City.

The Unit arrests a pickpocket who runs from them for different reasons, but can at least point them in the direction of a businessman, Jeffrey Baker, in town for a convention. Soon after that, another victim survives and actually fights back, puncturing the eye of her attacker. Burgess goes against the orders of her superiors and gets a name of a man who visited a drug store in the aftermath. Jin finds that the same man, Neil Vance, had credit card charges at a hotel in New York City during the time the rapist was striking there.

It turns out that Baker is actually working with the other man, Vance, and is detained when he turns up to meet Vance. Voight uses his extreme tactics to get out of Baker that Vance is waiting at Navy Pier – another iconic Chicago location making it’s Chicago PD debut – and the team go there. Vance correctly guesses that Ruzek is a cop and takes a woman hostage, and whilst Ruzek stalls, the rest of the team get into position. Olinsky uses a sniper rifle to shoot Vance dead from long range.

More personally, Lindsay asks Halstead to go with her to a high school reunion and to pose as her husband. Although she decided at the last minute not to attend, she does reveal her life story – or some of it, anyway – to Halstead. It turns out she was a Criminal Informant (or CI) for Voight, who found her living on the streets. He got her into a private school, then the Academy and not the Intelligence Unit. He's looked out for her ever since. Later, it seems like Halstead and Lindsay are destined to kiss, but Lindsay puts a stop to it for the time being, but doesn’t exactly close the door on them being a couple at some stage.

When Lindsay gets home, she hears a knock at the door. It’s Justin Voight, who is frantic because he has blood all over his hands.

My Thoughts: I guess it was only going to be a matter of time before Chicago PD crossed over with another show from the Dick Wolf empire, and although it was a tense, often disturbing episode, the two SVU detectives didn't have all that much to do - they weren't even around for the final takedown, which was pretty awesome. 

With the rape/murder story following on from drug dealers and arms smugglers, Chicago PD is really delving into a darker side of the city than I would've expected, given which show it spun off from, the relatively lightweight Chicago Fire.

It was great to finally have some confirmation of what I'd been speculating was the deal with Lindsay's murky back story. It certainly explains the fatherly relationship she has with Voight, not to mention her loyalty towards him and his family. She's obviously trying to help Justin out, after Justin's father did so much to get her straight and get her into the. Lindsay's clearly a very loyal person.

You get the feeling they'll revisit the Lindsay/Halstead relationship at a later date. It might get a run purely because Voight would hate it. He seems to have a problem with inter-squad relationships. And, of course, there's him basically being Lindsay's father figure.