Written
By: Matt Olmstead
Directed By: Mark Tinker
The Plot: To sync up with Chicago Fire – which had it’s own jaw-dropping premiere
a night ago – events have jumped six weeks forward from when Voight and
Stillwell found Sheldon Jin lying dead in a snowy park. Voight is being grilled
about the circumstances of the murder. For reasons unknown, Intelligence have
been forbidden to look into the case, but they do anyway. Voight’s worried that
CPD are coming for his badge and roars down Ruzek in a tense scene.
Halstead receives a letter that’s taken six weeks to
come across from his old precinct. It’s a note and a USB from Jin, which
Halstead hands to Voight. On it is evidence that implicates Stillwell in Jin’s
murder. Voight goes to the IA cop and Stillwell suggests Voight bury the case
or Stillwell will bring Voight down as well, based on recordings of all their
conversations – presumably including the ones where Voight spoke about a
partnership that sounded pretty corrupt – and it appears that Voight decides to
do just that.
Until he meets with Jin’s mother, who tells Voight
that her son’s greatest wish was to do the sort of work he did with Voight’s
team, and that chances the sergeant’s mind. He turns the information that
incriminates Stillwell over to the department and watches from afar as the IA
cop is arrested for Sheldon Jin’s murder.
The rest of the squad are working on an armed truck
heist from a CI who is known to Olinsky from the old days, and as the squad is
trying to unravel that mystery, Nadia, now working as the receptionist, gets a
series of calls from someone called Bunny, who wants Lindsay. There’s obviously
something going on there, judging by the look that comes across Lindsay’s face
when she hears who is on the other end of the line.
It turns out that the heist was aimed at getting back
a piece of DNA evidence, a t-shirt, but CPD wasn’t made aware of it due to
suspected corruption. The shirt was being independently transported to a non-PD
lab for independent testing, and, clearly, the whole thing was set up to remove
a piece of evidence that could put a murderer away.
True to his word, Stillwell forwards his information
to the Chicago PD and Voight is called in for a hearing. Before he goes, he
addresses his team, admitting that he was working with IA, posing as a dirty
cop, but that he never went after police. The team are shocked for different
reasons. Halstead seems to approve, and shakes Voight’s hand, and Dawson seems
the same, but Lindsay is horrified, and appears to take the revelation as a
betrayal. At least judging by the look on her face.
Ruzek and Burgess are a couple, but keeping things
very low-key at work. Burgess is working with a new cop called Roman, who seems
capable but is very steadfast in his hatred of working with female partners,
and we later learn it’s because he fell in love with his previous partner, and
apparently she didn’t feel the same way in return. Ruzek seems less interested
in hearing his girlfriend’s complaints about her new partner than getting
Burgess into his bedroom.
The bad guys are – of course – apprehended, but not
before there’s a huge shootout and Halstead is forced to kill one of the
brothers who are working together to extort money for the evidence. Later,
Olinsky is visited by a CI, who reveals that the surviving brother has put a
bounty on Halstead’s head of one hundred thousand dollars.
Voight is called to CPD headquarters. Prior
to heading there, Voight wanted a particular high-ranking cop there on the
panel, and Voight asks for a quiet word with that man. It turns out that Jin
had a lot of dirt on a lot of cops, including the gentleman now having a
conference with Voight. Hence, Voight wiggles out from a seemingly impossible
jam, and, later at Molly’s, his team exalts.
The identity of Bunny is revealed as Lindsay goes to a
bar: it’s her estranged mother, and Lindsay is none too pleased to see her.
My
Thoughts: Well, I had a feeling Jin had been offed by
Stillwell, and it was good to see Voight manage to get Stillwell locked away
for the murder and avoid being taken down himself. That, thanks to Jin.
It’s
obvious now that Voight has the ability, like so many headlining characters, to
escape just about any situation that he’s in, even vaguely illegal ones. We don’t
know how doctored the evidence was from Stillwell, but it doesn’t matter.Voight is back. Thank God, too, because it seems like there’s even more bad
guys in Chicago this season than last.
Only because there’d been reports that Lindsay’s
estranged mother would make an appearance this season did I think that ‘Bunny’
was her mother, and you can tell that there’s some serious friction between the
two. Also, it’s eerie how similar Markie Post and Sophia Bush are alike.
Not sure how to feel about Ruzek and Burgess. The one
scene between them was awkward because Ruzek seemed more interested in going
into the bedroom than listening to the problems Burgess has with her new
partner, Roman, who looks like he’s going to be an interesting one.
As for Halstead and his death mark…that’s pretty
serious. One hundred thousand grand is nothing to sneeze at. A great opening
episode that sets up a few very interesting stories for the coming season.
Looking forward to seeing how Halstead deals with having a price on his head.
