Chicago PD season 6 episode 13 review: Was Atwater arrested?
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At first, this installment (entitled “Night in Chicago”) started off much in the same way many other Chicago PD installments do — with Kevin Atwater undercover to try and take down a drug operation. Where things started to become twisted was when while undercover, Kevin and one of the members of the drug group were pulled over by the police. The cop was aggressive, prejudiced, and offensive the two, and things got out of hand to the point where the young man Atwater was with got shot. He died at the scene, and in the aftermath of that, Kevin had to wonder if there’s something more he could have done.
Even after what happened, Atwater still had to keep his cover. Voight took care of him once they were away from the scene and understandably, Atwater was livid. He didn’t deserve that treatment and he knew it. He wanted justice — he knew that he was sitting alongside a criminal in that car, but he wasn’t pulled over because of that.
What this episode did so powerfully was show multiple sides of the incident and raise questions about both police treatment and escalation. The footage from the night showed that the cop did feel threatened at the time of the incident and because of that, decided to fire his gun. Yet, it still leaves you to wonder whether or not things could have been different in the event that the cop handled things differently … or just opted to not pull the car over at all. To make matters so much worse, Atwater was forced to shoulder the burden of what-if when Kelton claimed that he was at fault for not identifying himself at the scene, almost as though he was responsible for something terrible another cop did.
The good news for Intelligence was that thanks to Atwater being steadfast on the case, they were able to curtail that operation. The bad news is that still feels hardly like good news. A person was still killed and beyond that, Atwater had the spotlight put on his own actions and he couldn’t get the arresting cop fired. Yet, in the closing minutes, he did pay him a visit at a bar, bringing him outside, roughing him up, and pointing a gun at his head to see how he liked it. Kevin has to hope that there is no retaliation on this cop’s part now; the shameful thing is that this is the only way he could feel any sense of justice at all due to the way in which the police system worked.
CarterMatt Verdict
“Night in Chicago” was a dark episode, but also a powerful and nuanced one. It was about race relations in the city, but also about police politics and communication. Rather than someone legitimately being interested in helping Atwater deal with what happened, Kelton sought to blame him while a returning Ray Price (Wendell Pierce) wanted to use him as a part of his own campaign for Mayor. He’s a pawn rather than an example of change.
Kudos to LaRoyce Hawkins (read our interview with him here) for an excellent performance, one of the best we’ve seen from him. This was tough, emotional material and he kept all of it grounded and true to how his character would feel.
New Interview – Take a look at what LaRoyce Hawkins had to say to us about this episode.
What was your take on this powerful Chicago PD episode? Be sure to share in the comments. (Photo: NBC.)