TV Review: Chicago PD Season 1 Episode 8 "Different Mistakes"

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Chicago PD is back.

The main case this week revolved around the search for a crew robbing illegal gambling dens in Chicago's Chinatown.

Things take a turn when the team runs into Voight's former partner and his undercover crew looking to take down the same bad guys.

After vetting to make sure Voight's former partner wasn't dirty, they team up together. There is some hint at some back story that isn't revealed until later.

During this vetting process, Voight realizes the time table of the crew hitting the gambling dens could only mean one thing: they were listening in on his ex-partner's radio. They use this to their advantage and set up a trap.

Since the crew waits for Voight's ex-partner and his crew to go to a spot first, Voight and the team create a spot for the ex-partner to go to. This lures in the bad guys.

Voight and everyone lets the bad guys commit the crime fully by breaching the door, before engaging in a firefight. This leads into another high production car chase, which ends in Voight's ex-partner crashing into the getaway car.

That was pretty much the main case. For me, it never really got super complicated.

The main wrinkle, whether or not Voight's ex-partner was dirty, was resolved in two scenes.

That sort of deflated everything for me in terms of me wanting to find the bad guy. If it's just some crew I've never heard of, how is that more exciting than a crew run by Voight's ex-partner?

Many character stories were continued, while new ones emerged in various forms and lengths. After bragging about skipping patrol coming fresh out of the academy, Ruzek is temporarily demoted by Olinsky to learn not to take his job for granted.

During that, he is paired with Burgess where it seems their relationship could be moving past the friend stage. All there was during this episode was just some suggestive facial expressions - so let's see how that plays out.

Lindsay deals with Nadia, the recurring young heroin addict. She reaches out for help this episode, and Lindsay tells her to wait in her apartment. By the time Lindsay is home to take her to the clinic, she's back on the street.

Typically with a character story that seemingly didn't push forward the plot of this arc, I'd be less than pleased. However, with this sort of story, I think it is very realistic.

Anyone who has dealt with addiction or addicts knows how true these few scenes rang out: it's always one step forward and two steps back.

Jay is back to tailing the man who murdered the kid and got away with it. With Jin's help this time, Jay was able to track the guy's purchase of some toys at a toy store. This was probably the shortest story told this episode, yet it had the most intrigue because of the pairing. Jin is someone who is vastly underused on the show mostly because of his role.

Being the tech guy means most episodes you're going to be confined to a police station or van. It'll be interested to see if Jin is pulled into this (arguably justified) obsession Jay has with this murderer.

A tech guy could come in handy when they need to bury some evidence of police wrongdoing.

Voight was all over this episode. Stillwell, A new IA officer, is introduced as Voight's handler. He has a more direct approach with Voight after seeing how Voight was able to tiptoe around the previous IA woman and drag her deadlines on.

He immediately assigns a new detective (introduced as Mia Sumner) to Voight's unit, which cramps his style. He also warns Voight that he needs to deliver on Maurice Owens, the street level drug dealer Voight promised to put away.

At the end of the episode, Stillwell took matters into his own hands by arresting Voight and Maurice during a routine meetup. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The back story with Voight, his former partner, and Olinsky isn't explained until the end when Lindsay asks Antonio. Essentially Olinsky's old partner was killed, and the killer turned himself in.

Antonio recalls everyone seeing the killer last enter a cruiser with Olinsky, Voight and his former partner never to be seen again. Man, these guys are good at making people disappear!

The back story there didn't have the same punch as Voight seemingly getting away with murdering his son's enemy off camera. Seeing someone during the aftermath but not seeing the act versus hearing a story about the same thing doesn't have the same effect.

I could tell you how great Chicago PD is, but until you watch it you won't experience what I usually experience.

That sort of thing. My whole reaction to Voight's former partner being cleared of being dirty so fast and this back story was pretty much:

"Okay."

Not bad, but not on the same level I'm used to. I don't want to say it felt rushed, but they clearly didn't want to stretch the story out like they could have.

This could have been a great opportunity to have Voight vouch for his partner while everyone else thought he was dirty. Oh well.

Some things I would have done differently. However, the new turn in the war between IA and Voight has taken an interesting one, with seemingly a no BS officer taking action.

That more than makes up for the simplistic plot of everything else. I'll be on the lookout for how that as well as the Jin/Jay story of them tracking the murderer plays out.

Photo Credit: tvrage.com