Chicago PD - Kasual With A K - Review

“They name parks and streets after politicians in the city. Women like that are the real heroes and no one ever knows their names.”

It’s back from hiatus and right into the action for Chicago PD! In this episode, the team investigates an attack on a battered women’s shelter. On scene at the top of the hour, the team finds a DOA man, a critically injured woman, and a handful of terrified women. The women report an attack by an unidentified man who shot and nearly killed Jess, the woman who runs the shelter, and three missing eye witnesses.

On a surveillance video, Ruzek finds the shooter taking a hostage, Valerie Holt, with him. Her live-in boyfriend Reid is abusive (the reason she’s at the shelter) and becomes a suspect in the case. Through a connection of Reid’s, the team finds a possible address. But when they arrive on scene, they find Reid dead and a few left behind, packs of heroin.

While still dealing with the case, Antonio’s meeting with a CI provided a somewhat lighthearted break from the drama. Antonio was there on case business, of course, but the way he interacted with his CI was hilarious! Much like Voight, Antonio takes no nonsense on the job. But the way Antonio handles it has an element of humor to it, unlike Voight (most of the time). Voight kicks ass and takes names. Antonio kicks ass and takes fries (and really, who can blame him?).

Meanwhile, Ruzek and Olinsky meet with a slime ball club owner, Martin Ainge. He recently saw Valerie with Reid and thought she looked like she was “asking” for the abuse. Stand-up guy, ladies and gents. Yuck. He’s all kinds of shady.

At the hospital, Erin and Jay meet with Jess, recently out of surgery. Thanks to Chicago Med’s Connor, Jess looks like she’s going to make it! She tells the pair that the shooter knew Valerie, and gives them a lead as to where Valerie might be. Sure enough, Atwater and Ruzek find Valerie at a cemetery where her son was buried not long before.

With Valerie, all the puzzle pieces fall into place. Valerie was kidnapped and forced to help break into the warehouse where Reid was found. She was then asked, and nearly forced, to kill Reid, but managed to escape. Well, isn’t it a small world! It seems the unnamed man who attacked the women’s shelter and kidnapped Valerie was doing Martin Ainge’s, aka Slime Ball Club Owner’s, bidding.

Unfortunately, the team doesn’t have enough hard evidence on Ainge to arrest him, let alone pin all the crimes—including homicide—on him. They do get the shooter, but he’s just a henchman. While Ainge does deserve to rot in prison, I love the truth in the storytelling of this episode. And the truth is, the bad guy isn’t always caught. And while Voight’s get-out-of-town threat seems to have been successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Ainge again in the future.

Though it wasn’t much, we did learn a bit more about Erin this week. While talking with Valerie, Erin tells of her time in a women’s shelter—three months—while Bunny struggled with abusive men and drugs. By the look on Jay’s face, he clearly didn’t know. Later at Molly’s, Erin opens up to Jay and tells him about her time at the shelter and the woman who took care of her. I know this isn’t a show about the romantic relationships, but would a little more hurt anyone? These two are so good together and have fantastic chemistry. Just give me more!

Side note: I enjoyed the brief scene with Jay and Connor. And then it struck me that Connor doesn’t like the other Halstead brother. If you also watch Chicago Med, you know these two provide a lot of drama as they don’t get along. It’s an interesting dynamic, then, to have Connor and Jay so at ease and friendly with each other. More, please.


Elsewhere…

Roman and Burgess are tasked with investigating a robbery. A man, Ted, was robbed after meeting up with someone he “matched” with on a dating app, Kasual with a K. But when Ted met up who he thought was a woman named Carmela “or something like that”, he was attacked by a large man. And while an attack case is no laughing matter, this case does provide us comic relief from the gravity of the main case this episode.

Perhaps Ruzek does have something to be jealous of! While on the dating app case, Burgess tells Roman she has tickets to Shakespeare in the Dark, tickets she purchased when she was still engaged to Ruzek. She doesn’t want to “eat” the tickets, so she shows up at the event alone. But then Roman shows up!

“I was taught to never let your partner go through the door alone. Shall we?”

Well shoot. I have to say, before this, I wasn’t sensing anything romantic between these two. But now, who knows? There was a spark, I will say that. And while I’m not aboard their ship (Rogess? Burman?) yet, I do think a relationship (or at least the buildup) would be interesting. Burgess is easily the most optimistic person on this show, especially when it comes to her life outside the job. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Roman is easily the most pessimistic person on the show. Need more proof? How about his comment from earlier in the hour, “All relationships have an expiration date.” So an attempt at a relationship with these two has the potential to be interesting and drama-filled.


What did you think of the episode? Do you think Roman and Burgess should date? Thoughts on the lack of Erin/Jay moments (I hate it!)? Will we see Martin Ainge again? Share your thoughts below!

About the Author - Meghan Reynolds

A Colorado native, Meghan was born a raised a Denver Broncos fan. Aside from football, she loves television and some might say watches too much of it. Some of her favorite shows of the past and present include Galavant, The Blacklist, The Office, Veronica Mars, The 100, and Gilmore Girls. She reviews Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med for SpoilerTV.