Chicago P.D. 11×02 “Retread” is another example of this show and these characters doing things that in real life — and in another show that actually believed in coherency — would lead to real-life consequences for the main characters and not just the secondary ones. Instead, in One Chicago land, all is well that goes well for Adam, just as it’s gone well for Jay, for Hailey, not to mention Voight himself before.
And hey, at this point, it would almost be unfair for it to go differently for just one character. Everyone gets a get-out-of-hail free card or five on Chicago P.D.! That’s the name of the game.
The funny thing about this episode, if it can even be called funny, is that Voight — and by extension Kim — spends too much of the hour keeping the rest of the team out of the loop, as if they were somehow going to turn on Adam if they found out how this whole thing started. This is not just patently ridiculous, but it also somehow operates under the assumption anyone on Intelligence exists on some sort of moral high ground when it comes to each other. Newsflash: they don’t. Not just that, they never have. They’ve all worked with Voight for way too long to. No one was going to give up Adam, as Hailey tells Voight.
Except Voight’s entire schtick is this idea that, even though he has a team who has had his back and covered for him for all this time, he is a man on an island and he will always be that. He has to work on things by himself. He has to save everyone by himself. It is the only way. (And of course it isn’t, but he still believes it and the show reinforces the idea, even when this idea plays against Voight time and time again — and it has cost him people he cares about.)
But if Chicago P.D. 11×02 “Retread” does something right is it positions Kim and Adam firmly against this notion by making them do something they’ve struggled to do effectively before, communicate. We’ve missed six months of them rebuilding their relationship on-screen, but this episode establishes them as people who can not only talk about what’s going on but who can be the support system the other person needs. And though the end of the episode hits Adam quite hard (unnecessarily so, one would say, sometimes Chicago P.D. likes to play with pain for the sake of it, because there are no real lessons to be learned here), the Burzek of it all works very well because Adam and Kim walk out of this hour as effective a unit as they have ever been.
It isn’t just about sharing their fears, though they both do that in this hour — it’s about understanding that a healthy relationship isn’t about fixing the other person, it’s sometimes just about being there and holding the other person’s hand. Adam still has a long way to go, just as Kim still has traumas she needs to work through. Healing isn’t linear, and we never quite stop healing. But working on that healing is so much easier when you’re not doing it alone.
Things I think I think:
- This dude’s got jokes! “Well, let’s hope you got some.”
- Can we make Voight take this test? Feels important.
- Also, I feel like the show is trying to tell me something about Adam from the way he’s taking this test and I don’t know if I should be reading too deeply into it or not! He looks like he’s genuinely struggling and some people are just not good at standardized tests!
- Domestic Adam is cute. I could watch an episode of Domestic Adam. Would need more Makayla for it, but yeah.
- Voight always has the best advice. /sarcasm
- “How bad is it?” IS the right question.
- I mean, they’ve covered up worse. I don’t even know why Voight is keeping it a secret. Who in the team would tell? Absolutely no one.
- While we’re on secrets, can we talk about how Voight (and Hailey) are still keeping THAT secret from Kim? There are NO moral high grounds in this goddamn show, and Voight of all people should stop pretending he exists in one.
- As I said in my first review, it’s super obvious this show is writing Hailey out in basically the same way they wrote Jay out — she’s going to become disillusioned by the way Intelligence in general, and Voight in particular do things. And hey, I get it. But some originality?
- “These are the things we tell each other now” hits hard.
- Really, really liked Kim reminding Adam that she’s there for him.
- “I don’t got PTSD. I’m not traumatized” is what people who are not doing well say, Adam.
- But I like the way this episode establishes Adam’s fears.
- What a brutal ending for absolutely no reason. Shock value and nothing else. Sure, the nice CI died. More guilt to add to Adam. But that changes nothing, right? Right?
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Chicago P.D. 11×02 “Retread”? Share with us in the comments below!
Chicago P.D. airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.