Chicago P.D. Season 12, Episode 20 ‘Black Ice‘ puts Adam Ruzek in danger a couple of times, but other than that, it does very little to give depth to Adam. It also doesn’t really give depth to Adam and Kim, Adam and Disco Bob, or Adam’s relationship with anyone else on the team. In fact, considering this episode only really features Adam and Kim, it’s not like it really can.
Instead, it feels like the kind of episode you make when you want to fill a spot, and that’s it. It was time for an Adam-centric episode, and episode minimums being what they were, Kevin and Kiana were not supposed to be in this hour, and they had Voight for a limited time, so we got… this.
It’s just that this isn’t very interesting. Not case-wise, not team-wise, nothing. The salvageable parts of the episode are about what could be: Adam and a baby… because we start thinking of what could have been, what we didn’t get, what the possibilities might one day be; Kim’s fear at Adam being trapped and away from her, because there’s something there in that moment of the two being separated from each other that feels worth exploring and Disco Bob putting all his money in an account for Makayla because he loves her and that’s his grandaughter.
Those moments hit. They mean something. But they also feel scattered and a little disconnected within the context of an episode that just never clicks. Especially because the rest is just…boring. That’s what it is. Boring. Adam Ruzek is a good character, one who deserves more interesting storytelling than what he got this hour. From the trailer, this looked like a really heavy episode, but it wasn’t even that. It was three (sometimes four, if we were lucky!) people talking to each other about a case that had no gravitas and that we were all happy to see end.
It isn’t even about the fact that Kevin and Kiana were missing—though when characters go missing, we’d appreciate a line or two about why they’re missing, just for continuity’s sake—it was about the fact that this show already has a pretty thin cast to begin with, and rarely makes it’s episodes about anything other than the cases. So, with even fewer characters than usual and more of a focus on the case, we found ourselves caring less than we usually do. And two episodes before the season finale, that’s a really bad sign. If we’re going to get an Adam episode, let’s at least make it about Adam. Because we like Adam.
We don’t want 7 scattered Adam minutes while we solve a case no one’s really going to remember tomorrow. We really, really don’t.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Chicago P.D. Season 12, Episode 20 ‘Black Ice’? Share with us in the comments below! And if you have your own opinion on the show, leave a review/rating on our Chicago P.D. hub!
Chicago P.D. airs on Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.
