Chicago P.D. Season 12, Episode 22 ‘Vows‘ is a very good season finale that delivers the Burzek content fans have been waiting for, and that also seems to establish new team dynamics going into Season 13. It’s also a very interesting episode for Voight—because, as much as the end result of his feud with Deputy Chief Reid was kind of predictable, the way we get there is very interesting for a character that has felt stuck in the same hamster wheel for a while.
If you’d asked me at the beginning of Season 12 if I thought we could get here, to a point where Voight’s storyline feels like it has possibilities, to the setup for new and improved team dynamics in Season 13 and to the happily ever after Kim and Adam deserved—one that isn’t an end, but a beginning—I wouldn’t have believed it. And yet here we are, and honestly, this is the most interesting this show has been in a while.
Burzek, Forever
As different as Adam and Kim’s wedding is from the last wedding we got on Chicago P.D. (Oh, Upstead, we miss you), there’s no denying it feels exactly like them. Because Kim and Adam first got engaged like a decade ago. When we say it’s been a long road to get here, we mean it’s been a really, really long road to get here. And that means it makes sense for them to want to celebrate the day in a different way. It’s not just about the celebration of love; it’s also about recognizing the path that has taken them here.
Plus, they have a daughter! Adam’s father is not doing that well. This is not just a day for the two of them, but a day to celebrate with the people they love, people who love them. It’s a day about family and that’s why it makes sense that it’s Kevin standing up there with Adam, that Adam’s dad gets to be there, that Makayla gets to see her parents look at each other with all the love they hold and proclaim they want to continue doing this life together.
And the best part is that this is not an ending, but a beginning. Burzek’s story will continue on in Chicago P.D. Season 13, and we will get the chance to see them face life as a married couple. Perhaps we can even get a further expansion of the family in the future. Either way, this is a moment that feels like a long-time coming and absolutely deserved, and though I wish we’d gotten an entire episode just for them (including vows, an ironic omission in an episode called “Vows), I’m really happy we got to see Kim walk down that aisle to the man she loved, with her daughter looking on.
“I Don’t Get More”
The thing about Voight in Chicago P.D. Season 12, Episode 22 ‘Vows’ is that we have been here before, and yet, in so many ways, it feels like we haven’t. Because this is the first time that it feels like Voight, perhaps, didn’t want things to end up like they did. He made the choice, yes. That part isn’t surprising. The shocking part is that it honestly feels like he didn’t want to. He avoided making it for way longer than he would have at any other point. He involved the team. He let Chapman in.
And nothing of what happens makes Voight a hero, just like Reid wasn’t a good guy in any way, shape, or form, even though some of the things he said were true. But everything that happened in the finale, everything that has happened since Voight almost died last year, has made him a more compelling character. The doubt, the desire for more that perhaps he cannot even admit to himself, makes him compelling. Where does he go now? You can’t put everything back in the box now. It won’t fit.
So, going forward, it’s about how his relationship with the team has changed. He let them in. He trusted them. He didn’t treat them like the dad fixing everyone’s problems, but like equals. And it’s all about what kind of relationship he can have with Chapman now that he shut the door to the possibility of more.
And that we admit we’re intrigued about. Who is this Voight? Who can he be? The answer now has weight, because we can’t predict the outcome. We’ll tune in for that.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Chicago P.D. Season 12, Episode 22 ‘Vows’? 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.
I agree with a lot of what you have written. I have mixed emotions about this episode.
On the one hand, this is Voight at his Machiavellian best. The fact that Reid didn’t see this coming until the very end and acknowledges at the end that “you’re worse than me” was very satisfying. Three or four seasons ago, I would have loved this pure and simple.
I guess what is disappointing is that I really liked Chapman and I liked the potential for a different kind of Voight. That is over now. Voight and Chapman’s relationship will be strictly professional, if we even see her at all going forward. Both of them felt the loss at Burzek’s wedding. I was kind of hoping that Chapman would be the one to save Voight and the Intelligence Team. That she through her investigators, people Reid didn’t have control over, would have been able to take Reid down and do so “above board.” That would have been different, someone saving Voight, doing so the right way and because she genuinely cared about him.