Chicago P.D. Season 13, Episode 15 ‘Live or Die by Your CI‘ is an Adam Ruzek episode, but it’s also an episode about how well Burzek works. Well, and an episode about how far Kim has come. It’s a good combination, and the kind of hour that feels like a culmination of so many things, for the characters individually and for the unit they have now become.
First, because it showcases a tremendous amount of growth for both Adam and Kim. Every part of their dynamic screams not just domestic, as Mr. DEA tried to mock, but domestic and happy. And that is a thing. Perhaps the Adam and Kim of five years ago couldn’t have conceived of it, didn’t know that they would ever get to a point where this would be what they wanted the most, but here we are.
People change. Or, perhaps, it’s more accurate to say that people evolve. And Adam and Kim have surely done that. As people, and as a couple. Because this episode does a great job of showing us Kim as an individual who, in the absence of Voight, is the senior officer of Intelligence, and an Adam who is a very good cop, but is also more than a cop. He’s Kim’s partner. In all the ways that matter.
There’s banter over Adam’s monstruosity of a sandwich (which I would very much try, not gonna lie). There’s Makayla being a teenager, and Adam and Kim having real discussions about her future, as parents do. And there are moments of Adam and Kim working together and communicating on the job like they always have, except Kim’s now in charge. And that’s okay. That works. Adam isn’t threatened or upset. If anything, he seems happy about it.
He’s happy about his life. Having a family isn’t making him a worse cop. Having a family isn’t keeping him from doing his job. If anything, having a family is making him better. It’s making him more empathetic, it’s making him more aware, and it’s making him less likely to go off on a tangent without telling his team. Because his team now includes his wife and the mother of his child, and this Adam 100% understands how much that means.
Adam and Kim have been the main ship of this show for a while, but it’s been a while since we’ve gotten an episode that truly goes into how good they are together and how far they’ve come. ‘Live or Die by Your CI’ does just that. And it does that while allowing Patrick Flueger the chance to shine that he most definitely needed after a short break away from the show.
We wish he didn’t have to get pinned down in an abandoned building, again, for the episode to send the message it does, but we’ll take it for that final moment. For Adam single-handedly fighting to get out of that mess, because giving up was unthinkable. For Adam’s awareness that he’s got so much to live for these days, and that change doesn’t have to be something to fear. Doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Because sometimes, that change brings you something worth living for. Something worth fighting for. And yes, something worth changing for.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Chicago P.D. Season 13, Episode 15 ‘Live or Die by Your CI’? 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.
