Chicago PD season 5, episode 11 recap: Confidential

Chicago PD’s Intelligence Unit returned to action Wednesday, but was the team the same? Here’s what happened in Chicago PD season 5, episode 11.

Wednesday’s Chicago PD episode was almost as much about the cops as the case. Our heroes were back on the job, but not necessarily back to normal.

This week’s episode is called “Confidential,” and it starts with Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) trying to get information out of a would-be informant.

Desperate to keep herself from being charged, the woman says she knows something about a murder. Apparently her co-worker’s boyfriend may have beaten someone else to death and she knows where the body is.

And she hasn’t heard from the co-worker since.

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Is the woman telling the truth, or trying to save her skin? Burgess thinks it’s the latter, but when she tells Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), Upton thinks there might be some truth to the story and suggests they look into it.

Back at the district Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) is still in the team’s proverbial doghouse. And so is Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), who tries to apologize but winds up on desk duty and stuck with a psych appointment that was made for him.

While he stews on that, Upton gets a call. She followed up and it turns out that Burgess’s informant wasn’t making up the murder beef, because there’s the body. Now what do they do about it? Not to mention the missing current girlfriend of their prime suspect?

Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas) and Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda) find out that their victim’s been dead about a month, and was injected with motor oil in a cheap cosmetic procedure. Let’s all consider that for a second and cringe. Especially because when Burgess and Upton track down the missing girl’s counselor, she also mentions cosmetic surgery.

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Upton and Burgess are able to track down the low-rent “medical clinic” and the man there knows the missing woman Isabel Perez, as well as the dead woman Sylvia Castro. Both of them stayed at the same shelter called Jenny’s Haven, and Burgess recognizes their mutual boyfriend/killer as the director of said shelter, going by the name Juan Martinez.

Juan—and two other people—are gone when they kick in his door. So Burgess pushes her ex-junkie informant to go around talking to heroin dealers for information on his whereabouts and those of the girls. Upton can see the obvious problem with this approach:

"Upton: I’m not going to tell you how to do your job, but that was pretty hardcore.Burgess: She’s a CI, Hailey. That’s what she signed up for."

Halstead spots a picture of Isabel in an escort ad, confirming everyone’s suspicions that Juan, aka Damian, is turning these desperate women into prostitutes. Voight (Jason Beghe) talks to a local madam, who tells us a little too much about Voight’s personal life but also warns that Juan could try to sell the women if he can’t make money off them.

And he’s also killed Burgess’s informant for getting too close, which understandably makes Kim second-guess her asking the woman to put herself in the line of fire to begin with. Cue Ruzek to reassure his ex-fiancee. Can these two get back together already?

But first, Atwater and Burgess confront the drug dealer who tipped off Juan about the informant and force him to cooperate. When Isabel shows up for a previously planned buy, Antonio and Kim are able to catch her. She doesn’t want to cooperate, but they purposefully leave her with a phone so that she’ll call Juan—which she does within minutes.

Isabel sneaks out to meet Juan and our entire Intelligence Unit team is there to greet them. When he tries to take Isabel hostage, they shoot him. That takes care of him, but they still have to locate all the missing women. Upton uses this scene to give Halstead an ultimatum:

"Upton: How’s therapy?Halstead: Not really my thing.Upton: If you’re not going to take it seriously, or even attempt to take it seriously, let me know. For real. ‘Cause I need to find a new partner."

He may not be the only one Upton has to argue with, as Burgess isn’t happy that Upton wants to keep her informant out of trouble after hers took a few bullets. Upton reminds her that informants are people too.

Oh, and Voight nearly gives Juan an intentional overdose of morphine when the idiot tells him to “kiss my Colombian ass” in the hospital, but the last-second arrival of a doctor stops him from the deed. So instead, he settles for leaving another phone behind so that they can find out who Juan is going to call, too.

The phone call leads Intelligence to the house where Juan has the rest of the women held hostage. Unfortunately, one woman is diabetic and has died without her insulin.

"Burgess: He doesn’t care if any of you live or die."

That brings Chicago PD back to Isabel, as “Confidential” plays back the phone call Juan made, and she hears him broker a deal to sell her and the other women like property. That and some words from Burgess finally convince her to turn, and she tells Kim where the murder weapon is.

The episode ends with Upton and Burgess having another awkward conversation in the locker room. Upton says that she now understands what Burgess meant, as she feels she has to live with the death of the diabetic woman for the rest of her life. Burgess can relate, as she still has to grieve the murder of her own informant.

Burgess winds up kissing Ruzek and agreeing to go home with him, while Halstead has taken Upton’s words to heart and come in for a therapy session. A serious one, this time. So are we all turning a page here?

“Confidential” is an interesting episode of Chicago PD because of what it says about some of our characters. Particularly, it’s a really hard-edged side of Kim Burgess; Upton is absolutely right in questioning Burgess’s choice to push her CI and it’s surprising that Burgess, the most empathetic of our crew, doesn’t see the problem until it’s too late.

We also get a reference to Voight spending time with an escort, which we didn’t need to think about, and see Halstead trying to work his way back onto Voight’s good side. Based on this one episode, Voight seems to be more upset with Halstead than he was with Ruzek.

And it’s also an interesting twist that Upton is willing to end her partnership with Jay if he doesn’t get help. That’s tough love, and it’s totally different than what Erin Lindsay would’ve done, which is a good move for Chicago PD season 5; it continues to differentiate the two characters. Both care for Halstead and want the best for him, but they’ve got different ways of showing it.

(And hopefully Chicago PD will show us Halstead’s therapy sessions, because they may not be action packed, but they will be worth watching.)

Plus, Burzek fans have something to be happy about. Not to mention, we also learn a lot about the value of intentionally left behind cell phones.

The case in itself is solid stuff, with a bad guy that One Chicago fans love to hate, but it’s what we learn about our heroes that makes “Confidential” appealing. It’s what it tells us about Chicago PD season 5 and where it’s going, and how it reminds us why we love each of these characters.

Next: Remember this Chicago PD character?

What did you think of this week’s Chicago PD episode? Give us your reaction to “Confidential” in the comments.

Chicago PD airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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