Which Chicago PD characters never got their due? Check out our list of Chicago PD’s 5 most underrated characters, and tell us who you think is overlooked.
No TV show is without its underrated characters, and Chicago PD is full of them. Whether it’s a guest star whose role doesn’t get explored enough or a series regular who isn’t used to their full potential, there are always those characters that the audience loves and the writing neglects. So when it comes to the Intelligence Unit, who’s been the most underserved?
Through four and a half seasons and counting there have been many characters who have come through the doors of the District. There are all the detectives and police officers we’ve met, as well as their civilian associates and the victims, witnesses and other bystanders that they’ve come into contact with throughout 100 episodes.
Not all of those characters can be developed completely or get all the screen time they should, for a variety of reasons. Maybe there just isn’t time. Maybe they were written out of the show before they got their chance to shine. Maybe their storyline wasn’t the best. There are many reasons why we can call a character underrated, and we’ve zeroed in on a few that we feel best fit that title in the Chicago PD universe.
Click through this slideshow to see our picks for the 5 most underrated Chicago PD characters, and let us know who you think should be on this list in the comments. Then don’t miss a new episode of Chicago PD tonight on NBC!
5. Mouse (Sam Hunt)
In Chicago PD season 1, we were introduced to Craig “Mouse” Gurwitch (Samuel Hunt), an ex-soldier who had served with Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) in the Army. He later came to join his old friend in the Intelligence Unit.
Mouse’s main function was to be the new technical expert after Sheldon Jin (Archie Kao) was murdered. Mouse was a guest star in the first season episode “A Beautiful Friendship” before becoming a recurring character in season 2. By the start of season 3, he had settled into his role with the team comfortably, overcoming what Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) thought of him at first. However, it didn’t stay like that for very long.
By mid-season 3, Mouse thought that returning to the Army was the best choice for him, feeling it was where he really belonged. The character was written out in the early season 4 episode “A War Zone” with his goodbye left on the cutting room floor, in a deleted scene that was posted to (and has since been deleted from) the Chicago PD YouTube channel.
What makes him underrated? Since Mouse left, there has been a serious lack of nerd-like characters on Chicago PD. Where is the nerd representation? Where are the guys (or girls) who are able to hack into servers or use references to help Intelligence take down a perpetrator?
Mouse also helped to show any ex-service personnel watching the show that it was possible to move past the horror they had witnessed overseas and find a way to deal with the trauma. He served a much greater purpose than just being the show’s technical guru, even though he did a great job across three seasons.
4. Sheldon Jin (Archie Kao)
The first technical specialist Chicago PD introduced us to was Sheldon Jin (Archie Kao). He frequently assisted the Intelligence Unit in solving their cases, by using his technical mind and ingenious skills to work out important details they needed to crack the case. But his story wound up being short-lived and having an unhappy ending.
By the end of Chicago PD season 1, we discovered that Sheldon had been coerced into
spying on the Intelligence Unit by a member of Internal Affairs, and he was murdered as a result. Although he sent a thumb drive that contained vital evidence to Halstead before his death, Sheldon came across as the weak nerd character who couldn’t defend himself or even tell Voight that he was being threatened.
There was a lot more that could have been done with the character rather than simply killing him off at the end of the season. Sheldon was the only character on the team to not carry a firearm on a regular basis, as he didn’t get to be involved in the action that we know and love Chicago PD for by virtue of his position. The series also showed him submitting to Internal Affairs relatively easily rather than putting up much of a fight.
Between the combination of limited writing and the character’s quick departure, Sheldon Jin was never developed past the general stereotype of tech experts that we see on most TV cop shows. At least he got a plaque outside the 21st District to remember his sacrifice.
3. Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati)
Those of you who have been watching Chicago PD since the beginning know that Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) has made serious progress over the show’s run, moving from being a patrol officer to a full-fledged member of Intelligence. She’s one of the main characters on the show, so why are we including her on this list?
We don’t know if we’ve seen the best of her yet. Since the show first started, we have seen that Burgess is made of sturdy stuff. She’s gone through countless partners, been shot, helped her partners who’ve been shot, been held hostage by drug dealers and had to help track down the people who attacked her sister. She has had one of the most difficult histories on Chicago PD, but despite powering through all that, it feels like she’s still finding her place.
Since moving upstairs to Intelligence, Burgess has been doing a lot of the investigative work in cases, finding information on the suspect to take them down. But only recently have we seen Burgess get the more physical scenes that used to be fairly common for Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush). There’s plenty of room for more of Burgess in that respect, and what better way for her to cement her place in Intelligence than by getting in on the action just as much as everyone else does?
2. Sean Roman (Brian Geraghty)
In season two, Kim Burgess is given a new patrol partner named Sean Roman (Brian Geraghty),
who transfers into the 21st after the collapse of a romantic relationship with a former colleague. From the get-go, it’s obvious that Roman is brash and often makes decisions without thinking, a total contrast to Burgess’s more empathetic and cautious approach.
While Roman’s drama leads to Burgess getting shot in Chicago PD season 2 (when he won’t stop arguing with his ex-girlfriend and Burgess winds up going in without him), he’s also a very brave character. This is the guy who once helped someone dying of a gunshot wound despite the fact that he’d been shot himself. It was getting shot that ultimately ended his tenure on Chicago PD, as after taking a bullet in the episode “Justice” he transferred again, this time to San Diego.
Roman didn’t shy away from what he was feeling, even getting into an altercation with another officer over the handling of one case. He wore his heart on his sleeve and did whatever he could to look out for his friends and partners through everything. Even if he got hurt in the process, he was unquestionably loyal but the show didn’t dig much into him beyond his eventual romantic shipping with Burgess.
That lack of character development isn’t entirely the show’s fault, as it was Brian Geraghty who decided to leave Chicago PD after season 3 for other projects (he now stars in TNT’s The Alienist). But there’s so much more that could’ve been done with Sean Roman.
1. Julie Tay (Li Jun Li)
The number one spot on our list of underrated players goes to a character who only appeared in five episodes of Chicago PD season 4, Officer Julie Tay (Li Jun Li). At the start of season 4, Officer Tay is assigned to Burgess as her new partner, replacing Sean Roman. But fans quickly came to find out that she arrived with plenty of baggage.
Tay had been stuck working one of the worst patrols after an incident with a Commander, who was harrassing her. In true Burgess fashion, Kim did everything she could to help her new partner, and so did Trudy Platt (Amy Morton). But it was all for naught as after just a few episodes, Tay was sent back to her old position after the Commander found out what she was up to. She was never seen or heard from again.
Getting rid of Tay may have been necessary for Chicago PD to be able to move Burgess up to her position with Intelligence, but it still meant writing out another strong female character in the show. It would have been nice to see Tay stick around and become one of the kick-ass women we know and love, or at least witness her progression and to show any young girls watching that they
could stand up to someone trying to put them down.
Having her overcome the Commander’s wrath and get her career back, maybe even popping in to help Burgess and Intelligence with a case or two, could’ve been a fantastic storyline. But Tay’s plot never reached the interesting places it could’ve gone, either for her character or for the fans who were rooting for her, so that’s what makes her the most underrated character on Chicago PD. We can still see all the potential, and still hope she might return someday.
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Who do you think is the most underrated character on Chicago PD? Leave us your choice below in the comments, and tell us why you think they’re undervalued.