Chicago PD season 1, episode 4 rewatch: Now Is Always Temporary

Chicago PD's first season cast. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.
Chicago PD's first season cast. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC. /
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Look back at where Chicago PD began this summer. Read our retrospective on the fourth episode as we rewatch Chicago PD season 1, episode 4.

Over the One Chicago summer break, we’re looking back at where it all began by rewatching the first seasons of our shows—and today we’re revisiting Chicago PD season 1, episode 4.

If you want to rewatch this episode along with us, you can find Chicago PD season 1 on iTunes and DVD.

The fourth episode is called “Now Is Always Temporary,” but you could also refer to it as the episode with all the supporting characters. This episode involves a number of recurring characters who play significant roles in the show’s history.

This episode involves Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) once again pulling strings for his son Justin (Josh Segarra), this time to get him a job now that he’s out of prison. Justin blows that opportunity and has a fight with his dad.

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He swears he’s changed, but this episode makes you wonder. Not to mention, you start to understand his frustration, because between this and Chicago Fire, Voight has been pulling strings in Justin’s life a lot.

Hank Voight a control freak? Not surprising at all.

But the fun, if you want to call it that, doesn’t stop there. “Now Is Always Temporary” also marks the first appearance of Nadia Decotis (Stella Maeve), the prostitute and drug addict whom Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush) would befriend.

She appeared in a few Chicago PD season 1 episodes, but knowing what happens to her in season 2, it’s more than a little depressing to watch Nadia’s debut episode in retrospect—especially given that the episode ends with Lindsay fighting back tears after dropping her off.

Along those same lines, this episode also introduces Lexi Olinsky (Alina Jenine Taber), three seasons before Chicago PD would kill her off in a warehouse fire during last year’s Chicago Crossover event. That’s three recurring characters who are in this episode, two of whom we’re just meeting here—and all three of them are now deceased.

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Then there’s the subplot for patrol officers Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins), which makes Hoarders look normal:

While Burgess and Atwater find something sinister in the closet, “Now Is Always Temporary” also drags a skeleton out of Jay Halstead’s (Jesse Lee Soffer) proverbial closet. We understand more his behavior from the previous episode, as we find out the man he attacked was the father of the boy who killed the brother of Halstead’s brother’s high school girlfriend.

That sounded convoluted then, but now we know that means Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) dated a girl whose brother was murdered, and Jay found the body. It makes so much more chilling sense when you’ve had the benefit of Chicago Med to fill in the blanks.

There’s so much of the past in this episode (that backstory, Justin’s history) but also hints toward the future (where is Lexi headed, and Lindsay meeting Nadia). We’re learning a lot about our PD heroes relatively early in the series. At the same time, it reinforces the show’s dark tone, because none of this ends well.

If you needed any proof that this show wasn’t Chicago Fire, this episode sealed it. Watch it again on iTunes and DVD.

Next: Chicago PD season 5's missing scenes

Join us every Wednesday this summer for our Chicago PD season 1 review. For more Chicago PD related news, follow the Chicago PD category at One Chicago Center.