The 5 best Chicago PD season 5 episodes

4. Anthem

One of the things Chicago PD season 5 wanted to do was to be more timely and tell stories about what has really been happening with police in the country. “Anthem” was an example of that, with the case of the week involving a protest. It was one of the rare times during the season when the show did feel particularly relevant.

At the same time, just like “Snitch,” the show decided to make things more interesting by giving a character a personal connection to the case. However, it wasn’t any of the main cast members; it was Denny Woods, whose daughter was close to one of the involved parties. Not only did she get hauled into Intelligence, but she also decided to buck her father’s warnings and wound up being a hostage at the episode-ending crime scene—which got her shot.

That really had little to do with Intelligence; it was Brianna’s own decision to go there that put her in the line of fire, so it wasn’t quite like “Snitch” which made Jordan’s story more compelling as he was in an unavoidable predicament. But “Anthem” was strong dramatic storytelling, and it was the one episode where Chicago PD made any kind of effort to humanize Denny Woods, in spite of all the horrible things he did in the rest of the season.