Chicago PD season 6, episode 7 recap: Trigger

Chicago PD mixed crime, religion and the military together in this week’s episode. Here’s what happened in Chicago PD season 6, episode 7.

This week’s Chicago PD threw a bunch of important topics into a blender and saw what came out of it. So it was no surprise that the results were, well, mixed.

“Trigger” opened with Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) sitting in a surveillance van outside of a mosque. Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) was inside, listening to a very passionate speech from the mosque’s leader Akeem.

Atwater was posing as a man named Abdul, trying to get on Akeem’s good side—because he was sure that Akeem and his colleagues were responsible for bombing an Army recruitment office. But Akeem denied any involvement in the attack.

That left Intelligence stumped, and Halstead getting particularly restless given his Army ties. Not to mention a second bomb threat at a VA hospital—which turned out not to be a threat as it blew up not long after he and Upton arrived.

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In the chaos, Halstead met another military veteran named Jake Miller while Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) found an FBI agent played by Jay Karnes, from The Shield and Burn Notice.

The two agreed to work on the case together, while Halstead got a “follow the facts” speech from his boss before sitting in on Akeem’s interrogation. It yielded nothing but Jay getting a headache.

But Atwater recognized the suspect from his undercover work, identifying him as a man named Tariq. So Intelligence was off to the races, chasing Tariq to the roof of a building—where he promptly committed suicide.

So now what?

Upton and Halstead went to search Tariq’s house for clues, and wound up finding his sister hiding in the basement. While Halstead was convinced she had a bomb, Upton pointed out that what she was holding was actually her baby, and now it was her to turn to ask if he was okay.

"Upton: You’re not in Afghanistan anymore."

Further complicating the picture? If Tariq was the bomber, why was he applying to become a U.S. citizen? And why was Jake sponsoring his application? Back at the district, Jake told the team that Tariq had been his translator for two tours of duty and saved plenty of lives. He didn’t believe that his former colleague could be a killer, or that he had killed himself.

Upton further wondered why Jake couldn’t recognize someone he knew so well at the scene of the VA bombing. Jake said he’d only gotten a brief look at the bomber, and further explained that Tariq hated extremists after the Taliban raped and murdered his wife. Chicago PD was getting dark real fast, with Upton pointing out how Halstead easily believed Jake while being skeptical of everyone else.

With Tariq’s last call being to Akeem, Intelligence asked Atwater to break into the man’s office at the mosque. But he was caught before he could plant a surveillance device.

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Luckily for him, the people catching him were Homeland Security agents, so at least they weren’t going to kill him. They were, however, going to interrogate him using physical force—until Voight and his FBI buddy stormed in to put an end to the assault. The apology didn’t mean much.

FBI Guy explained that the federal agents raided the mosque because they believed that another attack was on the way, and asked Atwater to go back undercover. He agreed, but not before saying that he was going to “sort things out” later with the guy who’d hit him with the baton.

Chicago PD didn’t actually show us that, though, just cut back to the office for another update on the investigation as a whole and more complaining from Halstead. Trudy Platt (Amy Morton) came by to drop off some witness statements, before Jake’s wife made her husband look even more fishy and threw in the “you weren’t there” comment for good measure.

With that on their minds, the detectives visited a hardware store that sold the same type of nails used in the bombs. And yes, there was Jake buying those exact nails. Halstead was ticked off for a whole other reason now.

Everyone returned to Jake’s home with a search warrant, and him on the run. Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda) found paperwork for a trailer, which Halstead and Upton discovered a drug lab and all kinds of other nasty stuff. Yes, Jake Miller was their real perpetrator—getting revenge for the deaths of his whole unit while overseas, which he blamed on Akeem.

Atwater tried to get everyone out of the mosque, but got the phone call about 20 seconds before Jake arrived with an assault weapon and a bomb, creating a massive hostage situation.

Who was going to come to the rescue? Jay Halstead, of course, because Chicago PD had made clear this was his episode. When Jake sent out a phone, demanding that Akeem be brought to the mosque (somehow not understanding the difference between city and federal custody), Atwater quietly told everyone how to get in through the rear—and Jay snuck in.

With the federal agents prepared to storm the mosque (in keeping with how most federal agents are clueless on cop shows), Halstead tried to talk to Jake, who’d started referring to the hostages as “combatants.”

"Halstead: They’re not combatants, man. They’re civilians, Jake. They’re citizens. They’re people. Jake, they’re Americans."

Jake wasn’t moved at all by his pitch, or by mention of his wife. Instead, he went for the bomb’s trigger, which forced Atwater to grab him and Halstead to shoot, near-simultaneously. It was an end to the situation, but obviously not the end anyone wanted. Particularly not Jay.

With Akeem proven innocent, and the rest of his congregation shaken up but alive, Voight told the FBI to take a hike while Upton tried again to reach out to her partner. She didn’t care if he wanted to be alone or not, pointing out he’d just been there for her the week before so obviously they had a system in place.

Halstead admitted he’d been blind to Jake’s involvement the whole time. He also finally opened up more completely about how while the war was a part of his life, it’s not who he is. Upton reminded him that he just saved more than two dozen lives, so he shouldn’t be so hard on himself. Then she offered to get him a drink, and hopefully this one would end better than the last drink she got with a colleague.

But at least this episode didn’t end with Halstead brooding or doing anything rash, so perhaps it really will be a learning experience.

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