Chicago PD season 6, episode 19 takeaways: What Could Have Been

What can Chicago PD fans learn from What Could Have Been? Look closer at this week’s episode with our Chicago PD season 6, episode 19 takeaways.

What did One Chicago fans learn from the latest Chicago PD episode? Here’s what we took away from this week’s installment, “What Could Have Been.”

“What Could Have Been” featured Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) investigating the murder of her new boyfriend Blair Williams (recurring guest star Charles Michael Davis). Finding his killer led to a key recurring character in Chicago PD season 6.

If you missed any of this week’s episode or just want a refresher on the events that we’re about to discuss, you can catch up with our Chicago PD recap.

Below are our takeaways from this week’s episode:

More from One Chicago Center

• Chicago Med star on 2024 cast changes: ‘Nice to have new faces’
• Here’s the perfect Chicago Fire episode to watch on Thanksgiving
• Ranking the 8 NCIS Thanksgiving episodes from worst to best
• Mark Harmon does NOT have plans to reprise Gibbs on NCIS
• One Chicago stars tease new seasons on IG: ‘Here we come’

1) What do we think about Blair?

This episode proved how awkwardly the whole Blair arc was written. Chicago PD expected audiences to care about his death, but didn’t provide that much time to get invested in his character—he just had a few scenes in bed with Burgess.

So the fans were still figuring him out, and then we watched Kim’s opinion go back and forth, too. First she was going to break up with Blair, then she was falling in love with him? Where did that come from? It certainly wasn’t anything we got to see on screen.

Plus, it’s hard to tell how “What Could Have Been” wants us to feel about Blair either. He’s this guy that Burgess was falling in love with, who took the fall for his father on drug charges—yet was also blackmailing the Price family over their daughter’s own issue. So it all adds up to being incredibly ambivalent about the character. This episode wanted to have emotional impact, and it just didn’t quite land.

(And this is why shows kill off characters we love, like Alvin Olinsky—they know they can affect fans because we care about those characters more than someone like Blair.)

Watch One Chicago on fuboTV: Watch over 67 live sports and entertainment channels with a 7-day FREE trial!

2) Was Burgess’s confession awkward?

Burgess decided not to tell Blair’s sister Maya that she was dating him, until one of the very last scenes of the episode, when she paid her a visit at her hotel to talk about the end of the case. Did that scene feel awkward and stilted to anyone else?

Maybe it was supposed to, but it was particularly awkward the way Burgess just blurted that fact out. At that point, saying she was Blair’s girlfriend didn’t serve any purpose…what was Maya going to gain from that information? Did Kim just need to tell somebody and get it off her chest?

Chicago PD could have expounded here, and had the two have some kind of longer conversation about what Blair meant to both of them. Or had Maya perhaps help Burgess deal with her newly developed feelings toward her brother. But it felt like that reveal should have come a lot earlier than just mentioned during the fourth act.

3) Voight’s complicated morality

One of the topics that’s come up more and more often among Chicago PD fans is Hank Voight’s (Jason Beghe) controversial moral code, where he’ll do some terrible things for what he considers the greater good. In “What Could Have Been” we saw the flip side of that.

Voight allowed Alderman Ray Price (Wendell Pierce) to confess, saving his wife from prison time. It’s not something he had to do, or even should have done—he’s letting the real killer get away. It also is tough for him, because Voight has to know this confession means Price’s campaign is over and he’s handing the mayor’s job to his enemy Brian Kelton.

But it comes down to letting a man protect his family, even if Voight may or may not agree with it (we don’t see or hear any discussion between Voight and Price about the confession). With all of the uncomfortable things Voight does, it’s nice to be reminded that his way of operating can also help people, too.

For the latest Chicago PD season 6 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago PD category at One Chicago Center.