Chicago PD midseason finale recap: Absolution
Darius Walker returns
Outside the house, Ruzek admits he recognizes the woman that we met at the start of the episode. Her name is full Angela Nelson, and Upton reveals her connection to Halstead: she was the wife of Marcus West, the innocent man who was murdered thanks to the team’s screw-up in “False Positive.”
Upton explains that Halstead has been trying to help Marcus’s widow and son since that episode, and he left the crime scene because he had gotten a text message from Angela asking for his help. So what is Intelligence supposed to do now? Voight tells them they have to keep themselves quiet, since this goes back to mistakes that weren’t made public, but they’re going to do all it takes to find Halstead.
Chicago PD reveals that he wasn’t the only one abducted; the bad guys took Angela, too—and want back the drugs she stole from them. Halstead is just an innocent bystander, who listens to Angela’s sob story about how she got involved with drug dealers to make ends meet. That’s not going to help his guilt complex any.
Intelligence has zeroed in on Angela as well, and they have her on film sitting as a getaway driver outside of a stash house. It’s not too hard to figure out that this is tied to the dead guy we’ve seen previously; he was the roommate of Angela’s friend Carlos. So where the frak is Carlos? Also dead of a drug overdose. Though Ruzek finds the drugs that Angela stole in Carlos’s apartment, that doesn’t solve the problem of placating Halstead’s captors.
Chicago PD cuts back to wherever he and Angela are tied up, which gives them plenty of time for awkward and painful conversation. Halstead tells her that Marcus’s death is not her fault, and that this isn’t the time to think about that if she doesn’t want to also end up dead. Intelligence has now identified the people menacing them as two of the Silva brothers. And their father Pedro has a connection to Darius Walker!
So Voight sets up another meeting with Darius (Michael Beach), who says he only knows Pedro because the other man has some land that he wants. Voight has to twist his arm but he agrees to set up a meeting, using Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) undercover. While Kevin lets slip to Darius why the team wants Pedro, Upton talks to Voight about how she feels like she should have stopped Jay before he got this far. He points out there was nothing wrong with Halstead trying to help a family.
Darius introduces Pedro to Atwater, who’s going by the name Keyshawn and is looking for his friend “Jimmy” and Angela. He wants to make things right by returning the drugs, and tells Pedro that Carlos is dead. Pedro responds by calling his sons and telling them to put Halstead on the phone. Jay is a quick study and plays along with Atwater’s cover story. Satisfied, Atwater agrees to another meeting where there’s supposed to be an exchange.