The Chicago PD season finale Silence of the Night saw Kevin Atwater make enemies. Find out what happened in our Chicago PD season 7, episode 20 recap.
The Chicago PD season finale a Kevin Atwater episode, and it certainly wasn’t a small one.
Wednesday’s episode “Silence of the Night” saw Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) working with the cop who had crossed him during the Chicago PD season 6 episode “Night in Chicago” and it was a terrible partnership.
When the unexpected team-up took a violent and tragic turn, it was up to Atwater to navigate the fallout and decide how he was going to handle the situation. Ultimately, he made what could be a life-changing decision.
Click through this slideshow to find out what happened in the latest Chicago PD episode for each of your favorite characters, starting with:
Old enemies reunited
Chicago PD kicks off with a phone call between Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), who is still in New York. He asks if she misses him; she tells him playfully to shut up and ends the call. Well, good to know she’s still doing well.
Halstead walks into a briefing about a gun-running operation, and how Intelligence is trying to find the gun runners and get their weapons off the street. Atwater is going undercover as a potential buyer, with the case that much more interesting because the gun dealers happen to be a bunch of racists.
He meets the middleman, then a bunch of his other racist buddies, one of which happens to be Tom Doyle—the cop that Atwater tangled with (and beat up) during “Night in Chicago.” Doyle is also undercover, on the other side. The two of them get a little physical before Kevin leaves, and goes to ask the rest of Intelligence why he didn’t know about this.
It turns out that Doyle has been promoted to detective and his new boss (played by Brent Sexton of Life fame) forgot to “de-conflict” the situation. So because of fumbled paperwork, Atwater and Doyle (and their respective teams) get to work together. Doyle’s boss assures Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) that everything will be fine. It won’t, because this is Chicago PD.
The combined team agrees that the way forward is setting up another buy, and Doyle comes over to apologize to Atwater, saying that the prior confrontation was all an act. He also wants to move on from their bad history. “I come in peace,” he says, and Atwater shakes his hand. Doyle makes good on his words in the next scene, as he, Atwater and Vanessa Rojas (Lisseth Chavez) are able to arrest the middleman. Not only that, but Doyle steps between Atwater and a loaded gun when the suspect pulls his weapon.
Once the dust settles, Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) has gotten a hold of the guy’s cell phone, which is blowing up with messages from the head gun runner, Tony Reed. Voight has Doyle pretend to be the middleman and set up a meeting with Reed. Once the baby Uzis are on the table, Intelligence runs in and arrests Reed and all of his friends. Job done.
Hunting for the truth
Doyle convinces Atwater to have a drink with him that night. But as they’re driving, things get awkward. Doyle apologizes again; Atwater doesn’t want to talk about it again, to the point where he threatens to get out of the car. Then Doyle spots two black guys on a street corner, one of whom is holding a duffel bag. He thinks he sees a possible drug deal; Atwater replies, “Why? Because he’s black?”
But Doyle pursues his theory by pulling up alongside the guy with the bag and asking what was in it. The kid refuses to cooperate, and Doyle chases him into a building, after which shots ring out. Atwater follows only to get into a shootout and find Doyle wounded on the floor. In true Chicago PD fashion, we’re soon told that Doyle has died. He’s not the only one; the guy whom he approached in the first place also didn’t make it through.
Intelligence arrives at the crime scene and tries to figure out if Doyle was right or not. While the bag contains nothing but a pair of Air Jordans, Rojas confirms that the place was being used as a stash house because drugs have been found, and Ruzek has partial plates for the car the two shooters fled in. Voight informs his team that they’ll do whatever they have to do in order to find the cop killers.
Atwater gives his initial statement to the IRT investigator who has also arrived, explaining that the situation started as “a routine stop and frisk.” He also notices a Ray Price image at the scene, just before Trudy Platt (Amy Morton) arrives. She advises him to put in an appearance at Doyle’s father’s house, where his friends and family have gathered. It’s super-awkward, as Atwater hears how much Doyle loved being a cop, and meets Doyle’s father. Dad thanks Atwater for trying to help his son, adding that “he went out a hero.”
Atwater has nothing to say to that, and it’s worth noting that he’s the only black character Chicago PD put in this whole scene.
The next day Voight insists that Atwater and Ruzek go and interview the widow of the other person who died in the shootout. She is as snippy as you’d expect, yelling at Ruzek and Atwater about how the cops killed her husband and how they’re there “for no damn reason.” It’s a stereotypical scene that ends with her kicking them out of her house.
With some help from Doyle’s colleagues, Intelligence chases the man who owns the car that the shooters fled in. Doyle’s partner wastes no time roughing the guy up, though, and snaps at Kevin when Atwater tells him to back off. Voight doesn’t care much either; he’s only interested in getting an alibi. The guy insists that he let his friend Terrence borrow the car, and Terrence and “some other dude” are in the basement of his house.
Cue the scene where everyone busts into said basement, and the two shooters are arrested. Unfortunately, the other dude is also being locked up, because Doyle’s partner wants him to be charged for “harboring” the shooters. That starts a whole shouting match between him and Atwater, with Kevin shouting that Doyle got himself killed. When Ruzek breaks it up, Atwater tells him that he’s “nowhere close to okay.”
What will Atwater do?
He returns to the district, where he watches the interrogations; both the suspects insist that Doyle pulled his weapon first and the shootout was in self-defense. Voight is unmoved by this information until Atwater interrupts him and backs up their assertions. “There was no probable cause,” he says. “Doyle saw a black man walking down the street and started profiling.” He spills all the details and tells Voight that he has to say something. But will Voight let him?
Chicago PD cuts to Voight meeting Doyle’s boss, who’s already heard what Atwater plans to do. The other man warns that “there will be repercussions” if Atwater speaks up. Voight replies that Atwater is like a son to him and so “If you go after him, you’d better come after me too.” When he returns to the district, he tells Atwater that the investigators want to talk to him again, and asks what Kevin is going to do.
Atwater reaffirms that he plans to tell the truth. Voight says he gets it, but also wants to make sure that Kevin knows “it’s not that simple.” Chicago PD has him spell out all of the aforementioned consequences, under the guise of giving him information. Voight rattles off how Doyle’s shooter will go free, the city will be sued, and Doyle’s friends and family will not be sending Atwater Christmas cards any time soon. “How bad do you wanna be right?” he asks.
We need a second opinion, though, so Atwater goes to see Ray Price (a returning Wendell Pierce) in prison. Remember that Ray also gave Atwater his two cents after the events of “Night in Chicago.” Well, this second conversation goes much the same as the first. In the best scene of this whole Chicago PD season finale, Price tells Atwater that being a hero is hard and the odds of him actually changing something are “close to zero.” He tells Atwater to keep his mouth shut and just continue to be good police.
But will that be good enough for Kevin Atwater? Chicago PD winds down with him telling the investigators his story, although the episode pulls out of the room before we actually get to hear him speak his truth – so that we can see he’s being watched. Afterward, he returns to Voight’s office, where Voight affirms that all of Intelligence will have his back, no matter what.
Atwater drives home that night to find Doyle’s partner waiting across the street. Atwater tries to confront him, but the man says nothing and drives off. Kevin is confronted with a whole half-dozen police cars, lights on, pouring by his house ominously. Atwater stands in the street and yells at them that he’s not going anywhere.
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