Chicago PD season 7 finale takeaways: Silence of the Night
What can Chicago PD fans learn from Silence of the Night? Look closer at the season 7 finale with our Chicago PD season 7, episode 20 takeaways.
What did One Chicago fans learn from the Chicago PD season finale? Here’s what we took away from this week’s installment, “Silence of the Night.”
“Silence of the Night” featured Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) once again dealing with racism inside the Chicago Police Department. This time, it was in the form of Atwater’s old nemesis Tom Doyle, although Doyle wound up paying a high price for his racial profiling.
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:
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1) This could be the start of something—maybe
This is not the first Chicago PD episode where one of our main characters has ticked off other cops. That happens a lot (most recently Voight butting heads with Homicide just a few weeks ago). But this could be something massive, if the writers are willing to go that direction—and according to Rick Eid, it sounds like they are.
Atwater has made enemies of a whole chunk of the patrol division, and Intelligence isn’t going to leave him on his own. It would be a really interesting idea if the underlying theme of Chicago PD season 8 was this “us against everyone else” concept. Intelligence is known to break the rules, but what happens if their next long-term opponent is a group of cops who are also willing to cross lines—to get back at them? It would be dramatic, and also a way to sort of hold the mirror up.
That would be some ambitious storytelling, though, and pretty complicated. It may not be feasible. Audiences will have to see what Eid and company actually do when next season rolls around, but the fact that they’re willing to try that concept out is encouraging. This show needs a shot in the arm, and that’s it.
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2) We need more, and different, Atwater stories
We’ve discussed it before, but whenever Chicago PD wants to tell a story about racism, it always seems to involve Atwater. As an officer of color, he’s become the tool for every plotline that involves the African-American community. And that, while admirable in its intention, is also kind of short-sighted.
You can understand where the writers are coming from; being black, Atwater can understand the issues facing black people in Chicago better than his colleagues. But because the show constantly uses him in this fashion, it has the side effect of over-simplifying things. It comes across as if no one else can even remotely understand racism, and that the only type of story Atwater can carry is a racially-driven one. Neither of these things are true.
LaRoyce Hawkins deserves more screen time, and in season 9, let’s try to find episodes where his character can be front and center without necessarily having to focus on the color of his skin.
3) Ray Price is still a great character, even in prison
The best scene of this entire episode was the return of former mayoral candidate Ray Price, as played brilliantly again by Wendell Pierce (Suits, The Wire). Price gave some words of wisdom to Atwater, and Pierce reminded us just how great of an actor he is and how much better he made the show when he was on it. He commands attention and he’s the one actor in recent memory who’s been able to hold his own opposite Jason Beghe.
It’s unfortunate that the character wound up behind bars, which limits how often he can be used (as does the fact that Pierce is an incredibly in-demand actor). But this episode proved there are ways to bring him back into the fold. Let’s hope that the writers do that in the future. And until then, check out Wendell Pierce in Jack Ryan, because One Chicago fans who enjoy this show will love him in that one.
Next. What Rick Eid says about the Chicago PD finale. dark
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