Chicago PD season 7 character review: Kevin Atwater

Our Chicago PD season 8 prognosis for Kevin Atwater

Fans know already that Chicago PD season 8 is going to pick up right where this season left off, so Atwater should be front and center in at least the first episode, and things will get worse for him before they get better. If it’s anything like the other times someone in Intelligence has ticked off other cops, we can probably expect things to get messy fast.

Eventually the show is going to have to resolve that to a certain extent, because Atwater has to be able to participate in cases of the week, and he can’t do that if he’s dealing with somebody else’s nonsense. But the writers could find subtle ways to show the long-term consequences; maybe in a later episode, a cop at a crime scene gives Atwater the cold shoulder. There are ways to get the most out of this great story without it all having to be super-dramatic, or all wrapped up right off the bat.

As for the rumors about Atwater and Rojas, there are a number of reasons that’s not a good idea. Not every character on every One Chicago show needs to have a love interest, and this show has already got one partner hookup in the works with Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) and Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer). Plus, Rojas just doesn’t have chemistry with Atwater, at least not yet.

This would be a much better time to focus on Atwater’s friendships because he’ll need his friends this season. The great friendship between Kevin and Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) has largely gone by the wayside; why not re-develop that? Or even build his relationship with Halstead, who would be the most likely to understand why Kevin made the choice he did? This situation could be an opportunity to explore Atwater’s dynamics with everyone on the team as we see how they react to both the decision he made, and the problems he faces because of it.

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