Chicago PD season 8 premiere recap: Fighting Ghosts

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What happened in Chicago PD season 8, episode 1?

This week’s Chicago PD started to discuss the issue of police reform, but that went about as well as you’d expect.

Wednesday’s episode “Fighting Ghosts” saw Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) chafing at the direction of a new Deputy Superintendent (recurring guest star Nicole Ari Parker) as it hampered Intelligence’s case against the man who’d shot a child.

Meanwhile, Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) continued to face harrassment from other officers when he refused to walk back his statements about racial profiling.

Here’s what happened in the latest Chicago PD episode for each of your favorite characters, starting with:

Intelligence and reform don’t mix

Chicago PD introduces Deputy Superintendent Samantha Miller as she’s giving a speech that Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) calls “disrespectful.” Both Atwater and Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) disagree. Voight is waiting in Miller’s office when she returns. She wanted a meeting as in two weeks she’s already heard his name too much.

“If you keep running your unit the way you’ve been doing for the last seven years, you may be out of a job by Christmas,” she warns, but insists that she’s on his side. She thinks if she can change Voight, the rest of the department will follow.

Hey, good luck with that.

Intelligence responds to the shooting of a five-year-old girl named Laura. But no one in the neighborhood wants to talk to the cops; Jay gets called a racist by one person and another throws a bottle at Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger).

Chicago PD opens the next day with Halstead having found video footage that proves Laura’s shooting was accidental. He and Upton visit the church they saw on the video and find the priest tied up in the back room. “It’s the last time I stash money for a drug dealer,” he says, explaining that he took the cash to keep the doors open. He got held up by an armed assailant, and then tried to chase the robber, which is how Laura was shot. He then got tied up and beaten by the dealer he was hiding the money for.

With the real story out, Voight interviews the dealer, who says he doesn’t know who the shooter could be. But Halstead finds out the description of shooter’s getaway car matches one driven by the dealer’s ex-girlfriend. Voight and Ruzek interrogate her but she lawyers up. “She tipped somebody off,” Voight declares. The someone is revealed to be her new boyfriend, Miguel Cortez, and soon Intelligence is rolling to his house.

Intelligence gets a warrant and they arrest Miguel at gunpoint. Ruzek recovers the drug money, which is still in the church collection bag. Cue an angry Samantha Miller striding into Voight’s office. She’s been watching the body camera footage, and because Intelligence didn’t identify themselves before they entered Miguel’s home, the State’s Attorney has deemed all their evidence inadmissible. “The days of playing God are over,” she chides him.

Voight breaks the news to his team, saying “No one’s got the guts to stand up for police right now…Get used to it.” He goes to pressure Miguel by showing her a picture of Laura but Miguel isn’t interested. Chicago PD plays some ominous music to remind us that Voight’s blood pressure is rising. When Miguel likewise demands a lawyer, Voight is seen angrily storming downstairs.

With less than ten minutes left in the episode, we finally see Trudy Platt (Amy Morton), who directs Voight to Roberto. He tells Voight that Laura has died at the hospital, and he’s baffled that they have her killer but aren’t charging him yet. Voight can’t articulate why and Roberto walks out leaving Voight to twitch in frustration. He comes back upstairs and orders Miguel put into the basement cage, but all that happens is he gets into a shouting match with Atwater and then ends up sulking by himself.

Voight gets to watch Miguel being released, and of course, smirking on the way out because Chicago PD has to rub it in a little bit. That night, Voight does typical Voight stuff, lurking outside Miguel’s house and visibly struggling not to assault him before driving off.

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