Chicago PD season 8 premiere recap: Fighting Ghosts

Atwater’s story gets worse

Atwater is being asked if he wants to “modify” anything about his statement in the Doyle case, with a handy flashback for people who didn’t see “Silence of the Night” in season 7. Kevin reiterates what he said previously to a woman who’s not even named so it takes a moment to realize she’s an Assistant State’s Attorney.

Elsewhere, Voight is telling Doyle’s buddy (hey, it’s Brent Sexton of Life fame!) to back off of Atwater. But the guy refuses, especially since based on Atwater’s testimony, the unnamed ASA will not prosecute anyone for Doyle’s death. Atwater breaks the news to one of the suspects’ wives, who is now suing the city of Chicago.

“This city needs more people like you,” she tells him. But the woman’s son just asks Atwater why he killed his dad. And a marked patrol unit is seen speeding away in the vicinity.

Atwater tells Ruzek about it and admits that he’s becoming paramoid. “Doyle’s crew, they play dirty,” Ruzek reminds him and the two start searching Atwater’s car. Sure enough, the patrol car planted a kilo of heroin inside. Ruzek reminds Atwater that he’s there to help him, but Atwater doesn’t know how he can.

Later in the episode, when Ruzek starts going on about how he’s impressed that the ex didn’t cooperate with Intelligence, Atwater believes he’s also talking smack about him. Ruzek repeats that he’s on Atwater’s side and Kevin realizes he’s getting paranoid again. He decides to go home early, but Chicago PD gives us one more scene of Atwater being pulled over by overzealous patrol cops.

The officers claim that he ran a stop sign. Atwater identifies himself as a police officer and refuses to get out of his car. When he reaches for his badge, they pull their weapons. That makes him decide to get out of the vehicle with his hands up, and then they check his ID and confirm that he’s a cop.

One of them, though, talks about getting an “anonymous tip” about a “dirty cop in a blue Dodge.” Atwater realizes he’s one of the bad guys, and dares him to search the vehicle, while pointing out the other guy is also African-American. Voight finds out about this soon enough and asks Atwater about it; Atwater says he’s going to wait to gather actual evidence.

Voight tells him he has other options before Chicago PD gives him a monologue about the infamous “blue wall” of police loyalty. He compares it to trying to fight a ghost, hence the title of this episode. Atwater tells his boss that he wants to do things “my way.”

When Voight wants to beat up Miguel in the cage, Atwater disagrees, telling him they’re done with all of that. “We can’t keep bringing people down to a cage and beating their ass,” he says. Voight snaps back that if he’s not “woke enough” for him, he can get out. Atwater does just that as Voight says he should get another job.

“In my unit,” Voight loudly declares, “we do what we’ve got to do to put bad guys away. Whatever it takes!”

As for Atwater, he returns home to find someone else waiting for him, and gets jumped by four individuals who leave him dazed in the street. He’s last seen struggling to get off his knees. It’s basically the same ending as “Silence of the Night,” except this time something bad actually has happened to him. How will he recover?

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