Who’d have thought all it would take for Trudy Platt to get an impactful storyline was for her to step away from Chicago PD and spend a week with the doctor over on Chicago Med.
Throughout the first five episodes of season 14, Chicago PD has continued to struggle to find ways to put Platt to good use. Instead of tapping into her years of experience on the job, the show has tended to relegate her to more of a background role rather than using her in meaningful ways. In fact, Platt wasn’t even featured in the last two episodes of the season, with the show failing to even bother giving fans an explanation for her absence.
The most screentime she was given came in the first few episodes of the season, but these episodes failed to give Platt much to do. Instead of Platt offering assistance to the Intelligence Unit on their cases, she was essentially used as a sounding board for Voight and helping him try to dig up dirt on the FBI agent assigned to audit the Intelligence Unit. While we appreciate that those episodes at least featured Platt in more than just a scene or two, it was almost painful to watch the show waste her talents with such trivial storylines instead of giving her the chance to shine by putting her years of police experience to use to help Intelligence.
It’s been incredibly frustrating to watch such an amazing character be so underutilized, which is why we’re so grateful to the Chicago Med team, who, in just one episode, gave Platt the best storyline she’s gotten this season in the One Chicago franchise.
In Chicago Med season 12, episode 5, a trio of women was brought into Gaffney after being discovered trapped in a bunker they had set fire to in order to escape. Shortly after they arrived at Gaffney, Platt dropped in to investigate the case, believing that the women might be connected to an old case she worked on years ago.
Working alongside Goodwin, Platt spoke with one of the Jane Does brought into the hospital and learned that Missy, the woman from Platt’s original case, had indeed been there before but was gotten rid of by their captor. They’d come to find that the man responsible for their capture was the father of a young boy named Max, who had been brought into the hospital earlier that day after Dr. Wu discovered him wandering outside alone. It turned out that the women had been communicating with Max through the vents and had warned him to leave the house before they set the fire, as they did not want anything to happen to the young boy.
Platt would come to find out that Max’s mother, Esther, was actually Missy, who had been kidnapped years ago and groomed by her captor, thus allowing Platt to finally close the case.
While Platt was used in a supporting role throughout the episode with the doctors and nurses of Gaffney taking the lead on the treatment of those involved in the case, Chicago Med actually gave Platt a worthy storyline that put her decades of experience to good use. Rather than simply having her pop in for a scene or two to offer advice or pass on a lead, the episode made her an integral part of the investigation and gave her a personal connection to the case that allowed the character to shine.
More importantly, the episode gave us some genuinely emotional moments with Platt as she tried to get through to Esther. Watching Platt attempt to break through the walls Esther had built after the years of trauma she had endured brought a level of emotional depth to the storyline that we've been missing on Chicago PD this season. There was a real sense of history and investment in Platt's determination to help these women, particularly knowing that this was a case she'd been carrying with her for years.
It was a reminder of just how much depth there is to Platt as a character and how much more Chicago PD could be doing with her. She doesn't need to be the center of every episode, but she deserves more than being relegated to the background or used as a sounding board for Voight’s complaints. Chicago Med managed to give her a meaningful role, showcase her investigative instincts, and deliver an emotional storyline in a single guest appearance. If Med can figure out how to make such great use of Platt in one episode, surely Chicago PD can find a way to do the same throughout the rest of the season.
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