After relegating them to the background in supporting roles in the first few episodes of season 14, Chicago PD finally put Burgess and Ruzek front and center in its fifth episode. The episode saw Burgess going undercover to bring down a dangerous drug dealer while also giving fans an update on their move to a new neighborhood.
With a focus on Burzek and their family dynamic, the episode allowed for the return of the pair’s daughter Mack, marking Ramona Edith Williams’s first appearance on the show since late April. Early in the episode, we learned that Mack was really flourishing in her new surroundings and had already made a group of new friends since starting at her new school.
The episode begins at the family’s new home, suggesting that we’d explore the family dynamics in the episode, and this was indeed a throughline in the episode as the show dove into Burgess’s struggle to settle into their new home. Unfortunately, though, the writers didn’t really give Williams much to work with through the episode in her return.
While the writers did bring Mack back and allow us to see her on-screen for the first time since season 13, episode 19, her scenes were very minimal. Her two biggest moments came via a quick scene in which she was captured arriving home on their new home security camera arriving home in a scene that tipped Ruzek off that Burgess had been made and a quick scene at the very end of the episode in which we see her briefly playing catch at the neighborhood block party. What was even more puzzling was that neither of these scenes included dialogue.
It was certainly nice to see Mack back and featured in the episode rather than just being referred to, but we have to wonder what the point was in bringing the character back for her first appearance of the season only to essentially use her as set dressing.
Given the heavy focus on their family dynamic, it would have been so much more rewarding to see the show give Mack a bigger role. For example, instead of having Ruzek simply explain to viewers at the beginning of the episode that Mack had settled in nicely at her new school, we would have loved to have gotten a scene in which we learned this directly from Mack over breakfast with her parents in which she excitedly talks about her friends and school while eating with Burgess and Ruzek.
The same applies to the end scene in which we see her playing catch with Ruzek. Rather than simply giving us a glimpse of the pair having fun in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, it would have been fun to see Mack and Ruzek laughing together when Burgess rejoined them, with Mack getting at least a line or two of dialogue, perhaps joking with her dad about beating him in a game, before racing off to hang out with her friends. Just something little that would have given Mack the chance to shine more in the episode.
Considering the episode ended with Burgess still struggling to sleep in the new house and the tease that their new neighbor might be wrapped up in something, it’s clear that the show will revisit the characters’ family dynamic again down the line. Hopefully, whenever they do, the writers will find ways to better incorporate Mack into the episode and give her a few more meaningful scenes!
Chicago PD airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.
Add us as a preferred source on Google