The Intelligence Unit is no stranger to facing threats from within the department and it seems they might be about to go up one of their most dangerous threats in quite some time.
If you haven’t already guessed, we’re referring to Deputy Chief Reid (Shawn Hatosy) who was first introduced as a friendly face within the department only for us to quickly learn he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s become evident that Deputy Chief Reid is up to no good, but unlike past villains, we still don’t know what exactly Reid’s plan is which makes him an even greater threat.
Reid began to tip his hand in the fall finale when he made a not-so-subtle threat to Voight and the Intelligence Team. While we don’t quite know how, Reid caught wind of all that went down with the Gloria Torres’ case including Torres’ relationship with his CI and Burgess covering it all up. However, instead of reprimanding the Intelligence Team, Reid assured Voight he wanted to be Voight’s “friend” hinting at the fact that he planned on using the intel as blackmail to lord over Voight and his team.
Reid is going to pose a major thread against the Intelligence Unit in the second half of Chicago PD season 12
While we don’t quite know what exactly Reid wants from Voight and the Intelligence Unit, it seems fans should be really worried about the threat he poses. It also seems that Voight is going to once again keep his team in the dark rather than cluing them in on what is going on and bringing them in to help find a way to outmaneuver Reid.
“They should be real worried. They should be incredibly worried,” Chicago PD showrunner Gwen Sigan warned of how worried the Intelligence Unit should be about the new threat they’re about to face in Reid.”I think Voight is, he's going to be trying to hide it, of course, and he's not going to fill in the team just yet, but he knows what's at stake here, and he also knows there's a reason. There are going to be some favors being called in. There are going to be some big asks from Reid.
As Sigan revealed while speaking with Screen Rant, Reid has a good reason for keeping this information and using it as leverage over the team and this is something we’re going to explore more in the second half of the season. These big asks remain unclear but we imagine they’re going to put the team in some tough spots in the episodes ahead, ones we worry could see them forced to look the other way or blur the lines of right and wrong in Reid’s favor.
“If Reid is holding this information and wanting to be friends, there's a good reason for that, and we will see through the second half of the season how that relationship grows and what Reid's motivations are in keeping Intelligence in his pocket and what he wants to use them for throughout the rest of the season. It'll keep going. It'll go all the way to the finale,” Sigan added.
The tease that the Intelligence Unit’s entanglement with Reid will run through the remainder of the season up to the finale is definitely interesting. Could this be a one-and-done Big Bad whose storyline comes to an end in the finale?
The wording of Sigan’s promise of the storyline going all the way to the finale does have us wondering if perhaps Reid’s arc will end as the season does. However, we’d be more interested in the show making this a longer play in not making Reid another Big Bad of the season – a troupe that is used far too often in TV these days.
That’s not to say we need to see Reid stick around for the long haul, but it would be interesting to see a villain’s arc span more than just a season.