The latest episode of Chicago PD season 14 introduced fans to the newest member of the Intelligence Unit with an episode designed to help fans get to know the team’s new addition. The fourth episode of the season focused heavily on Officer Donovan Watt, who impressed Voight after the young officer crossed paths with the Intelligence Unit during their latest case.
Most of the episode was told through the POV of Watts, which made sense, as the episode was designed to serve as an origin story of sorts to introduce the character who would end up taking the vacant spot on the Intelligence Unit team. It was a great introduction to Watts, and he’s a character that doesn’t seem at all like the “agent of chaos” the writers were reportedly looking to bring in to replace Atwater.
It was fun getting to know this new officer and seeing him work alongside the Intelligence Unit, but in putting such a big spotlight on this new character, the show ended up neglecting two longtime members of the show’s ensemble. With an episode focused heavily on Watts in which the Intelligence Unit played second fiddle, the writers opted not to feature every member of the team, with Torres and Platt missing from the episode.
This was the first episode of the season that Amy Morton has not appeared in, and it made sense that Platt wasn’t present in the episode, though it would have been nice to see her pop up in some capacity. We can also forgive the writers for her absence, knowing that we’re going to get to see Platt cross over into Chicago Med next week for a mini crossover between Chicago Med and Chicago PD. We’re excited to see Platt appear on Chicago Med, and the promo for the episode made it clear she’ll have a large role to play throughout the episode.
Considering that Morton is set to play a big role in Chicago Med’s next episode, it makes sense that the writers chose to sideline her on Chicago PD. In fact, this was likely by design, as sidelining Platt on Chicago PD, likely helped to free her up to film her scenes for Chicago Med.
The absence that was a bit less forgivable was that of Benjamin Levy Aguilar.
Chicago PD season 14, episode 4 was the second consecutive episode that Aguilar missed without anyone acknowledging that his character, Dante Torres, was not present and working alongside the rest of the team. Sure, we get that the series regulars have to miss a few episodes every season, but when the writers choose to sideline a character for two back-to-back episodes, one would expect them to at least acknowledge that the character is not around via a quick conversation.
All it would have taken was for a character such as Imani or Voight to mention that Torres was testifying for a case or out of town for some reason, and that could have at least explained why he was MIA for another week. Instead, the show just went about things without blinking an eye and wanted the viewers to do the same.
Hopefully, after being sidelined for two consecutive episodes, Aguilar will be back as Torres in the fifth episode of the season. If for some reason he’s still not back, though, we’re going to need the show to give us some sort of update on where Torres is, as it’s becoming quite jarring for him to just be gone without any explanation.
Chicago PD airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC!
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