Family and Faith: Chicago PD "Don't Read the News"/"You Wish"/"Sanctuary"

"Don't Read the News"

When a dead girl's body is found on a school football field, it's not the first time this has happened in the neighborhood.

I thought this episode was excellent. Meam is interested in the case that the Intelligence Unit was trying to solve. When a photo of a teen girl is found dead at a school field, the unit learns that it's not the first time this has happened and that a serial killer is out there.

Voight and the team find there have been over nine murders over the past ten years, and none of them have been solved by the district unit, even though their excuse was that they had moved around a lot.

The suspect looked to be the boyfriend of the victim b, but there was a twist when the team found out the victim survived. They talked to her and had her look through some photos and found the guy who turned out to be the victim's boyfriend's stepfather—twisted, right?

The guy was a real prick when interviewed by Voight and Al, who tried to tell them that he didn't do it and that he knew the guy who gave the photos of the victims. Thank god he's locked up.

Other things: Erin gets to meet her father. They had an excellent meeting and carried on with a couple of dates later on. Of course, Jay, being the boyfriend and protector he can be, looks into the guy's background and past with flying colors.

And Adam Ruzek is gone for a while, undercover, that is. So that introduces us to Kenny, a detective who's previously worked with Voight. He didn't fit in at first, but he adjusted well.  

As I said, this episode was excellent. The writing was strong enough to keep my interest in the episode. Attacks played the best to their strengths. I wonder if this guy, who says to be Erin's father, is the real deal. I'm not so sure. That one thing I've learned from the past three and a half seasons: Never trust Bunny. Overall, I give this episode an 8/10.

"You Wish"

When a dead body turns up in an alley, it seems to be a hate crime, but it's somehow not what it seems.

"You Wish" had a good case of the week's storyline, but it wasn't the most interesting. When the Unit gets a call of a dead male body in an alley, they find that the victim lost a body part that's most valuable to him.

The search for answers went all the way to a runaway, who had an encounter with the victim, who tried attacking her sexually, but she got away by stabbing him with a knife, which was left inside a bush. Burgess gets into her first interview session, which is okay, but she falls for the suspect's lies.

After not coming up with anything else, they'd decided to look into the victim's past, which led to his ex-girlfriend. Atwater and Kenny interview the lady and tell her that she saw him a couple of nights ago (the night of the murder) but didn't let him in as she tells them he was hurting and banging on the door for help. But she called the special police (police for the apartment complexes) and gave the officer's name. That led to them interviewing the officer, and after leaving him alone to talk to the ADA, the officer tried to hang himself. That led to the lead officer coming in and talking to Voight about their history in another city, for which their boss misled them.

That might have been a good case of the week, but it was the story of Erin finding out that Jimmy isn't her father. That can be attributed to Halstead, who took his DNA from a cup and ran it. I don't know which was more difficult, that Jay was right or that Bunny once again pushed Erinn. I don't blame her for thinking he was her father; he had everything from the photos, but Bunny was being Bunny and thought he was her dad.

The scene when Erin tells Bunny about the DNA was the best location in the episode when Bunny tells her that she shouldn't tell him, and Erin pushes her breakfast out of the table. That's how I felt, too, not to mention yelled at the television. But there's a thinker in this episode; when Bunny comes to the station to talk to Hank, thinking that he ran the DNA, he tells him that he won. There was at that point where she told him to run a DNA on him to see if he was her father. That's something I consider looking into as much as I would never think Hank and Bunny having a one-night stand (EW! Hard to think about it!).

This episode had a good case of the week story but was overshadowed by the Erin/Bunny/Jimmy story. Sophia Bush is excellent with her character dealing with this father issue. Overall, I give this episode an 8.5/10.

"Sanctuary"

When the Intelligence Unit chases two suspects to a neighborhood church, faith and support get in the way of their investigation.

"Sanctuary" might be one of the most exciting episodes when it starts, but also satisfying when it ends.

When the unit got a call about a dead body found at a park, the suspects spotted a few blocks down. They chase them to a neighborhood church, but the unit can't get in until the priest tells them they can't come in because they believe they're innocent.

Things heat up when news gets around, causing people to demand those boys to come out. It gets so dicey that the victim's boyfriend throws a fire bottle in there, but Voight and the team get them out and into the station. They would be in there til they found the real suspect, who happened to be one of the interviewers who said it was those boys.

When the team checked the suspect's place, it looked abnormal. They found the suspect's roommate's head and hands in the freezer. After waiting, the suspect returns to his home but gets spooked and drives off. Crashing into a tree, Burgess and Al search for him in the woods til he has a gun aiming at Al, but with a tackle that's worthy of being called better than any tackles the Chicago Bears has done all season, he takes the guy down, breaking the guy's arm.

In the interview room, the suspect kept blaming the kids for the murder, but Voight told him that in his many years protecting and serving Chicago, listening to that has gotten tiresome and forced him to tell the truth by pulling on his broken arm. Ouch, right?

As I said, this episode had everything an attack could have: enjoyable, motivational, and satisfying. This was an excellent episode. The story was so good that I was moved by characters like Al, Burgess, and even Voight. After going through a lot of mixed emotions and burning a church, everyone from #OneChicago helped to rebuild the church, which was a moving moment that came at the end of this episode. Overall, I give this episode an 8/10.

You can catch Chicago PD when they return with a new episode on e Wednesday, February 8th at 10/9c on NBC.