SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago PD Season 13, Episode 17.

It won’t surprise fans to learn that Chicago PD Season 13, Episode 17 is written by showrunner Gwen Sigan. “Partners” is an episode that represents everything that’s made the NBC show successful, and occasionally frustrating. Nobody knows the series better than Sigan and star Jason Beghe, and they’re both center stage in this hour.

“Partners” brings back Hank Voight’s old acquaintance Rabbit as the key figure in a series of ATM robberies that leaves a woman dead. What’s so interesting about the first half of the episode is that it’s as close as Chicago PD may ever get to a comedy. Sigan leans into Rabbit’s inability to keep his mouth shut and how that is completely opposite Voight’s stoic demeanor. The scene in which Voight is trying to talk to his team while Rabbit is going on in the ambulance is worthy of several good chuckles, particularly when watching Beghe’s expressions as Voight gets more and more annoyed. It’s all so different from the normal grim tone of the series, even as there’s still a crime to investigate.

But “Partners” eventually swings so far back in the opposite direction that the audience might get whiplash. It’s not a huge shock when Sigan reveals that one of the robbery suspects is Rabbit’s boyfriend and the person who helped him stay sober. That creates the kind of moral quandary that has defined Chicago PD for over a decade. And it’s soon followed by another Chicago PD staple: Voight making the choice that makes somebody else hate him. Rabbit believes that Voight will cut his boyfriend a deal, only to realize that’s not happening, and he’s dragged away chewing out Voight as an “abomination.”

This is the catch-22 of Hank Voight. Some One Chicago fans may not recall that the character started as an antagonist on Chicago Fire, putting the screws to Matthew Casey. He’s never been a “good guy” by the standard definition. When he became the protagonist of Chicago PD, there was naturally more room to explore why he is the way he is, and also soften some of his edges because the audience had to root for him. “Partners” is Hank Voight in a nutshell. It’s him being the hardass who will do what he wants even if somebody loathes him for it—but it’s also him sitting in his office feeling remorse for doing it. And the thing is that Voight has a point: when a woman dies, there’s no room for leniency.

Most of the other characters are little more than background players here, but there’s a little room for Eva Imani as she and Voight butt heads a little bit across the hour. It’s not as much conflict as Chicago PD fans may have expected based on the episode description, and the episode ends with him offering to help Imani search for her missing sister. Is it a missed chance to upset their relationship? Not really. That would have been more dramatic, but that last scene is more of an affirmation. It’s illustrating that Imani has become to Voight what Hailey Upton was, and what Alvin Olinsky was before that. (The camera getting the photos of Olinsky and Justin that sit on Voight’s desk in frame is a nice touch.) Where that goes is anyone’s guess, since it didn’t work out for either Upton or Olinsky. But it’s a clear direction for Imani’s character, and in a sense for Voight as well, that he has a new partner of sorts.

“Partners” isn’t an episode with a ton of rewatch or shock value; it follows the Chicago PD blueprint faithfully. But it does that well, between the great performance by Beghe and Sigan hitting all the notes that she knows the audience will expect. This is an example of a well-oiled machine, even if it’s a bleak ride to take.

Chicago PD airs Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.