Season 3 – Chicago P.D.

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Audience Member One of my favorite seasons! Love this show so much! It's so good! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Audience Member great cast and characters Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Audience Member Dick Wolf continues his undisputed reign as the king of the procedural television drama. It ‘Law & Order’ series combined two perennial fan favorites, the detective show and courtroom drama following a single case from investigation through the final bang of the gavel. It generated an incredible number of spinoffs and lasted twenty years. The first of those spinoffs is now poised to match that two-decade mark. In 2013 Mr. Wolf set his attention to the city of Chicago creating ‘Chicago Fire.' This series followed a house home to a ladder company, rescue squad, and ambulance into a single show. A few decades ago Jack Webb achieved similar coverage, but his pathway involved individual series devoted to each vocation. The Chicago franchise expanded with Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, with Chicago Justice starting up very soon. All of these series exist in the same contextual universe with characters routine making brief cameos, and at least one per season a grand crossover event spanning the entire franchise. The focus of this consideration is the third season of ChicagoP.D, which besides the municipal big story brought in a direct connection, to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. For fans predisposed to collecting their favorite TV series on Blu-ray or DVD Universal Studios continues its reputation for respecting the fans by including all crossover episodes. Mr. Wolf has departed with the general formula he employed in the Law & Order series that minimized many aspects of the characters personal life focusing on the job and procedures. A change in the paradigm life this was a contributing factor to the amazing longevity of Mr.Wolf’s New York City-based set of shows. In contrast, The Chicago shows are heavily concerned with character development with an emphasis on how the demands of their respective jobs affect them emotionally and psychologically. One location has been created to bring characters from all the show together in an exceptionally natural way, congregating in their favorite local bar. The primary themes that motivate the stories are two-fold; uniformed officers and detectives in the elite Intelligence Unit whose case load consists of gangs, drugs, human trafficking and high-profile murders. providing a platform for a wide variety of cases while highlighting the necessary cooperation between two major components of a major metropolitan police department. This third season starts off with a very emotional story based on a carefully developed backstory of a principle character; Erin Lindsay (Sophia Bush). Long before joining the unit, Lindsay was a troubled teen that her boss, Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) made her a confidential informant mentoring her as she struggled to put her life together. After becoming extremely close to a victim of sexual assault, Lindsay is devastated when after a long and difficult investigation she is attacked and killed. She spins out of control necessitating her suspension. Voight is tough on his protégée and after an emotionally intense struggle Lindsay faced her psychological demons and allowed back, provisionally. This segment of an ongoing character arc required some episodes to relate. In many traditional police procedurals if a tragedy crashes into the main character the story would either relegate it to the background or resolved before the conclusion of the episode. I appreciated Mr. Wolf’s previous motif keeping mostly to the case. Still, I found myself becoming invested in the characters as individuals. Personal involvement of the officer to the case became increasingly concerned with how someone whose job requires dealing with people under the most stressful time of their lives drove my curiosity and overshadowed most other factors as the principle source of entertainment. The redemption observed in Lindsay’s life in a portion of a greater expression of the theme. It was one of the founding principles even before the series officially began. The groundwork for the series was in Chicago Fire where Voight was the brutal antagonist in a storyline where he was harassing a lieutenant in the fire department. One on the paramedics happened to the sister of a detective in the squad, Antonio Dawson (Jon Seda). Voight went down for a few of his many illegal enterprises but managed to keep his badge and rank but working undercover for Internal Affairs. His redemption takes a significant step forward when promoted for his ability to resolve the most difficult cases. His shady past provides him with the street credentials and criminal contacts. His second in command is Detective Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas), a master of surveillance and undercover work. The usual assortment of archetypes is present including the ornery desk Sargent Trudy Platt (Amy Morton), the ambitious female officer, Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati). Her development as a character is complex and very entertaining. She had her opportunity to be promoted to the Intelligence only to have that advancement rescinded. In this season Kim is working on her road to redemption. She is a training officer and is often tapped by the Intelligence Unit for help. Resourceful, observant and eager she is befriended by Trudy who helps by advising her in street smarts. The main crossover event involves a group of cancer-free patients overdosing on chemotherapy. Personalizing the case occurs when the doctor in common to the overdoses also treated Voight’s late wife. The story began with a seemingly unrelated incident where Firefighter Christopher Herrmann (David Eigenberg) was stabbed leaving him in critical condition. He is taken to the Medical Center as depicted of Chicago Med bringing that cast of characters into the story. Completing the hat trick, Voight, and the Intelligence Unit takes over the investigation. Dick Wolf has been dealing with spinoffs and crossovers for decades and has it down to a well-crafted art form at this point. So many multi-series crossovers ultimately come across as contrived, but this implementation exhibits a cohesiveness and level of continuity that allows the viewer to accept the separate episodes on different but connected series as chapters in the same story. The only other extended franchise that rises to this level are the DC comic book series on the CW. It will be very bad pacing if the series are only consistent with these elaborate criminal investigation requiring such multi-disciplined efforts requiring a huge combined cast. Much of the season addresses in typical Dick Wolf Production format there are stories either directly ‘ripped from the headlines’ or at least something that is either sensationalistic or sufficiently known to the viewers to bypass the need for lengthy exposition. One example id when Voight uses information from his prison cellmate to bust a major cocaine ring. Another plot device I’ve noticed on several shows is the serial rapist disguised as a police officer. Fortunately, there is more than enough experience at work here to make a familiar plot take on a reasonably novel twist. One of a parent’s worse nightmares becomes the basis of one, particularly intense episode. The investigation of the death of a prep school student uncovers a plot to explode bombs in the school which in turn leads to his partner in the crime and ultimately the cause behind the deadly plan, molestation by their swim coach. The series continues to move closer to its full potential coalescing into a still growing Wolf driven universe Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Chicago P.D. — Season 3

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