Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 6 Review: Pawns

It is great to see that Kim Burgess is finally advancing her career on Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 6, “Pawns.” After everything she has been through, viewers know she is worthy of this promotion and ready to take on the challenge.

Even though she must learn to adjust to her new responsibilities and stop acting like a patrol officer, it is clear that the instinct is there. Voight, who everyone in the unit trusts, doesn’t hesitate to hand control over to her when it’s time for her to prove herself and earn that badge.

However, this might push Burgess to doubt herself and her ability to be the best detective she can be.

When the episode starts, we see that to give Ruzek the answer to a specific scenario, Burgess places herself at a crime scene and what she has seen Voight do throughout the years. This is tied to the end when Suarez tells Burgess that the Intelligence Unit is a unicorn unit.

Without naming it that, viewers have known this from the beginning of Chicago P.D. Voight’s unit operates differently from every other unit we have seen on the show. He follows his own rules; therefore, his team follows his rules.

Suarez implies that Voight protects his team from everything, keeping them in a separate bubble from CPD. However, everything Voight has put his unit through actually prepares them for what it is like to be a cop in Chicago.

They have seen their co-workers get killed, have followed their sergeant as he went rogue, and sacrificed parts of their lives to keep up with the job. As much as others see it as protection, the Intelligence Unit has been a crash course into the reality of policing in Chicago.

As Ruzek puts it, Kim is good at her job and shouldn’t let Suarez’s opinion get to her.

Throughout Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 6, “Pawns,” Burgess proves she is the right woman for the job. She answers the questions correctly and has the right instincts.

Even though she lost the car before they could check it for prints, she saved a woman’s life by finding one of the offenders in her home. Because she spent so many years as a patrol officer and so many years in the unit, she can combine the knowledge to be a good detective.

If Suarez had trusted Burgess’s instincts and the power of her unit, she would have gotten to the shooter sooner. Suarez is so concerned with proving herself that she doesn’t realize Kim is already doing the job right.

Burgess is also used to working with someone who bends the rules, so she isn’t at all fazed by Suarez’s behavior. She can easily cover for her mistakes, adjust to new situations, and deliver good results.

However, Suarez’s behavior is closely tied to the Deputy Chief’s interest in Burgess and the unit. The fact that he drops in to check on them and assigns Burgess back to the Intelligence Unit without hesitation tells us that there is more coming.

This is definitely not the last we have seen of him. Chances are he will come back asking for a favor after allowing her to go back to her unit.

How the episode connects Kim’s detective exam to her unit is done flawlessly. By making one of the offenders a former gang member Torres was undercover with, the cases come together perfectly.

Not only does it work in Kim’s favor because they know her and know the gang, but it also helps bring back Torres’s storyline with the CI. After all, it was Burgess who discovered Torres and the CI were having an affair.

Toward the end of that storyline, we believed we would never see Gloria again. However, the moment we see Torres’s face after hearing the name of the new person in charge of the gang, we know there is something he is hiding.

Ultimately, it’s not that he is hiding something but that he believes he has heard that name before. Lo and behold, he had. Now, Gloria is back in the picture, and his and Kim’s jobs are on the line.

It’ll be interesting to see how they handle this situation, particularly after Burgess has just been promoted.

Seeing a show like Chicago P.D. give another woman the room to grow the way Burgess is doing is a breath of fresh air. Even though it is clear this promotion won’t come without its challenges, viewers know Kim is ready for whatever comes her way.

It will also be interesting to see how Cook adjusts to the unit and if she can keep up with how they work. Previous episodes say she can, but nothing is ever what it seems on this show.

Hopefully, Chicago P.D. Season 12 will continue to be good to its female characters.

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Chicago P.D. airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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