Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 12 Review: The Good Shepherd

Since Torres joined the Intelligence Unit, he has felt as if he doesn’t belong. Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 12, “The Good Shepherd,” dives deeper into this as he goes undercover at the juvenile facility where he was once held.

At first, it was hiding his tattoos and not being open with Halstead. Now, even though it seems he is part of the unit, he still distinguishes himself by wearing the same white T-shirt and jeans every time. Maybe he wears that unofficial uniform because that’s how he keeps himself separate from the man he is now and the man he used to be (a young boy in a juvie uniform).

The beginning of the episode makes this feeling very clear as the priest’s sermon focuses on one feeling unworthy. Ever since the incident with Gloria, Torres has felt even more unworthy of the life he now leads.

As soon as they catch the case of the dead boy and discover he was an inmate at Maron, Torress offers to go undercover. However, this might not be the best move.

Yes, he knows the place better than anyone in the unit could, but is he ready to face his demons? The first sign that he isn’t ready is when he freezes at the doorway after walking in and seeing the other teenagers through the glass door.

His hesitation marks everything he does inside Maron, as he finds himself in a limbo between being a cop and an ex-juvie kid. However, this same hesitation helps him give advice to two of the teenagers as the kid he used to be.

He tells Tommy how to behave in solitary to do better inside, and he tells Art how to deal with his guilt. But it is Art who points out that maybe Torres hasn’t dealt with his guilt completely.

While Art mentions maybe the experience inside doesn’t leave you because you deserve to be punished forever, we wonder if what Torres needs to do is learn to live with both parts of himself.

Maybe he is good at his job because of who he used to be. There is no reason to forget the younger version of himself who ended up in a juvenile facility, but that doesn’t erase who he has become. Gloria’s reappearance and death make him second-guess whether he has changed at all.

Throughout Torres’s time undercover at Maron, we can sense his desperation and the feeling of being trapped.

This becomes even more obvious after the fight between Art and Tommy. When Torres finds himself trapped inside Art’s room, he has a panic attack.

Because he hasn’t overcome what happened to him there, being put in a situation without escape reinforces his feelings of guilt and unworthiness. This feeling is palpable for viewers thanks to the red lights and the alarm sound going off in the background. We understand how desperate Torres is to get out.

The lights turn back to normal and the alarm stops just as Torres is finishing the conversation with Burgess and Voight and they tell him they can come inside any time he needs them. It is that bridge between his past life and his present. He isn’t alone anymore, even though he feels like it.

By the end of Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 12, “The Good Shepherd,” Torres pictures himself alone in church while the priest speaks. This makes us wonder if he is second-guessing his faith and whether he has found a god that can help him forgive himself.

What Torres doesn’t realize is that he is no longer alone. The moment he joined the Intelligence Unit, he became part of a family that will stand by him no matter what.

Two things stand out from the episode beyond the development of Torres’s storyline.

The first one is obvious to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fans, who will recognize John Buchanan as the man who runs Maron. While many of us are used to watching him defend the bad guys, this time, he plays someone who seems to be oblivious to the bad guy in his basement.

The second thing that stands out is that CO Collins makes it clear to us that he is the bad guy when he is the only CO to introduce himself to Torres by name. He is quick to paint Art as the bad guy and put a warning out about Tommy to cover his own back.

His excuse for having abused these boys is that they were already broken when they entered juvie. This perfectly represents how the system fails these teenagers instead of helping them find the right path and leave their troubled past behind. They are used and abused by the system that’s supposed to protect them.

When Torres shoots the CO, we wonder if he feels as if he is shooting all the COs who hurt him during his time inside Maron.

For those who still have questions about Torres’s past, Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 12, “The Good Shepherd,” helps answer quite a few. It even clarifies why he always seems to distinguish himself from the rest of the unit.

The episode is a great look at who Torres was, is, and who he thinks himself to be. While it seems his team doesn’t care about his past (or at least doesn’t judge him for it), he is still holding on to it in a negative way.

Hopefully, this will continue to be explored whenever Chicago P.D. decides it’s time for another Torres episode.

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

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