'Chicago PD' Season 8 Episode 2 Preview: Kevin Atwater continues to fight the 'Blue Wall', will he give in?
With the premiere of the eighth season of NBC's 'Chicago PD' came the continuation of the Kevin Atwater-centric (LaRoyce Hawkins) plot that was started towards the end of the seventh season of the show. Season 7 ended with Kevin Atwater at the front and center and we hope that trend continues into Season 8. When Atwater was partnered up with a cop who had racist tendencies for the second time, he found himself in a messy situation. The cop — who died — had pursued someone just because he was Black, but in the process got shot and died from the wounds.
Atwater's decision to tell Internal Affairs the truth about the cop racially profiling two Black men made him some new enemies. The late cop's friends are going after Atwater and in the Season 8 premiere, we see how they are doing that — adopting intimidation tactics and hiding a brick of heroin in his car. It all came to an explosive end when Atwater's refusal to bow down to the pressure inserted by the other police officers lead them to assault him outside his home.
Like other cop shows on television, 'Chicago PD' focused on the aftermath of the Black Lives Matters protests as well and Atwater's story is as important as they come. On the other end of the spectrum, Intelligence Unit's head, Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) is being told to rein in his unsavory antics — which leads to a rare failure in charging the suspect. Both Voight and Atwater have different frames of mind when it comes to Atwater's situation — Voight knows that Atwater is a good person standing up for what he believes in, but Voight potentially thinks Atwater should back down so he can save his career and job. This disagreement is set to continue in this week's episode.
The synopsis for this week's episode reads, "The son of an influential former officer is implicated in a murder and Moore pressures Voight to charge him quickly so that the CPD isn’t accused of preferential treatment. The stakes are raised in Atwater’s fight against the blue wall after patrol officers stop responding to his team’s calls. Voight wants to help Atwater end this mistreatment but the two can’t agree on the right way to handle it."
It is likely that this particular plotline will come to an end in this week's episode, but we are sure that the repercussions will remain. After what happened in the previous episode, fans were worried that Atwater may end up quitting his job because of the harassment he is facing. However, we hope that Atwater continues to persist. Whether he will be able to take it all remains to be seen, especially since he may feel that his own teammates do not fully agree with his way of doing things. Voight does, however, note in the promo for this week's episode that Atwater is a good cop, and that if Atwater resorts to the other cops' tactics, they end up winning — so Voight and Atwater may come to an agreement by the end of the episode.
After last week's failure, Voight will be eager to solve the murder in this week's episode. Knowing the way 'Chicago PD' (and most cop shows) usually go, the influential former officer's son is probably not the final suspect, so the pressure may be high for Intelligence to get it right.
'Chicago PD' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 10/9c. Watch the promo for this week's episode here.