'Chicago PD' Season 7 Episode 14 shows rookie Vanessa Rojas become an integral part of the team
Last week's episode of 'Chicago PD' was quite brutal to watch. Kim Burgess — though assigned to desk duty — follows up on one of the 911 calls she received. When a sex trafficking ring is uncovered, the intelligence unit is called in to solve the case.
However, while the ring is busted by intelligence, the girl who called 911 goes missing. When Kim is able to track down the girl, she goes to her location. Understanding that intelligence would not show up on time, Kim goes in and in the process gets beaten up quite badly by the culprit.
These events inevitably lead to the final moments of the episode when the doctor reveals to Kim that she's lost her baby.
In this week's episode, understandably, there is less of Kim. However, this episode remains to be a female-centric one as it focuses on rookie Vanessa Rojas who recently joined intelligence.
The episode also deals with mental health. The witness for the case intelligence is investigating is a patient of paranoid schizophrenia. The patient refuses to take medications because he believes that the government is poisoning him.
Where Rojas' mentor Hailey Upton wonders whether this man might be responsible for the murder, Rojas' instincts lead her to believe otherwise. This proves to be good because later the team receives CCTV footage of someone impersonating the victim and he matches the witness's description of the "SO5 agent" he said was the killer.
While the intelligence unit tracks down the killer with ease, it is the witness they have to worry about. Rojas worries about him and is able to track him down. Though in earlier scenes Rojas is able to connect with him and get him to talk, now the witness is less cooperative, and worse, he's got a gun.
When he runs into a convenience store, Rojas and Upton follow. They manage to get most civilians out but when the witness sees a father-daughter duo and acts out, flailing his arm about, Rojas shoots him thinking he was going to shoot people.
However, it turns out that the witness had lost the gun somewhere and had just a phone on him. She is overwhelmed with guilt — though both Upton and Hank Voight try to reassure her that it was a good shot. She feels relieved on learning that the witness is recuperating in the hospital.
This week's episode is a relatively lighter episode and we got to see another side of Rojas. It's clear that Rojas will fit well into the team. One remarkable thing is that while for more than three seasons there was only one woman on the intelligence unit (detective Erin Lindsay played by Sophia Bush), now there are three — and the change is refreshing to see.
'Chicago PD' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 10/9c.
