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'Chicago PD' Season 7 Episode 18 Preview: Vanessa Rojas takes a step too far and jeopardizes an investigation

In an attempt to protect her old boyfriend, Rojas erases a video file that showed the guy at the crime scene

While the coronavirus pandemic goes on, so does the 'Chicago' franchise. At least, for a few more episodes anyway. All three shows of the 'Chicago' franchise return this week. In 'Chicago PD', the focus of this week's episode will be on Vanessa Rojas (Lisseth Chavez), who like most of us, does something in a moment of desperation but regrets later.

The last episode that centered around Rojas was ironically called 'Center Mass' and it dealt with her bond with a mentally ill young man who was a witness. She opened up a tiny bit about her foster home past during that episode to her partner Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins).

In this week's episode, we could see Rojas's bond with Detective Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) — who is Rojas's colleague, roommate and unofficial mentor — deepen as Rojas gets personally involved with a case.

This week, the Intelligence Unit led by Sgt. Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) is trying to build a case against the elusive leader of a drug ring, but things get complicated when Rojas realizes someone she cares about might be involved.

In an attempt to protect her old boyfriend, who she had known since she was eight years old, we see in the promo for the episode, Rojas taking a step too far and erases a video file that showed the guy at the crime scene. This is especially troublesome since Voight makes it clear that every minute of video logged on the wire was important to intelligence.

Later, Rojas does confess what she did to Upton who berates her, saying, "That's obstruction, you could go to jail," as Vanessa nods. 

Chavez has not been upped to series regular yet, so we don't know whether Rojas is a permanent fixture on the show. However, Voight had told her previously that she should tell him the truth so that he can lie for her.

Unfortunately, Rojas's actions are quite severe and it is not the first time the rookie cop has let her emotions dictate her actions. The question is whether Upton will support Rojas. Another thing to worry about is Voight's reaction. However, we hope Rojas is here to stay and that Voight understands.

'Chicago PD' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 10/9c.