'Chicago P.D.' Season 7: The second episode puts Atwater front and center as he goes undercover
After last week's tense season premiere, 'Chicago P.D.' has brought back its signature style of going undercover for a case with the second episode. This time, we see Kevin Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins) at the front and center of the episode - he is undercover and trying to figure out the workings of Chicago mob boss, Darius Walker. Walker is played by Michael Beach, best known for his recent role Charles Pike on 'The 100'. We also meet Nina (Lisseth Chavez) who works at The Chatham - Walker's HQ fronting as a bar - who looks like she is trusted well by Walker.
Kevin tries to figure out what is going on and how he can deal with Walker for selling drugs. Voight (Jason Beghe) decides to put Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) undercover as well, with the latter asking his boss if they are cool, to which Voight replies, "we are where we are." Ruzek talks to Voight about his impending trial and he wonders whether he can choose the general population over isolation should he be convicted and it does not look like Ruzek is doing too well with the time he already spent there.
While Kevin tries his best to get Halstead hired by Walker, the mob boss does not take the bait. Instead, Kevin tries to try another angle, through Nina with whom he's already shared a nice moment. So, Kevin and Halstead try to work Nina and her partner, with Voight and Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) watching from outside. When they see armed men going into the building, they jump as well and for a bit, it is just all of them shouting "hands in the air" or "police" until Voight asks for everyone's badge ID and Nina is an undercover cop, Vanessa Rojas. The teams decide to join forces to take down Walker.
Meanwhile, Kevin learns that Walker is not your average mob boss - he punishes people for selling drugs near a school, he has a food bank program where he gets African-American kids to take food to the elderly and in exchange pays their college tuition and for their books. Ruzek is having a hard time not being police and apprehends a kid for selling crack in the park. Trudy rightfully tells him that he has to stay out of it until his trial. But she is worried about him and tells Voight that she doesn't think he will last a month if he goes to jail.
The Intelligence Unit finally catches Walker making an exchange and arrests him. Kevin tries to make a deal with him and is told that Walker is a good thing for Chicago. If someone else takes up control, they won't look out for the African-American community as well as he does. Kevin seems to agree and tells Voight the same, so the latter decides he will cut a deal with Walker to take down the other players. He speaks to Interim Superintendent Jason Crawford (Paul Adelstein) to get him to sign off on it, on one condition: Ruzek's charges are dropped. He succeeds and Ruzek is given his gun and badge back.
As we predicted before, it looks like Season 7 will see more for Kevin Atwater. He has good chemistry with Vanessa aka Nina, and the actress will be recurring this season. With Antonio gone, the team will need someone to join and it very well might be Vanessa. This could mean that we see Atwater and Vanessa getting close as well and give us that romance that Rick Eid teased.
As we said last week, 'Chicago P.D.' has started off really well and the second episode just builds on the momentum. While it looks like Halstead and Voight are cool for now, there are still plenty of unresolved issues that need to be dealt with. Darius Walker will certainly add a good layer to the show and it will be interesting to see his and Voight's dynamics as the latter will be his handler.
'Chicago P.D.' airs on Wednesday nights on NBC.
