Spoilers ahead for the winter premiere of Chicago PD Season 10, titled “This Job”.
Chicago PD went from the Sean O’Neal expensive business Upton before being resolved in the Fall Finalswith “This Work” shifting to focus on Torres and in a lesser extent) Rouzek. The case of the week involved home invasions, sexual assaults and ultimately murders, and intelligence had to partner with another cop, Tom Borkowski, to work the survey. Over the hour, Torres did nearly all the right things, but eventually took a Major online for the first time since joining Intelligence. While his goal is for the move to pay off in the long run, it might not work.
How the case pushed Torres to cross a line
Borkowski quickly made a bad impression on Torres with his focus on solving self-fulfilling cases rather than just putting bad guys behind bars, and the cop was dangerously close to crossing the lines early on just past Ruzek and Torres. The young officer did what he could to defuse the situation, but his faith was completely shaken when Borkowski’s claim that a man named alexander had fallen down stairs did not correspond to his serious injuries.
Torres finally did some research with Platt‘s help and voiced his suspicions to Ruzek, who initially didn’t seem inclined to help since Borkowski had the power of CPD to damage Torres’ career. But Torres could see Borkowski in a more objective light, pointing out to Ruzek that Borkowski just asked one of them why he became a cop. Ruzek finally got his back, and after uncovering some suspicious (albeit inconclusive) video footage, they went to interview Alex and got the whole story.
Alex had drugs on him when the cops arrived and fled the scene rather than risk being caught violating his probation. Borkowski handcuffed him and the gun whipped him until he passed out, but then made a deal with Alex not to say anything about the drugs as long as he kept quiet about the assault. Alex accepted because he has to stay out of jail and take care of his mother. He also shared valuable information about the case with the two intelligence cops, and they were left with a big decision to make.
They could play it by the book and report Borkowski, which would involve charging Alex with obstruction of justice and a parole violation, then scaring him into officially giving up the information. Torres realized that Alex would be deemed unreliable, so their other option was to have Alex do the identification and then support her on their side, which would mean not flagging Borkowski. Torres realized that there was only one right answer on what to do, but that “just got the wrong results”.
They ultimately decided to protect Alex and not turn on Borkowski, and Torres got the final say in their final confrontation saying “that’s why I became a cop”, but he wasn’t exactly up to it. the end of the hour. Ruzek found him in a bar after lying under oath during an arrest hearing, publicly stating that Borkowski was a solid, clean detective. Visibly upset, Torres told Ruzek that he “just became part of the blue wall” and that Borkowski could just keep working. Ruzek responded with “for now,” which Torres echoed. But is there any hope that day will ever come DB?
Why Torres might not get his win
The idea that they’ll ever oust Borkowski from the CPD ended the episode on a semi-hopeful note, but I’m not convinced that Torres crossing the line and perjuring himself will ever pay off in getting rid of the bad cop. After all, Chicago PD is rarely serialized beyond the occasional big arc, like Sean O’Neal in the first half of season 10 and Anna back in season 9.
Borkowski as the Dirty Cop was a suitable one-off antagonist, but doesn’t seem like a character who could be the focus of an arc spanning the rest of the 2022-23 TV season. It just doesn’t seem like a sure thing that Torres will ever get closure beyond the fact that the villain went to jail and Alex has to go home to his mom.
None of this is to say that Torres will become Voight 2.0 because he crossed that line by lying under oath, and he already broke the rules earlier in the season after a case hit way too close to home for comfort. Plus, the Intelligence Unit is a team of cops used to bending the rules, and Torres still has high morals by comparison! However, the actor Benjamin Levy Aguilar crushed his Torres performance as a result of perjury, and hopefully Chicago PD will indeed pay off on this plot with Borkowski.
So what lesson should Torres take from this ordeal? Well, on a mic level, he might be better off hanging out with Atwater as Halsteadthe successor of as a mentor than spending his free time with Ruzek. On a macro (and more serious) level, it’s possible this is the start of Torres moving from occasionally bending the rules to breaking them on a more regular basis. After all, Upton was once on the right track before being corrupted by Voightand Halstead did its best to toe the lines rather than cross them for the better part of a decade.
That said, Voight has softened a bit following Halstead deciding he had to leave before getting completely lost, and the rest of the unit seem ready to watch the young officer. Only time will tell if this matter stays with Torres and affects the way he does his job going forward.
For now, you can expect new episodes of Chicago PD Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, after chicago fire (which introduced a new problem for Firehouse 51 in its winter premiere) at 9 p.m. and Chicago Mediterranean (who found a way to make changes for a doctor) At 20 o ‘clock. You can also rewatch past episodes of One Chicago on streaming with a Peacock Premium Subscriptionand check out some upcoming viewing options with our 2023 TV premiere schedule.