Back in January we shared that Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) would be facing her past trauma this season. It has been revealed that her trauma will return to haunt her this week as Chicago P.D. celebrates their 200th episode.
In the Season 8 finale, Burgess was kidnapped, assaulted, shot twice, and left for dead. It was the same episode where Detective Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) prevented Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) from killing Burgess’s assailant only to shoot and kill him herself.
When season 9 premiered, Burgess had to take time to heal and began showing symptoms of PTSD from the trauma she survived and the fear that the man who shot her was still out there, completely oblivious to the fact that Upton killed him and Voight disposed of the body.
The entire incident was difficult for Burgess both physically and mentally and she needed to rely on her former fiance Detective Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Fleuger) to help her care for the child, Makayla Ward, whom she assumed custody of after Makayla witnessed her father murder her entire family. Burgess assumed the role of her mother and eventually was legally awarded custody, but when she and Ruzek returned to Burgess’ home to tell Makayla the good news, the babysitter had been brutally assaulted and Makayla was gone.
It was revealed that Makayla’s dad was behind the kidnapping and the plan was to collect a ransom to help him pay off some prison debts. Makayla was rescued at the end of the episode, but the stress and trauma of the incident took their toll on Burgess. In a recent episode we saw her PTSD manifest physically when she began shaking and having flashbacks of happened to her.
In January, showrunner Gwen Sigan explained to TV Line that we should expect Burgess to come full circle and face her trauma head on during this season.
“She will continue to deal with it,” Sigan said. “[It] gets to a point where she can’t really ignore it. She’s been in this space of denial in Episode 8 because it’s frightening. I don’t think she fully knows what’s going on with her body [and] doesn’t really know why it’s happening now.”
She went on to explain that we should expect to see Burgess “push it away as much as she can until she can’t anymore and has to look at it.”
Eventually she will have to come to terms with what has happened to her, and it “shapes her in a new way this season when she finally confronts it and realizes, ‘This is something I have to have to deal with, [that] I have to figure out and make part of my life.’”
As she takes the steps to face her trauma, it will show her what’s really important in her life and it will “strengthen those bonds she has with her daughter, and with Ruzek.”
“He’s like her partner in life, and when you get out of some of that trauma, it’s about forming new attachments again,” Sigan adds. “So we’ll get to see that she can have some more strength in those relationships and clarity, and how much they’ve been there for her.”
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The synopsis of the upcoming episode Trapped reads:
“After a brutal shooting, Burgess and Ruzek find themselves trapped aboard the busy “L” subway; as they piece together scant evidence, the team is drawn into a dark family drama; Burgess’ proximity to the shooting triggers harsh memories.”
Squerciati and Flueger recently chatted with EW about filming the 200th episode. Apparently they were not given much notice about the plot of the episode ahead of time. “When it’s something big, they do give you a heads-up, so I’m not totally in the dark, but I got the script the night before,” Squerciati said. “Without the words, you can’t really track the journey.”
Flueger really seemed to enjoy filming in the subway station and tunnels, “The green line and the brown line were right to our right just zooming by,” Flueger told EW. “It was insane.”
He adds, “When the train on the show was static, we were actually in a tunnel on a now-defunct line. When the train was moving, we’ve got four or five guys just manning two-by-fours under the train, pulling on them.”
Not only did the two film in a subway tunnel, Squerciati filmed a scene in a well. “I was in a pool for 12 hours,” she explained. “So in the well scene, it’s a big pool and then they built a shaft in the middle and it goes up really high. So there’s no way to get me to the top to shoot me dry. So I’m in fishing waders and then literally on the shoulders of two men being carried through this pool so I can be dry, climb up the ladder, take off the waders, and then climb down dry. So I only got one take of that.”
The landmark 200th episode of Chicago P.D. airs this Wednesday, February 22 at 10/9c on NBC and streams the next day on the Peacock app.
Chicago P.D. is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
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