Not to be outdone by Chicago Med and Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. has gotten into the holiday spirit by gifting fans one of the most intriguing mid-season finales ever.
The episode titled No Way Out begins at Roy’s grave where Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer) is given a choice by Special Agent Walker North (Alex Morf), either he and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos) are arrested, or they help bring down Voight.
As Halstead sits in his car and watches the body being removed from the shallow grave, he receives a text and quickly drives to a call. As he gets close to the location, he hears gunshots and calls it in. He arrives to witness utter chaos and people are running in all directions to get away from a bus. Halstead grabs one man who tells him the shots came from the bus and he calls for backup. Halstead finds a woman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He stays with the victim and finds a handwritten note that says, “do you need help?” with a response, “yes, please help me.”
The next morning as the boys in blue collect in a drove, it is revealed that the woman died from her injuries. The deceased woman was the bus driver and apparently two Latinx males were involved in the shooting.
Voight (Jason Beghe), Halstead, and Upton speak with the bus company and apparently the bus driver recognized that the two Latinx men were trafficking a young woman and the bus driver was attempting to rescue the woman by telling the passengers that there were problems with the bus and that she had to stop and wait for the bus company to send aid.
Upon review of the onboard video surveillance from the bus, the team sees the bus driver hand the note to the young woman, then retrieve the note from the young woman, then savagely get shot in the face, and then a second time before the two Latinx men run off with the young woman.
It is revealed that the young woman wasn’t a typical victim of sex traffiking because she is a college student who was away for the weeked to enjoy a spa getaway in Sedona before returning to Chicago to return to Northwestern. The men who kidnapped her were not like the other passengers who had just returned to Chicago by plane and the P.D. couldn’t identify them.
Voight tells the team that they need to collect up all the rest of the passengers to see what they know so they can try and rescue the young woman. After the briefing, Halstead stares down Voight.
Voight and Halstead meet secretly under a bridge where Halstead informs Voight that the FBI found Roy’s body and he shares the ultimatum from Agent North. Voight tells Halstead that he will take care of it. Halstead doesn’t like that response and tells Voight that he’s sick of being in the dark and from that moment on, anything that’s going to be “handled”, they will do it together. Voight disagrees and says that he doesn’t really know what he’s asking and Halstead tells him that they will not involve Upton anymore because she simply can not handle it and he leaves.
After the commercial break, Upton catches up with Voight and Halstead at Trudy’s (Amy Morton) desk and tells them that they found the missing young woman and her abductors in a hotel. They confirmed with the front desk that they checked in the previous night.
The entire team meets at the hotel and focuses on the room where the three were checked in. Unfortunately the team was too late and all they found was a lot of blood. Confused, they search for more clues and see a car full of blood with a broken window.
Voight spots some blood on the ground and follows the trail and finds the young woman and a man, who pulls a gun on Voight and threatens to shoot him. Voight tries to reason with the guy, but he takes off and Voight tries to administer aid to the young woman, also calling for an ambulance. Halstead finds him and Voight demands that Halstead give her narc in immediately, however, the young woman is still bleeding profusely and needs immediate medical attention.
At the hospital, Halstead asks how she is feeling and then tells her that she almost died with 70 balloons of heroin in her stomach. Upton is also there and when the woman doesn’t seem to be cooperating, she tells her, “we have you on drug trafficking. You were trafficking a massive amount of heroin into Chicago.”
The young woman, Willa, tells them that she doesn’t know the man who shot the bus driver but his name is Mateo. She tells them that she wasn’t feeling well on the plane and called them to meet her at the airport. The man who murdered the bus driver was the one who tried to conduct surgery himself to remove the balloons from her stomach, but the other guy, who pulled the gun on Voight, stopped him and tried to help her. She refuses to share any information about him and says that she knows he’s a good person. Upton further threatens the victim and she tells them that she is done talking and wants a lawyer.
Voight, Upton, Halstead, Burgess (Marina Squerciati), Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins), and Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) discuss what they know and if they have any leads. Voight tells the team to dig up whatever they can on Willa because she will be the key in identifying these guys.
Upton notices there is something sketchy going on between Halstead and Voight as the two go outside to discuss their “way out”. Voight hands Halstead an envelope with some sensitive material for them to use to blackmail North and make their pretty huge problem go away. Halstead tells Voight that it’s unethical and he doesn’t really want to pursue this route. Knowing he really doesn’t have a choice, he says, “let’s move on it.”
Halstead wanders around a homeless encampment and pretends to prepare to shoot up heroin in order to try and catch one of the drug addicts in the encampment. He allows the addict to use a small amount of heroin, and then as the two are walking away from the encampment, they are approached by drug dealers who offer to sell to them. Unfortunately for the addict, the dealer identifies himself as a cop and takes the addict to a van where Voight is waiting. The addict is eager to get to the station to make his phone call. Voight tells him that his brother will no longer bail him out and reveals that the addict’s brother is none other than FBI Special Agent Walker North.
Haltead is then seen waiting for Voight to return to the station. The two meet in the parking lot and Halstead asks if the addict talked. Voight confirmed that North had gotten his brother off 3 times in the past 2 years. Halstead replied, “Obstruction of justice.” Voight replied, “And official misconduct.”
As the two walk into the building they are accosted by Upton who demands to know what’s going on. Voight tells her that they have a case to work, alluding to the missing drug traffickers. She then dismisses him and tells him that they (she and Halstead) will be “right up” and Voight leaves the couple to talk privately.
Halstead tells her everything and she is furious. She said that if she had known what was going on she would have turned herself in and that’s the complete opposite of what he wants. He tells her that it’s them, or Voight, or this (the blackmail) and that he doesn’t want any of it.
The two join the rest of the team already discussing how Willa knows the drug traffickers. The girl doesn’t have many friends and appears to be estranged from her family, Burgess says they went through her phone and have no evidence of any kind of friendship or relationship with either of the men. Upton surmises that she’s a lonely girl with a broken family who would make her own family.
Upton and Halstead return to the hospital to further question Willa, which is weird since she already asked for a lawyer and was refusing to cooperate, but the couple showed her a photo of the one she was refusing to identify as a child. Apparently Willa and the boy in the photos named Nicky have been friends since elementary school. Willa still insists on protecting him because she feels he advocated for her, but Halstead shows her photos of a deceased woman who had a similar experience, only she didn’t survive being sliced open for Mateo and Nicky to retrieve the balloons full of heroin. She tells them where they can find Nicky, but begs them not to hurt him.
The team goes to the building and as they enter, they hear a gunshot, which puts them all on high alert. They find Nicky with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, with Mateo holding a gun to his head demanding to know where Willa and the drugs are. Voight instructs Mateo to allow Nicky to cover his wound with both hands before he bleeds out and dies right there. Voight fires a round into the wall right next to Mateo’s head and then holds his gun to Mateo’s temple and tells him that if Mateo shoots Nicky, Voight will shoot Mateo. Mateo cooperates and hands the gun over to Halstead as Voight cuffs Mateo and Upton calls for an ambulance.
Outside Halstead and Voight argue over what Halstead will ultimately do. Voight tells him to go ahead and turn him in and after what JUST occurred, Halstead would prefer to have Voight on the force.
Halstead drives to Roy’s grave to meet with North who asks smugly, “what’s it gonna be, Jay?”
Halstead doesn’t miss a beat and replies, “you got a brother named Joe” and we see the smugness wash off of North’s face as he realizes what’s happening. North tries to talk over Halstead and tells him not to do it like this, that he doesn’t want to do it like this. Halstead agrees and says that he really doesn’t. He then goes on to tell North that his brother is in custody in the narcotics unit. He further explains to North that his brother admitted on tape that North paid off numerous law enforcement officials to keep him out of jail. Halstead tells him that he has the arrest records, his phone records, and the word of his brother to prove it. He then goes on to actually threaten the FBI agent, telling him that if he comes after him, Upton, or Voight, he will bury North with that tape.
North asks Halstead if this is who he wants to be and Halstead says he wants to protect his family and the city. North then went on to give a pretty impassioned speech about how he investigated the whole P.D. and believed Halstead was the one who wouldn’t allow himself to be corrupted by Voight.
Halstead shows up at Voight’s house to tell him how it went. Halstead tells him that it’s over, but now things are going to change and he demands complete honesty from Voight from this moment on, so no one has to lie anymore and he can protect him from himself.
Halstead then goes home to Upton and tells her that it worked. She tells him that she loves him and he reciprocates, then he asks her to marry him immediately.
Then in the last 2 minutes of the show, as a little Christmas gift, we witness the two get married in their regular street clothes, privately at the courthouse, wrapping up with a very happy mid-season finale.
Tracy Spiridakos as Hailey Upton, Jesse Lee Soffer as Jay Halstead — (Photos by: Lori Allen/NBC)
Chicago P.D., Fire, and Med will return with new episodes on Wednesday, January 5, 2022.
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Executive producers include Dick Wolf, Rick Eid, Peter Jankowski, Arthur W. Forney, Derek Haas and Eriq La Salle.
Chicago P.D. produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
