Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 7 Recap — “Contrition”

Chicago P.D. Season 12 Episode 7 Recap: The tense episode of Chicago P.D. tonight is called “Contrition,” and it’s about Officer Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar)  being haunted by the effects of his past with Gloria Perez, a former informant who is now his love interest. As the Intelligence Unit gets closer to breaking up a drug operation, Torres and his team risk everything, even the life of rookie officer Cook, who has to go undercover in a dangerous situation where one mistake could have terrible results. Can the Intelligence Unit stay together when betrayal and desperation make it hard for them to do what’s right?

At the start of the episode, a familiar face shows up again: Gloria Perez, who is married to a notorious drug lord. Torres used to have a close and sexual relationship with Gloria and thinks she is now running her late husband’s drug business. Torres and Gloria have a long history together. He slept with her and helped her hide the fact that her husband had been killed. Anything that goes wrong could bring up Torres’s dark past, which would put his career and freedom at risk. Even though Torres goes to church to try to make things right with his conscience, nothing he does can erase the wrongs he did with Gloria.

If there is a murder in a neighborhood that Intelligence had cleared, Voight and his team think that the drug turf may be changing hands again. Even though Torres knows Gloria well, he doesn’t tell Voight about her involvement because he wants her past ties to him to stay hidden. Officer Kim  Burgess (Marina Squerciati) is the only one who knows about the affair, and she has told Torres to stay away from Gloria because she thinks that Gloria could hurt both of them. Torres says Gloria has changed, even though she has been warned. She says Gloria now lives under the name Vivian Salazar and goes to college. But as more crimes happen, Intelligence starts to connect them to a new drug dealer, and Burgess starts to doubt Torres’ faith in Gloria.

As they look into it, they find that Felipe Roca, a young man who sold drugs on the side, was killed in a drive-by. Their main suspect, Jose Canto, is caught quickly but seems to have been poisoned before he can give them any information. The team is looking for answers because of how badly the murder was done and Canto’s sudden involvement in the drug world.

Soon, the focus of the investigation shifts to Hector Gazano, the owner of a Mexican restaurant who is thought to be connected to a gang. Gazano’s link to Gloria is shown by surveillance, and the team realizes that Gloria may still be involved with drugs after all. Burgess and Officer Adam  (Patrick John Flueger) see Gloria meeting with gang members at Gazano’s restaurant while they are pretending to be someone else. But since Gloria knows everyone in Intelligence, they ask the newest member, Officer Cook, to pose as a server and go undercover.

Cook quickly figures out that something is wrong when he sees strange buckets being brought in and out of the restaurant. She hears Gloria talking with members of the cartel, which confirms her suspicions that Gloria is the new drug lord. However, things go badly very quickly when Cook accidentally says that she knows information about Gloria’s movements that only police would know. Gloria kidnaps Cook when she finds out she is a police officer, and now the Intelligence team is in a race against time to find their missing officer.

At the end of the episode, we still don’t know what happened to Cook, and Torres is in more danger than ever. Gloria’s knowledge of Torres’s secrets puts him in danger, and Cook is in danger because she is new to undercover work and doesn’t know what she’s doing. Torres’s devotion to Gloria turns into a problem, making it unclear whether he will stay with the unit.

And in an interview after the episode, Toya Turner, who plays Officer Cook, talked about how her character feels betrayed and tormented. She talks about Cook’s anger and fear toward Torres, who put her in this dangerous situation by not telling her the whole story of his relationship with Gloria. Turner also hinted that Cook would have problems in the future with how open she has become, asking if she’ll take on more undercover jobs or stay away from them after what she went through. Turner gave a hint that Cook’s story will continue in later episodes, showing more of her personal life and background, which will affect how she grows as an Intelligence officer.

Every Wednesday at 10/9c on NBC, Chicago P.D. continues to deliver high-stakes drama. With tensions this high, Torres’s past decisions will undoubtedly have an effect on everyone in Intelligence for many episodes to come.