On this week’s Chicago P.D. , Officer Kiana Cook (new series regular Toya Turner) came to Intelligence for help with an investigation, and she earned herself a position in the unit in the process.
After wrapping up their case, Torres asked Cook about the tension he observed between her and her sergeant. She explained that he had her demoted to patrol because she called him out for running the tactical team poorly. Impressed by her work throughout their investigation and her gut instincts, Torres suggested that Cook should join their unit.
Throughout the hour, Cook proved that she has the skills necessary to be a part of Intelligence, planting the seeds for her potential transfer.
While Cook’s debut episode alongside Ruzek in the patrol car demonstrated “how she does her job out on the streets,” this week’s installment is “a lot more psychological, and it shows us more of who she is and how she will do her job if she were upstairs with us,” showrunner Gwen Sigan says. “She’s following the case through, she’s interviewing suspects, she’s interviewing witnesses, and there’s definitely a different feel” to this particular partnership with Intelligence that reveals “the skillset that she could bring to the unit.”
Cook also made an impression on Torres, who’s “realizing, ‘I really like this person. This woman is not only good at her job, but she’s very resilient. She’s been through a lot within the police department, and this is sort of the perfect opportunity, for her and for us, for somebody like her to join this unit, and also for her to sort of find a way out of the situation that she’s been in,'” Sigan describes.
But it’s not just Torres’ seal of approval that Cook needs. As Intelligence’s leader, Voight is the one who actually makes the final call. Luckily for Cook, “he likes her,” Sigan confirms.
“I think that he sees right away, in Episode 2, what kind of police officer that she is, and then, in this episode, really sees that she has a good gut,” Sigan describes. “Like, she has good gut instincts, and she follows through and she’s resilient, and that she’s also not really looking for validation from him, which, for Voight, is a nice thing. She’s not trying too hard with him, and I think just through the case, he really sees that she’s taking initiative, and she wants to be there and wants to do well. And then when he hears the rest of her story from Torres about what’s kind of been going on within the department, it’s an easy decision for him.”
As Cook and Voight’s relationship grows throughout the rest of the season, it won’t resemble the dynamic that he had with Upton or Lindsay.
“I think it’s a little different than his usual father/surrogate daughter relationship because she knows who she is, and I don’t know if she’s really looking for that with him,” Sigan shares. “So it’s a nice relationship going forward, and it’s been fun to write so far.”
As Cook makes the move to Intelligence, she won’t be starting from scratch, professionally, making the officer’s transition “a little bit different” and “a little less fish-out-of-water,” Sigan says.
“We’ve had a lot of new characters come, Torres included, who were really green and were coming out of patrol and were coming almost straight out of the academy, whereas she’s not as green,” Sigan notes. “She has done a couple of years in attack unit. She’s done a couple of years on patrol. And so, she knows who she is as a police officer, which is really nice.”
Rather than her being a complete newbie, Cook’s journey is more about “how she transitions into a unit that is more specialized and [getting] to actually follow the case all the way through,” Sigan previews. “The way we’ve been looking at, as writers, is that we get to see her fall in love with that part of the job and with being an Intelligence officer, and I think it just makes for a fun, different kind of storyline for a new character as opposed to growing pains and the usual. She’ll have a little bit of that, but it definitely feels different.”
P.D. fans, what did you think of Cook’s return? And are you excited for her to join Intelligence?
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