#cíara wrote a meta

[fighterkimburgess]

what do you think it was about 10x17/18 that felt different for adam compared to other times especially 8x05. asking about 8x05 especially because he did ask her to try again in that episode too.

Because Kim told him she felt the same way. That she always had felt the same way as he did. But she was scared and numb.

Kim and Adam were growing their relationship in season 7, they were becoming a family. Yeah it was a modern platonic one, but there was that love between them. And then they had it ripped away from them in such a traumatic way that Kim tried to hide because she blamed herself. She said it. She shouldn't have been there, she shouldn't have lost their baby.

But this time? They said their feelings. They weren't "sleeping together every six months". It was like their first time all over again, you can tell from the choreography and how they are. That look on Kim's face when Adam's getting up? That's a woman in love.

8x05 Kim was still grieving. She was still upset and still closing off from everyone else. But she was open to what Adam was saying too - the end of the episode when she said "I know this might change what we have, you know, we can have". She was open to it but then she was abducted and shot and terrified and numb.

Because Adam didn't leave. He didn't walk away. And with her trauma she's terrified of him leaving. But she's putting the work in because she wants to stay and wants him. And that's why it's different now.

[fighterkimburgess]

Chicago PD Season 9 Speaking Time

A couple of caveats for this - everything here was done by me. I manually timed, so the times may be out by a few seconds either side. However, over the course of it all I’d hope that everything evens out.

Find below my Chicago PD Speaking Time for Season 9A (9B coming soon!). I watched each episode, timing how long each of the main characters (Voight, Hailey, Jay, Kim, Adam, Kevin, and Trudy) spoke for. Below you’ll find the information for each of the episodes, and a 9A total breakdown. A couple of things I didn’t expect are below all of the timings.

My methodology was simple - have a stopwatch, hit start when a person began speaking, hit stop when they stopped. I was generally balancing two or three at a time, based on how PD episodes work. For episodes focusing on Voight, I did him and the first two main cast members he spoke to. When I finished them I went back and found the Trudy scene(s) and timed them. Then the other three people were done.

For a member of a ship (upstead or burzek) I timed the ship together along with Voight, and then went back to Trudy. On my second full pass I did the other three people (so the other ship and Kevin). For Kevin episodes my first pass was Kevin, Voight, and whatever member of burzek he spoke to first. Second go was upstead and the other member of burzek. I did these as fairly as possible, but with so many people talking about how unbalanced episodes are, I thought this would be an interesting look at it. I’m hoping to do 9B pretty soon, depending on my health and what people think of this. But now, onto the data!

A couple of takeaways I found interesting:

The only person who hasn’t had an episode with less than one minute speaking time is Voight.

Kim has the lowest (non-Trudy) amount of speaking time in total, but also in an episode (16 seconds in 9x01)

Just under half of Kevin’s 16 minutes comes from 9x05, with 8 minutes 11 seconds from that episode.

Adam comes in third with most speaking time, just more than a minute ahead of Hailey. His comes from having so much time in 9x06 (10 minutes 21 seconds, over two minutes higher than the second longest amount of speaking time.

Every man has an episode where they speak at least 40% of the time (Jay has two, 9x03 and 9x09), none of the women do. The closest is Hailey in 9x08 with 35% of speaking time (4 minutes 30 seconds), and Kim and Hailey both have 31% of the time in 9x02 and 9x04 respectively.

Trudy comes in dead last in speaking time with 3% of the total, 3 minutes and 35 seconds. However, in her most speaking episode (9x08), she speaks more than any combination of the two of Adam, Kevin, and Kim combined.

Kevin has the most under a minute of speaking time episodes (again outside of Trudy) with 4, Adam and Jay have 3, Kim (just about) and Hailey have two (Kim has an exactly one minute episode), Voight has none. Trudy has 8, including one episode where she doesn’t appear.

[fighterkimburgess]

do you think kevin himself is a racist since adam is supposed to justify himself to kevin in 8x08 for an act of someone else who is white (which i think is racist since kevin lumps all white people together)

I am white so I am not the best person to answer this. However I will say this much.

American society, and in Chicago in particular, has racism entrenched within it. Chicago may be a liberal blue city, but it has high rates of racist violence, and a police force which historically (while there are current day attempts to change it) has been violent and racist to non white people.

You cannot be racist if you do not have the power. Kevin Atwater is a Black man living in a city that is racist to him. He does not have the power. Being a cop and a respected member of the police department does not mean that he is safe from racism. In 8x08 he was reacting to what he had seen - a white cop who killed a Black unarmed man. And Adam was not completely in favour of arresting said cop who murdered someone.

Adam’s the kid of a cop who was raised in a cop family. He may not have been intentionally racist in this, but he was racist. Kevin wasn’t blaming him for the entire actions, but Adam’s inability to look at the larger picture and just think cop = good, when Kevin knows full well that isn’t true, look at what happened just earlier in the season.

You cannot call someone who does not have the power in an interaction discriminatory. Racism is discrimination based on race. Kevin didn’t have the power, so he couldn’t be discriminatory, so he couldn’t be racist. Instead he was a Black man in a job that he already has difficulties with in an impossible situation, and his best friend was making it worse for him.

I would highly recommend you read the metas that have already been written on this subject, particularly by @kim-ruzek (just off the top of my head Ree has some fab ones). Listen to Black and POC members of this fandom and lift up their voices. Please don’t default to asking bigger blogs because we have a “name” or whatever. That’s not helpful.

And if someone doesn’t answer an ask on this topic, don’t bug them. There can be many reasons and nobody is entitled to an answer.

[fighterkimburgess]

This is not going to have my usual level of detailed research and cited moments as any of my metas because I still have Covid brain. But anyway here’s onto why I think Kim Burgess is about to have a breakdown.

This season has probably been the hardest on Kim, both emotionally and physically. She’s gone from being on a ventilator in episode one, now being as fully recovered as possible but also trying to come to terms with what happens. And there’s nowhere it is more obvious than the opening scene of 9x20.

Kim‘s insistence that Makayla doesn’t remember that means she’s fine is problematic in so many ways. We’ve got people in this fandom who work in mental health and I’ll let them have that discussion I’m just someone who has dealt with these issues in my personal life. But Kim isn’t insisting on this because of Mack. She’s insisting it because she claims she doesn’t remember.

We’ve seen this a number of times this season, Kim talking to a victim using her trauma as a way to get the victim to open up. Saying she can’t remember if it was a blue pick up or a silver sedan. Claiming that she doesn’t remember if the man who took her was wearing a certain outfit or what hair he had.

We know this isn’t true, because we know Kim Burgess.

The one thing that has always been evident since episode one of PD, is that Kim has always been the one to remember things and to notice the small details. Who can ever forget episode four when she was the one who realised there was something not right in the hoarders house and found a small child. That was when she was a beat cop and we can assume from her badge number and based of Hailey‘s badge number but she had only been on the forest for about 18 months at a time maybe two years at a push.

I know the trauma does funny things but it also freezes certain moments in your mind. Kim never wants people to think she is a burden. While she’s not the newest member of this unit, she is the one who feels she has less experience. Imposter syndrome is a dangerous game.

We know that Kim hates feeling like she’s being coddled, that people use her perceived inexperience to put her in a box. Who can forget 50 one when I’ll nearly went for the guy calling her naive and beautiful. Kim Burgess has proven time and time again that she deserves that spot in her unit. She’s proven that she deserves to be where she is and it’s not because she was injured but in spite of it. But despite all of this, Kim sees any form of weakness or vulnerability is something to be King from the world.

We know that every single member of her unit believes in her and trust her implicitly. Voight has told her he would never bet against her, we all know how Adam believes and trusts in her, Kevin has called her his sister more than once, J without any evidence but with Kim Scott decided to pick up the killer last night because she said they needed to do it, and Hailey has literally said that she loves her. Every single member of this unit would go into battle with Kim Burgess at their back, the exact same way she would do for them.

But for this entire season Kim has been trying to push people away. We’ve seen it with Adam, not wanting to get close to him, worrying about having him close for due to Mack when she seen how much their daughter trust and loves him. How she barely speaks to Kevin anymore and didn’t even know about Celeste. The way she hid her recovery from everyone, not wanting to seem weak despite the fact she had been abducted and shot and left for dead and they had seen her bloodied and beaten body.

We’ve seen her have panic attacks. We have seen her push away her support system, even after Adam nearly died saying how much he loved their daughter. I know she said she was doing it for Makayla, but I wonder how much of it was Kim trying to preserve what she feels is how she must present the world. Sure she still hangs out with Adam but only with their child and toe. And we’ve seen her nightmares.

We’ve seen her when she got out of hospital the only place that she felt safe enough to sleep was on the couch surrounded by Adam sent. We’ve seen that even when she was still bleeding from her rules she didn’t want to let people down because she wanted them to see if she could come back to work. She has pushed through every single part of her injury and you can’t push through the mental healing. Her daughter needs a mother, but more than that she needs a mother who isn’t going to risk anything.

In this season Kim has gone from nearly losing her life to her daughter nearly losing her own. She’s gone from Adam living on her couch I mean about to move in with him to him purchasing a house because he wants to make sure their daughter has a good life. And as I’ve thought more I do have feelings about about him just springing it but we can get to them. That isn’t what this is about.

Kim is carefully removing herself from nearly everything she had before. We haven’t had a scene where she’s been asleep in almost a full season. And her nightmares are still there, and I think they’re getting worse. Ever since the abduction we can see Kim’s make up has been getting less full coverage, the little bags in her eyes have begun to grow. It’s subtle, and Marina is an excellent actress which helps, but I think we are coming in for something to happen with Kim either at the end of season 9 or the start of 10 where something tips the scales. She needs to deal with her trauma or Mack won’t deal with her own.

[fighterkimburgess]

Clothes and Chicago PD

I had planned for this to be much more in depth, and there will be a longer one coming for every member of the cast (except Trudy my beloved cause we only really see her in her uniform), but the way the CPD wardrobe team reuses items is really clever, and it’s got to be more than just coincidence. So without further ado, the way clothes play a role for Hailey, Kim, and Adam in Chicago PD.

The one thing for Hailey is she always dresses for comfort. But there’s two items of hers that whenever they appear on screen I know something is going to happen - the red thick checked flannel (the Emotional Support Flannel, if you will), and her maroon coat.

We first see the ESF in 6x06, when Hailey’s telling Adam that her Dad was like that. He’s the first person she’s really opened up to, and it just goes from there. It’s the shirt she wears whenever there’s an emotionally charged conversation - 6x14 telling Kim about her and Adam, 7x10 when she so very nearly tells Jay her feelings, and 8x11 when she does tell him she loves him.

It’s the flannel when shit goes down. When Hailey Upton has a moment that’s going to set her world alight, it’s what she wears. We most recently saw it in 9x08 when she wears it as Jay manhandles her into the bathroom to tell her about the bugs. Yet another moment she’s emotionally vulnerable, and she’s wearing it. Every time she wears it she’s vulnerable about her relationships. It’s such a perfect example that it can’t be a coincidence.

We see it a little bit in s8 with the maroon coat too. She wears it in 8x03 when they kiss for the first time. Then again in 8x05 when they’re flirting about the chocolate in the truck, Hailey moving away from Jay. And then finally we see it in 8x09, when Jay’s hit by Andre so he can keep his cover. In comparison to the high emotions of the ESF, this coat is fun. And we can see that even clearer when she wears the blue one in 8x11. She doesn’t wear her fun outfit when she’s emotionally fraught.

But Hailey’s not the only one. Kim’s mustard coat is the perfect example, it’s the coat she wears when motherhood is the topic. She wore it when she miscarried, lying in the bathtub as Adam lifted her out. She wore it in 8x03 for the first time since the miscarriage, meeting Makayla while wearing it and finding her family’s killers. She wore it protecting Makayla. Again, family.

And again in 8x05. She’s wearing it when she sees Makayla in the DCFS offices, when Makayla runs and hugs her because this woman, this coat that for this woman has meant loss, now means safety. It means two people who took care of her.

And then in 8x13, the episode that was family for Kim most of all. It’s on her when she sees the dead body of a pregnant teenager, shot while trying to save herself and her child. She wears it when she’s nearly shot, when her ex fiancée and the father of the child they lost points out there’s a bullet hole (which nearly perfectly matches up with one of her wounds from 8x16 but look that’s not the purpose of this meta). She wears it the next day because she’s a mom and she doesn’t have time to replace it. It’s what she wears to comfort her terrified daughter, holding her and reminding her she’s too little to be brave. Kim Burgess knows all about being brave when you don’t think you can be, and it’s the last thing she wants for her child. It’s the last thing we see in that episode after Kim asks Adam to be a family, a big round thing for that little girl who’s now a Burgess and is so loved. And they say clothes don’t have symbolism.

There’s another coat of Kim’s that she doesn’t wear often, but it’s always when there’s moments between Burzek of high emotion, and that’s the red one. She wore it when she told Adam she was keeping their baby, that they were a family. She wore it in 8x02 when she thought Adam was dead, making sure he was still alive and the bullet hadn’t pierced through his vest. And she’s wearing it in the 9x09 promo photos. If the mustard coat means motherhood, the red one means she cares deeply for Adam Ruzek.

Adam’s clothes are similar, but it’s not as obvious as the two women’s. His flannel colours tell a story. Red flannel is emotion, but normally it’s Kim. In every episode this season they’ve had a lot of interaction - 9x02 comes to mind most particularly - that he’s worn flannel in (because 9x06 was tragically flannel less apart from the last scene), he’s been in red. The red and white flannel at Kim’s and meeting his CI, that night when they found her body. 9x05, he’s wearing the rust flannel when he and Kim are working together. But not only is he just wearing that flannel, he’s wearing the exact same outfit as when Kim asked him to be custodian.

That blue bomber jacket has been worn multiple times (it’s even in this year’s promo photos, thank you photographers!), but he’s wearing the exact outfit as when he came over in that episode. An episode about Black children and the way they’re treated by a society that makes them grow up too fast, an episode that directly leads into the one where Adam rejects the protect cops at all costs rhetoric he’s spewed his entire life, because he’s grown and changed. Because he cares for a little girl now, and his life has grown.

There’s so many examples of him wearing that jacket throughout seasons 7, 8, and 9, but the one I keep coming back to is in 8x15, he’s holding it when they do the raid on the bar where the girls are dead. That’s the jacket he wears when he realises something, or that’s what it’s become. He wears it realising yes Kim trusts him with her daughter. He wears it realising that he has a child he needs to keep safe from the cruelty of the world because to quote Hailey in the next episode he’s taken that oath. He wears it when he realises this little girl that he clearly loves, who he brings out for brunch and who he leaves his poker game for to buy a platypus, will have a very different life to his because of her skin colour.

There’s so much more I can go into, but this show uses wardrobe as a character. Kim wearing the same sweater for the post miscarriage locker room fight and asking Adam to be custodian. Kevin wearing brighter colours as he becomes more aware of who he is as a person. Jay’s wardrobe morphing to be nearly a more modern Antonio as he takes the role Antonio once held - T-shirts that are cut well, jeans and boots to hold up to what they do on a daily basis. Voight’s main jackets lightening in colour as he moves more towards what’s “right”, but how even now we don’t see the man in colour. He prefers to be unobtrusive and hide in the background.

This is such fertile ground for a meta, and I’ve so much more, but this will work for now!

[fighterkimburgess]

This thought came to me out of the blue so I'm basically throwing this out there to see if timing would have even lined up or if production thinks this far ahead: Would Brettsey have happened in season 10 with Jesse leaving had Kara supposedly not needed the excuse for time off? I feel bad for my Brettsey fans and understand why they feel hurt. I'm trying to rationalize why the show runners would have gone this route. They had to KNOW it would have been hard to write that relationship??? Or maybe not...I'm not sure how much credit I want to give the show runners sometimes (lol)

I have no idea to be honest. I really don’t.

The one thing that gets me is it all just felt so incredibly unnecessary. I’m not as upset as I thought I’d be, but I’m devastated for my friends who love Brettsey, who wanted to see them succeed against the odds. Long distance is hard and it’s not fair but it’s how it goes.

I tend to think it still would have happened, and we would have heard references to weekends away, and maybe Kara in half an episode. But we don’t know, and I don’t think anyone can plan for that.

One thing I absolutely love about this costume team is Sylvie is wearing the same shirt as she did in 8x02 when she broke up with Kyle.

8x02

11x01

It’s a similar motif to how when Matt confessed his love for her in 9x15 she was wearing the same jumper as when she ended things with Antonio in 6x8, that moving on using costuming. It’s something PD does really well, but we don’t often see a lot of in fire (because the characters most often wear their uniforms).

I actually think this particular costuming choice could mean something. Kyle gave Sylvie the moment here to decide what’s right for her. This shirt could be similar - in a few years time we’ll see Matt do the same for her, whether it’s him returning or things changing. So maybe at the end of thirteen if we see this shirt roughly every three years?

[fighterkimburgess]

Gonna go with something I’ve been thinking a lot about for Voight and punishment, because I think we all know he’s not gonna end up in jail for what he’s done. We know that.

But is a worse thing for him knowing that he’s lost the respect and trust of the entire unit?

I’ve written before about his code, how he sees the unit as his family. It’s pretty clear he sees Kim and Adam as his kids, and he has familial feelings for Kev, Jay, and Hailey. I honestly believe in whatever twisted way he has he does care.

But losing all of them? Yeah, he’s their sergeant. But going from that relationship of giving advice and talking about things, scenes like telling Kevin he’s proud of him? The checking in on Kim? And losing it entirely. Work talk only. Seeing them talk about private lives together but drop it when he’s in the room. The Upstead wedding, the eventual Burzek wedding, and he’s not there for it. They don’t want him there because he’s just their boss.

I think that could be a compelling punishment for him. If it was Eid I’d have no hope of it being done well, I’d be convinced it wouldn’t work. But I think with Gwen as showrunner it could be really interesting. What happens to the man with no family who was starting to build one up from his team is left adrift, with nobody except maybe Trudy to support him?

I mean, I’d love to see him in prison. Don’t get me wrong, even im not defending him anymore. But with knowing he isn’t going anywhere I wonder how this could play out.

[fighterkimburgess]

Why do I feel a vibe between Anna and Voight? Just tell me I’m crazy and I’ll stfu.

You’re crazy.

Like there’s a vibe, but it’s definitely not romantic. I’ve been considering the meta but Voight metas never do well but hey. Let’s go with it.

Anna’s got a son who’s roughly the same age his grandson is. She’s about the same age Justin would be if he hadn’t died. And we know from Fire that Justin was close to following the path Anna’s on right now and getting involved in crime.

I think he’s seeing this as his second chance. He knows he’s permanently damaged his relationship with Adam and Kim by hiding the truth about Roy (because I’m pretty sure they’ve no idea how he died just that he did), while Jay and he have their new understanding he knows Jay and Hailey aren’t going to trust him. And he knows Kevin is the one who’s trying to build a life outside of just being a cop.

But here’s this woman the same age as his son would be, with a child the same age as his grandson. And maybe he can help her the way he didn’t manage to help Justin, and make sure that Rafa keeps his whole family. He can do his best to stop another family going through what he did.

It’s been six years and he’s still grieving. He still does their birthday tradition. The woman he thought of as a daughter nearly died too. But maybe, just maybe, he can keep someone safe when he hasn’t kept the people he loves safe before.

[fighterkimburgess]

I’m still fully going with the “Voight will take the fall for Walton’s death” and here’s why.

Usually these episodes just solidify the bonds the characters have. But here? We saw how alone he is. He’s blocking Trudy out, he’s only talking work talk, that conversation with Jay about not trusting him and the one with Ana about their kids is the only personal one he’s had.

I don’t think they’re gonna write him off, but they’re showing how alone he is while highlighting even when it’s tough, Hailey has people around her. She’s supported. And I think Voight’s gonna do whatever he can to keep her away from trouble.

And this seems to all be leading to the winter finale revealing he’s dead and honestly I can’t wait even if Kim’s reaction is gonna kill me. (And if 9x09 isn’t Kim focused I’m gonna be surprised)

[fighterkimburgess]

I’m doing a Burzek rewatch of CPD. What’s your take on the revelation in 7x19 of Adam sleeping with the bartender? I’d love a meta on this! Thank you for your thoughts on this because I have a lot.

Honestly? My main thing is he’s hurting. He’s just hurting so, so much. But he’s realised he can’t be self destructive, going into a bottle isn’t something he can do because it’s going to affect his job if he goes too far. So he goes out, he has a few beers and picks up someone because just maybe this means he can feel something. I’m throwing this below the cut because I have a feeling it’s gonna get loooong.

Like in the timeline of the show, here’s everything he’s dealt with. Kim tells him she’s pregnant in 7x08, she decides she’s keeping the baby and tells their mutual best friend in 7x11, which is when everyone finds out and she’s put on desk duty. She loses it in 7x13. So his world is turned absolutely upside down in the space of just a few weeks. And he loses it.

He’s grieving because from the very moment Kim tells him she’s pregnant he wants their child. He wants their baby, he wants everything. He doesn’t just propose because it’s “the right thing to do”, he honestly loves Kim and wants their family to be whole. He wants a baby who knows their parents love them, love each other. To steal from Kim in 8x13, he wants the whole big round thing. But he knows she’s not sure and he leaves it for her to decide. But he wants that baby and their family.

But when she loses the baby she shuts down. She tries rationalising it, that it happens to everyone. And she blames herself. They have that fight in the locker room where she screams she wants him to be angry with her but he can’t. He doesn’t blame her because he knows Kim Burgess better than anyone else in the world does, and she saved a girls life that day. Yeah they lost their child, but he can’t blame her for being the cop and the woman he knows she is.

I think he also blames himself for not being there on time. If he and Hailey had been just a little bit faster. If they’d gotten there in time. If they’d been closer, if he hadn’t hit a red light, if, if, if. There’s probably thousands of ifs and buts and maybes going through his head. If Voight didn’t let Kim come back for the case. If Kim hadn’t gone to the scene. If he’d been faster. If Kim had gotten her gun faster. If, if, if, then maybe they’d be healthy and live together and Kim would be heavily pregnant.

But she just shuts him out. They’re both grieving, they’re both upset, they’re both angry but at different things. And we’ve seen before that Adam’s anger tends to be explosive. He has a temper, but he’s reigned it in. He tries to ignore Roman - as hard as that is - and he knows that drinking alone is a bad thing. We know he’s seen what addiction does, Bob is proof of that, so he does it semi sensibly. He goes to a bar, he’s a good looking, single guy, and he chats up the bartender and goes home with her.

I don’t think it’s even about her, tbh. He’s lost. He’d started to define himself as a dad. The rice grain baby, the sonogram still in his locker even after the miscarriage, the way he immediately changed to protecting Kim and the baby. The way his entire way of working changed, because he had someone who needed him home safe.

And then they were just gone. And he could have blamed Kim, he could have been angry with her. But he knows that in her position he would have done the exact same thing. Imagine the trauma of walking in on that scene? Imagine walking in, seeing your ex who you’re slowly becoming good friends with doing CPR on someone while the love of your life and the mother of your child is begging you to help her, that she’s not ok and she knows already she’s lost your child but she needs help and she needs you to help her? Driving to the hospital while she’s in so much pain, lights and sirens going 90 while you’re determined to get there, even though you can see she’s bleeding and you know that there isn’t going to be a happy ending at the end of this hospital trip. That the baby you want so much - the future you’d convinced yourself you could never have once your engagement ended but somehow landed on your lap - is gone and you know it, but you still have that tiny flicker of hope that maybe you’ll be lucky. Maybe you’ll get to meet them. Just maybe.

And then you don’t. The baby’s dead, the love of your life is in physical, emotional, and mental pain, and all you can do is sit there and listen to the medical jargon. And your heart is aching and you want to cry, you want to be held and let it out. But you can’t. Because he knows Kim needs him more, he promises her he’s “not going anywhere”, half propped on that bed while she’s basically catatonic.

And Kim, the woman he loves, the woman he’s spent so long loving from afar and then finally thinking he’s got a happy ending with, pushes him away. It’s classic Burzek miscommunication - she thinks he hates her, he thinks she doesn’t want him reminding her. But they have that fight and he finally sees just how hurt Kim is, and she still won’t let him in. She still won’t let him help, but he’s hurting too. He lost a child too. And yeah he wasn’t pregnant, but it was their baby.

I just see it as Adam making the decision to get comfort wherever he can, even though he knows it’s not a good decision. But it’s a warm body, it’s comfort, and it’s casual. And as Sheri says, “he’s just hung up on his ex, it’s all he talked about”.

He didn’t tell her his job, just he worked for the city. He didn’t let her in. It was the most casual of casual it could have been. Because as he says, “everything I think is gonna make me happy ends up just making me sad”. He’s trying desperately to keep his mind off everything, distracting himself with drinking and women (and I’d nearly put money on Sheri not being the only woman he slept with in that time), trying to make himself just think about Anything That Isn’t What He Lost. Because he was so close to everything he ever wanted, and it just slipped through his grasp.

[fighterkimburgess]

From Patrol to Family (AKA the relationship between Hank Voight and Kim Burgess)

So yeah, I'm back in my Hank Voight's relationships with his unit feels. Here's the first one of those metas I've been talking about, with the relationship between Voight and Kim.

I think the first thing that hits you about their relationship is that Kim wants Intelligence. She wants to be in the unit. She wants that job. And she makes it pretty clear from the get go. There's no way Voight doesn't know of her, know that she wants it. She and Kevin end up being the go to patrol officers to help Intelligence out. And while Kev's definitely interested, he doesn't seem to have the full drive to want Intelligence as much as Kim does.

But then she gets told, very specifically, that whatever's going on between her and Adam is the reason she doesn't get Intelligence. That Voight doesn't trust inter unit relationships, so she doesn't get to come up. Even when she's earned it, even when technically there's nothing between her and Adam at that moment. And this leads to one of the three turning points in their early relationship - Kim moving on after not getting Intelligence.

I am fully convinced that when Trudy was told Kevin Atwater was moving to Intelligence she reamed Voight out for not promoting Kim. It's clear other people thought Kim should have gotten the job (Al even said it Kev's first day!), but that's how Voight made his decision. But Kim didn't break. She didn't falter. She went straight back to work doing her job because if Hank Voight was going to think she would crumble because of that, he was wrong. And she pushed through, dealing with shitty temporary partners (and an even shittier permanent one but lets ignore Roman for this), because that's what she does. And I think she built a bit of respect from Voight for that, because she just went back to proving what she can do as a cop.

It's also a big part of the reason she and Adam hide their relationship for so long. Kim's been told that if she and Adam are together she can't have her dream job. So they sneak around and hide it (badly), because Adam recognises how important this is to Kim. And then she gets shot.

I've always wondered - when did Adam tell Voight about their relationship? They arrived at the scene together, did he tell Voight in the car? That he and Kim had been...what did he say? Sleeping together? Seeing each other? Dating? She's the love of his life? It's pretty obvious from Adam's reaction to Kim on the gurney, and Voight’s non reaction to Adam, that he's been told, even if he already had his suspicions.

But this leads to number two on the turning points. Voight offers Kim Intelligence. He offers her not only Intelligence, but turning a blind eye to her relationship with Adam. And she turns him down. She says no. And I think that's the moment Voight realises just how much he's underestimated Kim Burgess.

I go on and on about the donut scene in the hospital, but it's for good reason. We've seen so many of that unit injured and end up in hospital, but Voight visits the patrol officer who he technically has no reason to talk to. And brings her donuts. Ones he knows she likes. Voight isn't a kind man. He's calculating and deliberate and he'll be nice to people, but he doesn't do things just to be kind. This is an actually kind act. He tells Kim she should be up there, and he wants her in the unit, but she turns him down.

I think he feels a bit of guilt at this point too. Remember, he told Kim about six months before in the show's timeline that she wasn't being brought up to Intelligence because of her relationship with Adam. If he hadn't stuck to his rule, she wouldn't have been shot. Someone else would have been partnered with Roman, and they would have been killed. It's only through sheer luck that Kim wasn't, because if she was any taller it would have been buckshot to the chest and she'd be dead. So he's feeling guilty because if he hadn't made an assumption then she probably wouldn't be in a hospital bed. He's never actually been shot, and to see this twenty-something cop who's been proving herself over and over be shot? It's a shock to the system.

But it's when she comes up to him after, when she's back at work and tells him she's not ready to give up Patrol that he realises what a good cop she is. She wants Intelligence, but she wants to be ready for Intelligence. She wants to have the best possible shot at it. And she knows that if she leaves Roman now, she's still going to be working through those feelings. Because Kim's too good a person to let Roman have to actually feel for his mistakes, so she decides that she's gonna be the bigger person. And it's that line, "my partner and I, we went through something with that shooting, and you know, I'm just...I'm not going to leave him until we can both put it behind us."

Kim's not just a cop. She's a cop's cop. She's the one who will stand up and listen and do her best and be there for the people she works with day in, and day out. And that's what I think makes Voight realise that she's the next person he's bringing into Intelligence when she's ready. Because he wants someone who isn't just loyal to Chicago and CPD, but loyal to the unit as well. He knows he'll have that in Kim when she's ready. And he's willing to wait.

There's also the deep, awful irony of Kim giving up her dream (temporarily) to make sure Sean's ok after SHE was shot, but then when he's shot and she goes through the trauma of nearly being prosecuted for her actions afterwards, he wants her to leave Chicago with him instead of staying to help her recover. But that's not the subject of this meta so I'm not going there (except to say FUCK SEAN ROMAN but ye all know me so is that really surprising?)

Even a few episodes later, when Kim and Roman are taken he jumps into action. Adam just says he has a bad feeling, nobody can find her or Roman, he wants to check their last known. And Voight immediately says they’re grabbing the whole team to do it. And you can see the pride clear on his face when Kim is a self rescuing princess and has stopped a smuggling ring basically singlehandedly.

But the third thing happens near the end of the season, when Kev's sent back to patrol after leaving the can there when the suspect attempts suicide with it. We know it was an accident, we know it was unintentional, but Voight sends him straight back down and brings Kim up. It's whiplash for Kim, everything she'd wanted a short while ago she now has, but knows it's temporary. And it teaches her two very important things. Number one, Intelligence is where she belongs. And number two, they still trust and believe in her even after she turned them down.

She knows it’s only temporary but she still does the job well, and she fights to prove she deserves to be there. And that’s when their relationship truly changes, because Voight recognises the asset she is, and how good she can be. Because she puts her all into every case, and while she’s disappointed about going back to patrol, she swallows her pride and she does the job. She’s proven herself, she’s proven she can do the work, and that keeps her happy for the moment.

We don’t really see much interaction between the two of them in s3, but the one episode we do see a lot in is Justice. Immediately he’s on Kim’s side, making sure her story’s straight and she’s memorised it. He knows she doesn’t need it, but he knows that right now she’s stressed, she’s worried about her partner and she needs something to do. And even when Peter Stone is assigned as the ASA - and Hank could send Antonio or Al down to deal with him - he doesn’t. This is the man who sent Hank Voight to jail. A man who Voight barely hides his dislike and disdain for. But when it comes to Kim Burgess, he goes and deals with the man who sent him to prison. Then as soon as Stone asks what kind of cop Kim is, Hank’s response is exactly what he thinks of Kim. She’s “A plus”. He defends Kim, calling it a clean shoot. Because he knows the kind of person Kim is, and that she wouldn’t have shot unless she was absolutely certain.

And he does that the entire way through. He gets Kim out of the car, he keeps a hold of her through the crowd screaming at her. The most nerve-racking moment of her life, having to keep her head up and he makes sure she does that, with a hand on her arm escorting her through. He’s reminding her that he’s there, all of Intelligence is there, and they support her because they know who Kim is and know what she does. They know the kind of person she is. To paraphrase Adam, they know her heart. And he keeps digging to be able to make sure it’s clear the kind of person Kim is, and she’s completely vindicated.

And in s4, he brings her up. Antonio’s left CPD, moved to work with Stone, they’ve got a space open and he immediately chooses Kim. And she takes it. Immediately she’s being forced to prove herself - Adam’s gone, Rixton joins the unit and she’s proving herself. She saves Al when they’re in a pursuit. And when Adam comes back she just sticks to work, proving herself.

So when she’s worried about her sister, freaking out about Nicole, Voight immediately tells her to ping her phone and find Nicole. And he’s there helping her through the entire investigation, through Kim worrying and finding Nicole, and at the end when Kim asks to take furlough. And not even that, he goes after Goldwin and nearly killed him. Because he’s caused Kim’s family to be hurt, and that means Voight’s family has been hurt. He said it himself, “an attack on your family is an attack on our family”.

And then when Kim, the brand new member of the unit goes and tells him that she needs to take furlough to look after her sister, he tells her to take as long as she needs. He tells her to go, and look after Nicole, and be there for her. I can’t see him doing that with nearly anyone else? Like, he’s so distinctly looking out for her, making sure that she’s doing what’s right for her family. He keeps her place open for her, he makes sure she knows that she’s the kind of cop that they need in the unit and they’re there for her. She can leave to do what she needs to do, knowing that she’s got her place there.

That protectiveness over Kim is immediately visible in s5, from 5x01. When Kim is called “naive and beautiful” by Price, we know that Al told Voight. And we can see Voight’s behaviour towards Price when that happens. He’s protective over Kim even there. In 5x02 she goes off book to find out what really happened to Toma, despite Voight’s explicit warnings not to. She doesn’t get yelled at, and then she solves the case. Voight gives her so much leeway, so much more than he’s given anyone else. Even Hailey, who’s a detective, he’s got on a shorter leash. And Voight helps Kim clear Toma’s name when she has the proof.

It continues, when they have the case that crosses over with with her boyfriend, Matt’s federal case. Kim reveals case information to Matt. She actually tells Matt about their case. But Voight…just lets it go. He’s not happy, but he does. He uses Kim to get the meeting, and then he tells Kim what she needs to do. She may not have been happy about lying to him, hated herself for doing it, but she lied to Matt and got the information they needed to solve their case. But she was ready for it, and she did it. Even with her reservations, even with wanting to keep her relationship, even with her admitted issues with it to Adam, she did it because she’s loyal to the team. She’s loyal to Voight. She realises that the team is her family and the case is what matters to her.

This pattern continues. He finds out she lied to IRT. Lied about having a child in her car when they were involved in a firefight. That’s a demotion offence. But he doesn’t. He warns her, he tells her he will bury her if he finds out she does anything to jeopardise their cases again, but that’s it. She faces basically no consequences for what she’s done, because it gets cleared up. Can we ever see Voight treat anyone in that way?

In 6x14 when she and Hailey are abducted, Voight is clearly worried. He always refers to them as “Kim and Hailey”, never the other way round. Is it because he’s used to doing it, or because Kim is on his mind more? His speech at the end about how they all go home, it’s clear because that’s how they need to live their lives and their work, and leave their home lives at home.

But yet, just five episodes later he brings her personal life into work. They don’t need to take on William’s case, it should have gone to Robbery Homicide. But because it was someone involved in the unit Hank made sure they took it. He had a suspect, he had a stone cold conviction. But because Kim asked him not to, he gave her 48 hours to see what they could find. He blocks a potential conviction so Kim can dig in, because he trusts her judgment and he trusts who she is as a cop. He believes in her. He doesn’t do that easily, and there’s very few on the team he would do that with. Maybe Antonio? Maybe Jay? But it’s not something he offers widely. But he trusts Kim, follows her judgment, and ends up arresting the right person for it.

This trusting her and following her judgment continues when she tells him about her pregnancy. We don’t get the story, we don’t get the dialogue. But we get to see his face as it pans across, going from surprise to a smile, to a genuine grin. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her close and you can see from Kim’s body language she didn’t expect that response. She takes a couple of seconds to relax into it, but she hugs him back. He’s genuinely delighted for her and Adam and makes sure she knows her job will be there for her when she’s back.

She’s on light duty, answering 911 calls, but goes to do a followup because she knows something isn’t right. And he approves, even though technically she shouldn’t have been anywhere near the scene. He keeps her on the case, making sure she’s riding the desk but he keeps her back in Intelligence to work it because it’s her instincts. And after she loses the pregnancy we see the looks he gives her, the way he checks in subtly with her.

But it’s in s8 where the parental relationship they have really comes through. From when she takes in Makayla he’s checking in on her, and it’s clear in Trouble Dolls that she’s talked to him more than once about parenting. The way he gives her that look of “are you ok” when she comes back from Makayla’s school.

But it’s 8x16 where it’s so clear. His immediate response to her going missing is to try calm Adam down, and come up with reasonable solutions. There isn’t enough blood for a major injury, and they’d have left her body there if she’d died. But his face when he realises that’s Kim in the back of the car on the POD footage? That’s a man who’s terrified for his pseudo daughter. Who just wants to make sure she’s ok.

And that leads into his behaviour the entire time. He goes off book almost immediately. The Voight of most of s8 would never have let Adam hold a gun to anyone, let alone their head. But this is Kim who’s missing, she’s part of his family and the rules fly out the window. And his protectiveness shows for the entire episode for the rest of the team. He’s sending Adam and Hailey on the easy calls, going off book himself to find Walton.

But even when he finds him, he’s still somewhat restrained. He beats him, but not badly. Not until Walton mentions Makayla. The second he says “or her daughter”, Voight’s entire demeanour changes. He turns from the man who wants to find his officer, his daughter, to the man who knows that if Walton walks away the woman he considers his daughter will be in danger, but worse than that, Kim’s daughter will be in danger. Hank’s lost two children, remember. He lost a stillborn daughter when Justin was born, and he lost Justin. He’s technically lost three if you count Erin having to leave Chicago.

Hank Voight is a man who’s lost everything. His wife, his children, his best friend, access to his grandson. But he knows the worst pain he’s ever felt was losing a child. And once he gets Kim back - he will never accept that Kim won’t return safely - he won’t ever let her have the risk of losing her daughter. She won’t have to feel the same pain he did. He won’t let the woman he loves like a daughter lose her child. He can’t do that.

And that relief on his face when it comes over the radio that Kim’s alive? She’s alive and they have her and she’s safe. And that lasts for all of a few seconds until Jay comes over the radio with “she’s been bleeding the whole time”. She’s been bleeding, she’s nearly died, and that’s the thing that gets him. He was never going to let Walton walk away, but that’s the moment that he decides no matter what he’s going to kill him.

I’m not going to go into manipulating Hailey to shoot Walton, I’ve done a full meta about that already and this is about Voight and Kim. But the last thing Voight does in the season is burn Walton’s body. It’s partly as a forensic countermeasure - he never wants to risk what happened to Al happening to anyone else - and partly to make sure Kim is safe. He’s dead, he’s gone, nobody in Walton’s trafficking ring will be able to track it back to Kim and Intelligence.

It’s not clear from the start of the show, but by the last couple of seasons it’s so obvious, Hank Voight loves Kim Burgess as a daughter. He cares about her as a woman, as a cop, as a person. He tries to keep that core of Kim that’s good and sweet and has a pure heart there, even when in their job they see the worst of the world.

And I think from Kim’s perspective, she’s starting to feel that way. She wasn’t originally. She was not exactly scared of him, but she knew his reputation, knew what he was capable of. But over the seasons, as she’s gotten to not only know him as a cop but as her Sarge, as she’s learned from him and learned how to make her decisions, I think those feelings have come for her too. It’s not as deep as Hank’s - Kim does have a family still, she has Nicole and Zoe, Makayla and Adam - but they’re there.

I think I find them so interesting because there’s this weird dichotomy between them. It’s super clear before Kim started working for Hank he cared about her as a person not just a cop. And Kim didn’t feel the same way about him, he went from being the guy who wouldn’t hire her, to her boyfriend/fiance/ex-fiance’s boss, to the guy who did hire her. She’s a few seasons behind on how that relationship is. But it’s one I really look forward to seeing grow. Will Kim ever find out the lengths Voight was willing to go to find her? Will she realise just how much she means to him? Who can say except the writers. But I’m so excited to see where it goes from here.

[fighterkimburgess]

The Similarities of Trauma

Or, Cíara's back in their Voight and Kim similarities feels, so we're going with it.

There's one moment in 9x02 that constantly plays on my mind, and it's surprisingly not the hospital hallway scene. It's the moment where there's knocks on her door, Kim is awake and alert so quickly (and I'm not even gonna go into that she felt safe enough to sleep surrounded by Adam's scent but yes that's a thing I love), and she goes straight for her gun. And there's one moment that this reminds me of nearly immediately.

How in 2x12, when there's knocks on his back door a few weeks after he's been abducted with his pregnant daughter in law, Hank Voight immediately grabs a shotgun and cocks it before getting to the door. So lets talk about the weirdness of family, the similarities of the two scenes, and how this would play out if I had faith in the PD writers to let it happen.

The first thing in 9x02 is Kim Is Not Ok. Not physically, not mentally, barely emotionally. She struggles reaching a shelf, despite the "nice body torque" she employs. Her wounds are still weeping. Mentally she's a wreck and has to surround herself with the love of her life's scent to be able to sleep. Let's be clear, she would probably feel safer in her bedroom. There's doors between the front and her if she's there, there's more security. But she's on the couch beside a (pretty flimsy tbh) door because she feels secure. We'll go into that in a different meta probably halfway through the season because y'all, I've got feelings.

But she snaps awake immediately, and her very first response is to grab her gun. She's alone. Makayla's at school, Adam's at work, there's someone at the door and she's alone and terrified. So she scrambles, staying low and grabbing it immediately, even though we know that reaching that high is physically sore for her. She immediately takes the pose she would if she's doing a raid. She's in pain, she's shaking with the effort it takes, she's nearly gasping and she's blinking away the pain, but she's doing everything she's always been trained for.

She makes it to the door, putting her hand over where the lock is so she can sense if someone's about to try pick it, still moving carefully. And then Hank calls out. "Kim, it's me. It's Hank.". And she just physically relaxes. She half hides the gun under the letters at her hall table, opening the door and pinning that "everything is completely fine" mask on her face. Everything is fine. She'll convince him of that.

But what Kim doesn't know - what nobody still in Chicago knows - is that Voight's been through it. Apart from Jay, he's probably the person who knows best what she's going through. He may not have been shot when he was abducted, but he knows what it's like to have been abducted and beg for your family's life, because he's done it before. He was abducted with Olive when she was pregnant, and he knows exactly how it feels.

We've seen his reaction to that before, back in 2x12 (aka the first time Disco Bob appears), at the end of the episode. There's a knock on his back door, and he appears from upstairs with a shotgun in his hands. More knocks, and he cocks it, ready to go. He does similarly to Kim, unlocking the door and standing there waiting for someone to enter and he's fully prepared to shoot. Until Erin calls out "Hank, put the gun down, it's me."

And it's a similar realisation. The gun goes down, half hidden. But the difference here is Erin is Hank's daughter, he calls her that. She knows his paranoia, knows that he's going to be like that and can recognise it. And having someone who knows that can really help.

But Voight wasn't expecting that from Kim. He wasn't expecting Kim to be this jumpy, be this way after the case. And why would he?

He's seen Kim go through so many traumas, but we'll take three to argue the point - her shooting in 2x09/10, the abduction in 6x14, and the miscarriage in 7x13.

After every single one of these traumas, Kim shut down. She hid her trauma from absolutely everyone. The only person who got to see any of how it impacted her was Adam after the miscarriage, but even then she mostly hid it from him too. She put it behind her and pretended she was normal. After she was shot she turned down Intelligence. After she was abducted she drank whiskey with Hailey and pretended it was normal. After the miscarriage she came back to work as soon as possible and just ignored condolences people were giving her.

This is the first time a trauma has affected Kim so much that she's not able to hide it. And the two people who can see how it's affecting her? The love of her life, and the man who treats her as a semi daughter.

I'm interested to see how this goes. Does Voight find out just how badly Kim is actually doing? Does he try talk to her about it? Or does he shut it down? He knows what she's going through, knows the feeling of having asked for your family to be safe, knows the feeling of not feeling safe in your home. But at least she has Adam to help. He didn't have anyone, really.

There's so many similarities between the two, but this juxtaposition? Of Voight both knowing what she's going through and knowing the truth that could calm Kim and help her recover? I'm wondering how this is going to go.

[fighterkimburgess]

Sylvie Brett and emotions/trauma - I has feels.

I've had this rattling around my brain about Sylvie and emotions and trauma and how it all manifests, so I'm just gonna blurt it out and hope this all makes sense.

We know her first moments with trauma was when she was 14 or 15, in ninth grade when her mom had a breakdown. Her dad was constantly travelling for work, and didn't really have a choice to not be there. At that age, you're learning your limits. You're learning what you can and can't do, and you're trying to stretch boundaries. Being a young teenager and seeing your mom have a nervous breakdown? Having to deal with your aunt picking up the slack? It's gotta be torturous. Teenagers are cruel anyway, but dealing with that? In a small town everyone knows everyone else's business, there's no way everyone else didn't know what was going on with Mrs. Brett. And there were probably the well meaning parents who kept an eye on Sylvie, offering to bring over meals and stuff. But the insidious gossip about someone with a mental health breakdown? In rural anywhere? in probably 2003/4? Can you imagine how hard that was?

I think that's where Sylvie's shell comes from originally. She would have had to build it quickly to herself just get through the day, ignoring the comments and taunts from her peers. Because she's Sylvie Brett with two T's, and that's how she learned she had to get by. Just keep pushing on and hope things get better eventually.

Then shortly after her mom recovers, she ends up in a relationship with Harrison. From everything we've learned about their relationship they were high school sweethearts. He was probably the first guy who made Sylvie feel like she was special, like she deserved something nice in the world. And she grew up seeing her parents love each other, then seeing her mother's illness, and someone offering her love? Of course she jumped at it. Wouldn't anyone?

But she's talked about how he made her feel by the end.

I don't know when it happened, but from her reaction the relationship ended up probably emotionally abusive. From the way she says "try and cut me down" I don't think it was from the start. If I had to guess (and this is from my own experience of abusive relationships) I'd say it was when she was working full time as an EMT. She started learning she could save people's lives. She might not have been able to pull her mother out of her depression as a teenager, but Sylvie Brett could save people. She learned how to use whatever she had at hand to try bring them back to life, and she's damn good at it. Remember that scene from her second episode where she improvised with the tubing? If she wasn't good at what she does, it wouldn't have worked and Gabby NEVER would have let her do it.

But then Harrison leaves her. She's built herself up from where she was as a teenager. She's no longer "Sylvie Brett whose Mom had a breakdown", she's "Sylvie Brett the EMT and Harrison's fiancée". But then he leaves, and she's in a small town where she can't escape people talking about her. Living in a small town everyone knows everything about everyone. She was probably the height of gossip for weeks, and when the wedding date passed you know people were mentioning it. Plus, generic sexism means that even though he left her, people would have blamed her.

So she runs. She runs to Chicago and she manages to impress enough to get a job at CFD. And she runs straight to 51, where she finds a family. They don't know her background. They don't know what happened in Fowlerton unless she tells them. They don't know anything about her except she's Brett, Gabby's new partner and she's Shay's replacement and she makes people's heart hurt when they turn and look at her for the first few weeks because all they see is Leslie Shay.

But she finds her feet. She recovers from the abduction, and goes to therapy to get past it. She dates Joe and breaks up with him. The next super traumatic thing that happens is the Kjorvan storyline where she's held at gunpoint at that scene. This is the first time she's stared down the barrel of a gun. She knew death was a possibility for the abduction. She knew there was a chance. But she had a gun facing her, and this is where we see her true Trauma response. She froze. Fight or flight happened, and Sylvie wasn't going to leave her patient. So she froze and she did what she had to to get out of that situation alive.

And this is the pattern we see every time something emotional happens, up until 8x19 when she cries on Matt's shoulder because Scott wants her to take Amelia. She freezes, she ignores it, and then she lets herself feel in her own time. We saw it in S6 when she cried in the car. We saw it in S8 when she was weighing up leaving Kyle. Every single time Sylvie Brett feels her emotions, she hides them until she's alone and then she lets herself feel. Except this time, cause she feels safe and she feels ok enough to let them out with Matt.

We see it at the start of that scene, she wanted somewhere quiet so she could think, so she could feel. Could she be a mother to her sister? And for the first time ever, she lets her feelings out with another person. And it's part of what makes their relationship so special that she CAN do that. He's probably the first person since she was in ninth grade that can make her feel like this. Can make her feel like she's allowed have those feelings, like it's legitimate and it's not a bad thing.

And then we get 9x02. And the look in her eyes as she tells him to leave, the way she's stopping the tears from falling until he's gone. He used to be the person she could cry with, the person she felt safe around. But now he's not and she's alone and she has to wait for him to close her front door so she can let them fall. And I don't think it's just the Gabby thing. I think it's he was the one person she could trust implicitly with everything going on. He was there through the Julie and Amelia stuff. He gave her the time she needed. And he held her when she needed it. But now? Now she doesn't know if she can trust him, because she offered him her battered heart and then she had to take it back to stop being even more hurt.

9x12 gives me so much hope. Not just the going to the neurologist. Not the breaking up with Greg over Matt. Not even on a Brettsey level (although my hope is sky high there anyway). But because for the first time in a long time, Sylvie let her emotions out. And again, it was to Matt.

She told him she was scared. She told him she was worried. She told him how she was feeling and she made him listen to her. That hug? That glorious lift her up and swing her around hug? SYLVIE initiated that. She's the one who smiled, who said "Matt you're ok". She reached up and hugged him, and held on as he swung her around.

Sylvie needs her safe place to let her emotions out. She needs to be able to talk about them. And before Matt, it was alone in her car or her room, not letting anyone else see it. But now she has Matt and she can let them out, and I'm so excited to see her getting to do that more often.

[fighterkimburgess]

Just read your response to that other anon and I have to ask, if you think it was a deliberate writing choice that clearly doesn’t match with what we previously knew about Jay, why do you think they included it as a storyline? Like what is the purpose of it, I also viewed it a bit along the lines of a way to make Hailey feel that he wouldn’t understand her previous actions to set up her breakdown/panic attacks next week. You always give a really interesting take on stuff so interested to know your thoughts behind the reasons why they included it?

Honestly? I think part of it may have been to prove a point to the fandom. But hear me out!

A lot of fandom (not really here on Tumblr, but on Twitter for sure) thinks Jay can do absolutely no wrong. We saw the way people turned on Adam during 8x10 for the, what, eight minutes that we thought he murdered someone? But no matter what Jay has been involved in, so many people think he’s innocent and perfect, even when context clues and his previous actions have shown he’s not. He’s like every member of this unit, they’ve all done things they regret. They’ve all done the wrong thing from time to time. Some accidentally (Kevin and the soda can in s2), some deliberately (Hailey knowing her CI would be killed, Voight every single time the silos are mentioned), but they’re all varying shades of grey.

But he’s officially not. Jay has admitted to a war crime. To one of the most heinous things a person could ever do. He covered up the deliberate murder (and probable torture) of civilians in a war zone. If you’re watching the news, if you see what’s happened in Syria and Rojava? That’s similar, and the media is quick to call it war crimes.

I think the writers wanted a big dark secret for Jay, so they went for the most awful thing they could. We’ve seen it before, they did similar last season with Bob being a corrupt cop who hid how bad things were until it nearly got him and his son killed. So they said “what’s something that the US military could have done in Afghanistan?” And came up with this.

I just…I’m the first person on the Jay isn’t all good side. The same way I am with every character on this show. I read into them, probably too deeply at times, to work out what’s going on and what their motivations could be. It’s why I’m so sure Voight would throw himself under the bus before Hailey (but hey let’s see what next week brings). But this?

This doesn’t feel like who Jay has been. Even in s2 of Fire when he was undercover at Molly’s. Even when he had PTSD. The only sign we had of something happening was that line with Mouse, “here’s to extenuating circumstances”. I honestly thought he’d missed a shot as a sniper and shot a kid. That’s what I thought. I never would have imagined him capable of this.

It kind of feels like a smack in the teeth? I read a review saying that Jay kept silent, and that’s similar to what Haileys done. But Jay didn’t keep silent. He helped cover it up from what he said. He’s kept silent since then, but he covered up the murder of innocents. I’m just saying, now I think about it, there’s a lot of similarities between him and Voight, except the one thing you can always say about Hank Voight is that any murder he’s committed or body he’s hidden, he’s followed his own moral code for it. Is it right? No, not in the slightest. But he’s followed his own morals.

Did Jay follow his when he covered it up? Who can say?

[fighterkimburgess]

The Why Behind Adam's Behaviour in 8x16

I was rewatching 8x15/16 again - because I must hate myself - and one thing hit me as I watched. Why was Adam that scared for Kim straight away? Like we know he loves her, we know he cares about her. But he was so angry with her, even after the custodian conversation.

I think they made plans to have a conversation about their relationship after the raids in 8x15.

At the end of 8x13 they end with a handshake, it's all business between them. They're family, there's always going to be something between them, but they both know they're not in a good place then. And things do get slightly better after that. But Adam's still really hurt by what she said. His face when he says "The questions you have about me? Things haven't been too good between us." He's still so hurt. He's hurt that she thought he'd be a stone cold murderer. He's hurt she jumped to conclusions. He's hurt she didn't ask him how he was before wondering what happened.

But then she trusts him enough with her daughter. Because they were going to have a baby together. Because somewhere she loves him, even if they're messed up right now.

Adam's still in so much pain. They barely interact in 8x14, there's literally about two seconds where they're beside each other, and it's in the bullpen while they're talking. I remember spiralling just finally having them in the same frame again, and they leaned into each other slightly. (@adamruz did a phenomenal gifset of it here) That's the one time they're beside each other all episode.

But in between 8x14 and 15, I think Adam does a lot of thinking. And when 8x15 ends up involving human trafficking - trafficking young girls - he realises exactly what he's signed up for. He did it willingly, but it hits him there. He sees the toll this case takes on Kim because she's a mother, and she's thinking "what if that was my daughter?". And it hits him - what if it was Makayla? What if it was the girl he's pledged legally he'll look after if Kim needs it.

And this makes him realise he's got a lot to learn about girls, and raising girls, because he's got one sister and they're not particularly close and he was mostly raised by his dad. But learning this first hand, actually seeing and understanding how hard it is for women and girls compared to guys, that's what he gets. He knew it offhand, but now he knows it.

And that makes him realise the why of why Kim did what she did in 8x10. Why she felt she had to do it. Why she cut him out after the shooting, and why she jumped to conclusions. He always knew that the world was specifically dangerous for women and girls, but now it's hit him. Now he's looking at the world not through a "I'm a cop and I know the statistics of crimes against women, how could I not?" lens, but through a "this is dangerous for Kim specifically with what we do, and if anything happens to her I'm gonna have a daughter and I need to realise that.".

And that's what makes him realise why Kim pulled away in 8x10. Why she asked "what did you do?". Because she's not thinking just about herself anymore, she has to think about Makayla, and what's right for her and what's going to keep her safe. And with how Adam was acting (understandably tbh), until she spoke to him she couldn't be sure what was happening, and she's now a mother and her daughter has to come first.

So I think he realised that they need to have the conversation because he needs Kim to know that yeah, he's still hurt by what she said, but he gets it and he forgives her because he knows why she did it. And I think they decided that they'd talk after the raids, because they both knew it'd be long and emotional and work had to come first.

But then Kim's abducted and Adam's the one who discovers it and it just breaks something in him. Because he knows their job is dangerous - every single member of their unit has been abducted at least once (remember that time he and Kev were held in the basement in 4x17? I'm counting that as an abduction). He's lived through Kim and Hailey being abducted, he's lived through Kim being held hostage with Roman shortly after she was shot. He knew this could happen, knew this was a chance in their jobs. But he's just realised exactly what this means. Because if they don't get Kim back safe and sound, he's a parent. And apart from everything else, he needs Kim to get back because he needs to tell her he gets it. Even before she was taken, he got it and he understands and he forgives her.

I think this is also why Hailey bringing up Makayla hits him the way it does. It's not just giving up on Kim (at least how he thinks), but it's taking the spot he's promised Kim he'd take. He told her that if anything happened, he'd look after Makayla. And he does what he promised because he knows he has to, even though he wants to stay out there looking for her.

Now this doesn't excuse any of his actions - especially with Kev - but I think it goes through some of what happened. Because that fight also felt out of place for me. There was always going to be something between the two of them about reform at some point. It was always aiming towards a fight with them. But in the entire time they've been friends, in the eight seasons we've known the two of them and seen their friendship grow, the chances of them getting violent with each other just never seemed to be a thing that would happen. It especially never made sense that Kev was the one who moved towards physical action first. Yeah, Adam threw the first punch, but Kev was walking straight to him to push him back. And it never made sense to me that Adam would throw a punch at the one person he knows cares about Kim as much as he does.

But this? Realising that he and Kim were so close to getting everything out? Were going to talk and lay it out, and he could explain everything? I'll never say that Adam was right in what he did - we all know he wasn't and his behaviour was inexcusable - but it's understandable there.

Honestly I could be talking out of my ass right now, but it never made sense to me how he went from so angry and barely talking to her to so scared in the space of an episode. But thinking they were going to try make things work? That makes sense to me. I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this, or if people think I'm totally off base?

[fighterkimburgess]

Based on everything that you reblog from Kim-Ruzek, I believe both Voight snd Hailey are at fault. Hailey because she should have listened to her personal boundary and backed when things felt rough with Voight and Roy. Voight because he kinda manipulated into that shot that killed Roy, refusing to tell the truth (maybe giving Kim some relief) and he manipulated Jay into being the snipper and getting Hailey too close to Roy’s friend so Jay had the right to kill him.

So tagging @kim-ruzek on this cause we’ve been talking about a lot of this!

I’ve written the big ass meta at the end of the last season about Voight and Hailey and what happened (you can read it here I’m actually incredibly proud of the work that went into it). TLDR the only manipulation he did was the actual shot. He told her to leave. He actively gave her and Adam the addresses that would keep them safe. He knew if he found Walton he didn’t know what he would do and he didn’t want them involved. He definitely manipulated her into taking the shot, for sure. But the rest, she’s not blameless for.

I don’t think making Jay the sniper was totally manipulation. It’s Jays role in the team to do it, he does it regularly. And Voight was trying to stop Hailey from saying what she was. But when Irwin pointed the gun at her, Jay shot immediately.

(Honestly I have feelings and concerns about this, and it leads into a general belief that UPSTEAD SHOULD NOT BE PARTNERS ANYMORE BECAUSE THEY CANNOT BE OBJECTIVE IN THE FIELD) But in this case it worked out for Voight really. Here’s the thing though. Voight would have to know that Hailey would put her hands up and be unarmed, that Irwin would point the gun at her, and Jay would take the shot just because Hailey was in danger. I don’t think even he could predict that would happen.

I’m not letting Hailey off the hook for what she said to Kim. She could have said they had her back, that they’d make sure they were safe. She could have said Voight wouldn’t let anything happen to Kim. But instead she said “no”.

This is the woman who the day before she said they all loved. The woman who she’s seen her best friend struggle with his feelings for. The woman who’s now a mother and has to protect her traumatised daughter from, who said traumatised child has given her favourite cuddly toy to to keep Kim safe. And I know Hailey is struggling. I know she’s not ok. I know she’s scared for the consequences and struggling with taking a life. But that was so cruel to Kim. To give her no hope. There’s a million things she could have said. Even “we think he’s left Illinois”. But no. She just said no.

I think shit is going to hit the fan in a while host of ways when the truth comes out. There’s not a doubt in my mind that the entire unit would protect Hailey and Voight when told the surface level story. Voight found him, they were taking him in, he got Voight’s gun, Hailey had to shoot him but they hadn’t called in that they had him so they covered it up. They would have done everything for them. But Adam’s going to feel betrayed that one of his best friends - the woman who told him to leave the search to look after Makayla - could have told him the love of his life is safe but didn’t. Could have told him the child he’s coparenting is safe but didn’t. Kev’s going to be worried for Kim. Jay’s going to feel that his fiancée couldn’t trust him what else is she hiding?

I have a lot of feelings on this, but here’s what I’m gonna end on. I fully, fully believe that if Hailey had told Voight she wanted to confess, he’d have confessed to Miller and said he did the shot. I really do. Because as awful as his actions are, as bad as what he has done is, he has been trying to protect both of them, and give Hailey the advice to move on. Will she be able to? Who knows.