Richard Beck is a nasty piece of work.
Most of Chicago PD Season 10 Episode 15 saw Ruzek going undercover with the Becks and getting close to Samantha, hoping to end the Becks’ meth operation.
But by the end of the hour, it’s abundantly clear that Ruzek has gotten too close.
It was an unusual hour, confusing in parts, with some weird pacing that made the hour feel as if very little happened before we were left with an unfinished storyline we won’t pick up again at least for a month.
One of the best aspects of the hour was that it was focused on Ruzek, who was due for a centric installment of his own that didn’t necessarily have him too intertwined with Burgess or where their relationship was the primary focus.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, we needed something different for Ruzek this time around, and they managed to make this heavy on the case while still giving us those great moments of him as a father, friend, and partner.
The opener, with Ruzek and Kevin hanging out with Jordan and Makayla, was one of the hour’s highlights. Their friendship remains one of the best dynamics in the series, and it’s been a while since we had some quality time with them off the clock.
Adam: You alright?
Callum: My mom won’t let me see my grandpa.
Through their conversation at the rink, we learned that Burgess is still going strong with her therapy and taking the process of getting help and working through her PTSD seriously.
And it’s something that she and Ruzek are tackling together as life partners, ensuring that things are happy and healthy for Makayla and that they’re protecting her.
And in true Kevin fashion, he took the opportunity to check in with Ruzek, too, wondering how he’s also dealing with all of this.
It was a subtle moment but one worth appreciating, as so often with loved ones who the support system or caretaker to those battling issues — they tend to fall by the wayside or put their own feelings and emotional and mental health on the back burner.
It was good to have some insight into how Ruzek is handling things.
You can also appreciate the strong dynamic in all of this. Not only are Burzek and Makayla their own unorthodox family, but that extends to people like Kevin as well.
The mere mention of Uncle Kevin or the moments with Makayla happily playing with Jordan was enough to give you the fuzzies. They’re all so tight-knit.
At so many points in the hour, we understood how much of a family man Ruzek is. He didn’t miss an opportunity to speak about his daughter, and it’s significant progress on Kim’s part that she, without hesitation, says of Adam as Makayla’s father.
And while there were some questionable moments, like Ruzek letting Makayla’s name slip when he was bonding with Samantha, they were outweighed by the touching ones.
Ruzek’s rough day wasn’t assuaged until he could watch Makayla sleep, tucking her in, holding her hand, and being such a total dad with her. It was effortlessly the sweetest, most endearing scene of the hour.
But this case with the Becks seemed to have Ruzek thinking about and valuing family, and his role as a family man influenced how he approached things with Samantha.
Where the rest of the unit sees a meth dealer and a woman running an operation — one that led to the tragic death of the Schneiders, Ruzek sees a scared woman and a loving mom.
The more time Ruzek spends with Samantha, the easier it is for him to see Richard’s hold on her. It’s enough to have him wondering who and what Samantha could’ve been if Richard weren’t her father.
Ruzek feels like everything Samantha has done is out of a fear of her father. It feels like a different dynamic they have than what we may have thought they did during Chicago PD Season 10 Episode 12.
Richard is the leader of their operation and the scary person and ultimate bad guy, but Saman
tha runs the day-to-day and seems to do the most work. She’s also the one who is at the most risk.
The most disturbing part about Richard was that he was a white supremacist who filled his grandson’s backpack with Hitler paraphernalia, books, and other things to indoctrinate him.
It’s the whole other layer of villainy to Richard. However, it felt like they were throwing as many terrible things on him as possible to make him more loathsome.
Of course, there’s still a possibility that Richard’s white supremacist views will play a bigger role in the storyline whenever it returns.
They made too much of a deal about it for them to avoid exploring some angle of it in the future. Hopefully, it won’t be because of Ruzek’s cover getting blown or having something to do with Makayla.
Ruzek has a habit of getting too personally involved and connected with cases.
He’s deep into that and has some desire to save Samantha and Callum from their circumstances with Richard.
Unsurprisingly, Samantha went from wary of Ruzek to pouring all this faith and trust in him and calling him for anything.
They were in the middle of a major deal and hoping to close out the case after they made a bust, but Samantha pulled Ruzek out of the possible action with her frantic need for him to help her find Callum.
And it turned out Callum was hiding in the basement and still upset that his mother banned him from seeing his father.
The whole family dynamic is messy and complicated, contrasting with what Ruzek has with his people. It’s muddying the case.
I’m unsure what the best or intended outcome for this situation is, specifically with Samantha. At this rate, especially with them coming up empty-handed, they can hope she’ll come to her senses one day and help them take down her father.
Cases with Ruzek heading undercover are always interesting. And this one is an extended case. We haven’t had one of those in a long time.
It provides Ruzek with a nice size arc. It gives us some action — that fight scene was choreographed well and intense. And Flueger does well with the material.
Ruzek: This isn’t what I expected. Samantha’s not what I expected.
Burgess: How so?
Ruzek: I don’t know.
It’s something different for them to explore for multiple episodes.
Over to you, Chicago PD Fanatics.
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Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.