S12.E22: Vows

[Snazzy Daisy]

♦️ SEASON FINALE ♦️

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Ruzek and Burgess’ wedding fast approaches, Chapman grows closer to Voight, and Torres faces the emotional fall out of his actions.

Air Date: May 21, 2025

 

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[FnkyChkn34]

All that build up to the wedding, and they just focus on Voight and what's her face? So lame. 

The rest was too... we know that Intelligence will always win; it's not very suspenseful. 

[Snazzy Daisy]

The showrunner has no respect for Burzek fans. The long-awaited wedding is barely featured. It has been reduced to a footnote as if it doesn't matter. Burzek's big moment like this shouldn't be included in Voight's episode.

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"You sanctioned Reid's death."

Hey Nina, Voight did what needed to be done. Get over it. 🙄

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"You're worse than me."

Old Voight is back! 💪🏼

[Joimiaroxeu]

 Yeah, I don't have a problem with what Voight did. I kept shouting at the TV for Voight to cap Reid himself but what he maneuvered was actually better for everyone.

Treating the wedding almost like an afterthought felt like a bait and switch. It also feels to me like this show is turning into the Chicago version of L&O:SVU. Less an ensemble show and more of an attempt to focus on one character.

One good thing though, it looks like the Intelligence Unit will be getting a redecorated set.

[preeya]

All three Chicago finales were underwhelming.

[Nintra16]

That was awesome! 

Great end to a fantastic season post-Halstead and Upton. I know a lot of people on X wished the show ill due to those two leaving, but the show got stronger to me. 

Burzek fans definitely deserved better, but I think the show wanted to develop (redevelop?) Voight's arc. He's turning back to the dark side after 2 seasons of relative goodness. 

This show must really regret killing Al off. They show remnants of him more than they do Erin! I like the continuity though. 

My heart broke for Nina. I guess that crush is over. We didn't even get a hug or a smooch out of it 😔. I was hoping that Hank would at least hold her hand as she came to those realizations. He's just a pragmatist through and through. Nina has principles. It'll never work. 😔 P.S.- I LOVED that scene in the parking lot. She recognized he was going to self-destruct, more than the team that has known him for 10 years. Love how she got him to open up a little by reminding him they're past that. They would be so good together if Voight had more give to him. 

I wanted Reid to win a little bit more and for Intelligence to outsmart him in some way. But they genuinely couldn't get this one. He's still the best Bad Guy we've had so far. Too bad Reid didn't estimate that Voight would turn to the streets, just like he would. 

Intelligence lives on another day! 😁

Edited May 23 by Nintra16

[Proteus]

Wow. Ruzek/Burgess fans were really screwed over.

 

 

 

[ROEHUNTER]

On 5/22/2025 at 8:18 AM, Snazzy Daisy said:

Hey Nina, Voight did what needed to be done. Get over it. 🙄

Old Voight is back! 💪🏼

Yes!!! At the end I was ecstatic!!! Glad to see him again after all this time!

 

10 hours ago, Nintra16 said:

That was awesome! 

Great end to a fantastic season post-Halstead and Upton. I know a lot of people on X wished the show ill due to those two leaving, but the show got stronger to me. 

This show must really regret killing Al off. They show remnants of him more than they do Erin! I like the continuity though. 

Best season we have had in a while. Oh! and Erin who?

 

8 hours ago, Proteus said:

Wow. Ruzek/Burgess fans were really screwed over.

Am I the only one glad the wedding WASN'T the main attraction at the end? I don't watch shows like these for the sappy stuff, I watch for the cop stuff, shrug. 

Edited May 23 by ROEHUNTER

[DianeM]

9 hours ago, Proteus said:

Wow. Ruzek/Burgess fans were really screwed over.

We definitely were. 😩  I waited all season for their wedding, and it lasted six minutes.  All those characters got dressed up for a scene that lasted just six minutes.  We didn't even get to see them take their vows.  😒

[zoey1996]

I loved Mak as Kim's maid of honor! And the way Kim and Adam looked at each other was beautiful.

Yeah, Reid was corrupt and evil. Kind of wished he'd been publicly humiliated instead of killed off.

[Facts Only]

4 hours ago, ROEHUNTER said:

I don't watch shows like these for the sappy stuff,

The sappy stuff was Chapman crying like a child during someone's wedding.

[Sweet-n-Snarky]

I thought the finale was okay. I loved the previous epidode so much more though. They rushed through everything in this finale and without the breathing room, it felt really choppy and nonsensical at times. The first ten minutes were decent enough and then it just felt like they were writing a term paper ten minutes before handing it in or something.

They never properly addressed all the Reid stuff like how he obtained all his information (did he have their office bugged because there was no real reason he should've known about Torres and Burgess... the team didn't even know at first. 

Reid was their best villain yet. But they also didnt fill in enough of what he was doing or eatablish bow many goons he had etc.

I like Chapman a lot. So as a fan of hers, I was frustrated to see how they reduced her to a plot device for all of this. Maybe others don't care about her to notice, but I actually found her really out of character the whole finale. She was not the same woman who owned her feelings confidently and then left. They had her like some simpering, heartbroken naive schoolgirl and I actually found it jarring.

One of the appealing things about Chapman was that while she didn't know everything about Voight she knew enough to read between the lines and still respected and liked him in spite of that. She also was morally dubious herself ... we learned that when Voight did whatever he  needed to protect her after the death of that ex criminal or when she would fudge paperwork or curry favors to make his cases stick.

Abruptly turning her to a more stringent rule follower who was trying to completely change Voight and would sit there crying at someone else's wedding over him being who she suspected he always was didnt feel true to her character. I found it disappointing.

I gotta admit ... I was dying to know what it was like when Cook found out the whole squad was disbanded, Burgess lost her badge, and Torres was in prison. Hate that we didn't see that reaction especially since it would've paid off as a great character moment of the new girl hitching herself to this team for good. She still could've gotten out before all of this. She has a perfectly respectable moral code and no nonsense demeanor I appreciate. But she's also pretty loyal and easygoing with the others. It was a critical time for her as someone new getting sucked into Intelligece shadiness. They missed out on that. Plus she's become a great grounding force for Torres and the only one he gets particularly vulnerable with and who knows more about his past, so I hate missing out on character moments like what being hauled into prison did for both characters..

But the team was present but kinda sidelined too during the finale. Atwater barely had lines.

I think the point people miss about the Burzek thing is that it doesn't necessarily matter if you like the ship or not or that this is a cop show not a soap opera. The series still opts to showcase and highlight these romances.

They're the longest running and existing pairing still in the One Chicago universe. They spent months hyping up this wedding event (and whether you cared or not it still would've been a significant plot point), they've made the rounds teasing this thing on entertainment sites and tv shows. THEY made it a big deal, and then didn't properly follow through.

That's just foul. It felt like a bait and switch and it was objectively a dick move.

Because you also consider the other weddings in the One Chicago universe. Med and Fire all delivered reasonable weddings and handled theirs appropriately even if they used them as plot points for bigger drama. They treated their hyped up wedding events like wedding events.

I don't think you have to care a about romance or Burzek to acknowledge how much they screwed the pooch on that. And just casually claiming "Well, this isn't that type of show" is a cop out. Especially when their budget friendly formatting includes a bunch of centric episodes many balancing personal lives as much as professional. It's like saying "This isn't This is Us" every time the season touched on Ruzek and his father's ailing health.

You wouldn't because deep down you can acknowledge that such life events are realistic and shape and round out a character and may contribute to a characters development or plot, but for reasons, people generally accept that with some themes and laud the realism of them but won't with love and romance, tacking "soap opera" to them despite those themes also being realistic. Cops have relationships and get married. And struggle through both because of the job. 

I loved this season overall. Complaining about centrics feels pointless because they're never changing that. So I would rather celebrate them handling them much better than before and still having better team dynamics.

I love this current team. I feel like it's the most cohesive it has been in a while. They actually feel like a team. This was a great season overall. The best in at least three or four years.

I still need more Trudy and for them to stop sidelining Atwater though. 

[jabRI]

I think Torres is so boring, I almost don't recognize him when he shows up.

[Sake614]

2 hours ago, jabRI said:

I think Torres is so boring, I almost don't recognize him when he shows up.

I’d be a very happy camper if he left or was killed.