S03.E21: Justice

[WendyCR72]

After a hooded man open fires on their patrol car, Roman is left wounded and Burgess takes off after the shooter, briefly losing sight of him, and shoots when she relocates him turning in her direction with a glimmer of silver in his hand. No gun has been found at the crime scene and the shooter is identified as a 17-year-old honor student who will likely never walk again due to his injuries. Protests begin as the public views the case as another incidence of a police officer shooting an unarmed African American teenager. Assistant State Attorney Peter Stone (Philip Winchester), the same man who sent Voight to prison, has been assigned to help defend Burgess and conduct his own investigation under the supervision of State Attorney Mark Jefferies (Carl Weathers). Stone and his investigators Daren Okada (Ryan-James Hatanaka) and Lori Nagle (Joelle Carter) need to collect enough evidence to indict the teen and clear Burgess, but must tread with caution on this high profile case as tensions run high.

[callmebetty]

Oh yea another backdoor pilot this time with 100% more Apollo Creed. By the time this show finally airs (Chicago Justice) half these characters will be replaced. I mean what ever happened to Dylan Baker's character from Chicago Med?

Still don't care for the Burgess and Roman hook up. All in all a good episode. 

[SoapDoc]

It was cool to see Shambla Green from Law and Order original recipe here. I guess she moved to Chicago.

It was a pretty good episode.

[Watermelon]

I was prepared to hate this episode. Setting up the black kid in a hoody and Black Lives Matter protests, just for him to actually have been the perpetrator.  However, giving him a reason and a tragedy(and an overzealous cop for his uncle) at least made it not as hamfisted as I was prepared for it to be.

Ruzek's interesting, cuz guess where I wouldn't be. Pressed over my ex fiancee while she's in court for shooting the kid who shot her (sex) partner.

[LittleIggy]

Ava Crowder! I kept trying to figure out who that familiar face was. Joelle Carter!

Hated that defense attorney. Very unethical.

[Muffyn]

Carl Weathers, baby, you've got a stew going!

[Vella]

Ew. That felt gross. That felt like a "Black Lives Matter? ALL Lives Matter!" episode.  It doesn't get it.  Dick, please, don't try social issues like this. You're doing it wrong.

[MakeMeLaugh]

6 hours ago, LittleIggy said:

Ava Crowder! I kept trying to figure out who that familiar face was. Joelle Carter!

....

Yes! Thank you! Hope she's a regular on Legal.

Has Burgess learned nothing? Step A. Call for backup. Step B. And say "Officer down" first. Ruzek could have bled out by the time she called for help and it got there. Step C. Chase perp. But I did think the actress did a god job with this storyline.

I give the show major props for even acknowledging how bad the shootings in Chicago are. I was okay with this plot--a few weeks ago, they softened the little boy assassinated storyline from the real one, and now this one was softened the other way. Better than ignoring it, and really it would be patronizing imo to try to solve the issues. 

[scarynikki12]

Quote

Has Burgess learned nothing?

That's where I initially thought this was going.  That Burgess once again would act without thinking and the kid she shot would turn out to be innocent.  I wish it had turned out that his coworker had been the shooter (the actor played him as all kinds of shady) and everything we learned would be coincidence (like he lived in the location where the kid frequently visited, had no personal beef with cops but wanted to kill someone and they gave him the biggest rush, the two just happened to dress alike, etc).  Or, if not that, that Burgess had generally shot the wrong kid.  I feel like that would be the more interesting story leading into Justice and PD could just put her on desk duty until the story gets resolved on the spinoff. 

Which leads me to my general complain with Wolf shows: he wraps up stories way too quickly.  PD and Med both have had stories that I feel would have been better executed if they'd been stretched out.  Erin joining the task force should have lasted more than two episodes, the psycho kid who abused his brother and mother on Med would make a great recurring story, and any hot button story deserves more than 40 minutes.  I'm guessing Justice will also be a one and done kind of show (I haven't watched Fire beyond the early episodes so I don't remember if it follows the same pattern).  They let the characters personal stories continue, and I find a lot of them to be very well done, but I'd like the work stories to follow suit.

[BindsTheTuna]

I was cleaning up the kitchen and only watching out of the corner of my eye, so I just assumed they were having a preliminary hearing in this case (where the state puts on evidence and a judge decides if it can proceed to trial) because it happened so quickly. Roman was still recovering! Then they started talking about juries and I was all WHAT? There is no way on God's earth a case as fraught with political implications as this one was would be tried before a year had passed, if then. Everyone, from the SA to the defense, would be moving for continuances right and left.

[butterbody]

If anyone still has this on the DVR, would you rewatch the scene where Burgess is screaming at the kid right after she shoots him? I swear she said motherfucker. Did she say that?

[Texasmom1970]

I know they are into crossovers and promoting all the Chicago shows but this was odd to me. First the crime then the trial, kind of felt like I was watching an imitation of the original "Law and Order" series. It did not flow very well to me and yes they did rush the conclusion. I would have liked to see the resolution of her shooting him take longer to solve. 

On a positive note Ava, without her "Justified" accent.

[Watermelon]

3 hours ago, butterbody said:

If anyone still has this on the DVR, would you rewatch the scene where Burgess is screaming at the kid right after she shoots him? I swear she said motherfucker. Did she say that?

She said it but they drop the audio so you hear "mother" and nothing else.

[Raja]

11 hours ago, Texasmom1970 said:

I know they are into crossovers and promoting all the Chicago shows but this was odd to me. First the crime then the trial, kind of felt like I was watching an imitation of the original "Law and Order" series. It did not flow very well to me and yes they did rush the conclusion. I would have liked to see the resolution of her shooting him take longer to solve. 

On a positive note Ava, without her "Justified" accent.

Real life that can only work if they fire the actor from her show because she would be in legal limbo for years. The headline ripping case for 2010 Law & Order Los Angeles Balboa Creek episode just ended in a conviction last week and they are now just starting the penalty phase to see if he goes to death row.

[Kel Varnsen]

I was really hoping Burgess shot the wrong guy because i really find her stupid and annoying. Seriously lady call for backup when you get shot at.

Plus what is it with Dick Wolf and having DA's named Stone? Is that a hint that Chicago Justice is going to be nothing but recycled Law & Order stories?

[WendyCR72]

2 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Plus what is it with Dick Wolf and having DA's named Stone?

Eh, why not? There was at least one female named Alexandra (Mothership, SVU, CI) on every L&O series. Recycling names is the Dick Wolf way.

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, WendyCR72 said:

Eh, why not? There was at least one female named Alexandra (Mothership, SVU, CI) on every L&O series. Recycling names is the Dick Wolf way.

So what you are saying is if Dick Wolf ever met some one named Alexandra Stone his head might explode. I guess luckily that is an even more made up sounding name than Dick Wolf.

[MissLucas]

I'm somewhat confused: the kid's uncle put the (according to Platt racist) cop who arrested him in a coma - by accident or rather because he was trying to defend himself against Police brutality. Kid's uncle gets to jail, kills himself. Kid freaks out and wants revenge? The culprit was in a coma - which wasn't enough of karma kicking his racist ass? I thought that was an odd detail and would have preferred the cop to be alive and kicking enjoying his retirement somewhere out of reach so that the kid had no better target for his rage than any cop he might meet that night.

It took me a while to place Joelle Carter. I hope they keep her in the spin-off. And I also liked ASA Stone, man held his own against Voight. Not bad for a backdoor pilot (?) despite the rushed timeline.

[Lillybee]

At least this story was handled with a bit more nuance that it would have been on Blue Bloods.

[Mars477]

18 hours ago, Lillybee said:

At least this story was handled with a bit more nuance that it would have been on Blue Bloods.

That bar is so low you could trip over it.

I think that it was pretty damn cowardly for the kid Burgess shot to have been actually guilty.  At any rate I don't like how next ep would mark a third storyline about Burgess and Roman.  Burgess is the worst, even worse than Ruzek now, and the two need to be split up ASAP.

[BasilSeal]

23 hours ago, MissLucas said:

The culprit was in a coma - which wasn't enough of karma kicking his racist ass?

My take on it was that the cop who ended up in the coma was one of the officers who arrested the uncle for being drunk and disorderly. Uncle then gets beaten up by another cop for putting the first cop in the hospital, it wasn't clearly explained by that's what i thought Platt meant, and it would make more sense.

[Kel Varnsen]

2 hours ago, Mars477 said:

That bar is so low you could trip over it.

I think that it was pretty damn cowardly for the kid Burgess shot to have been actually guilty.  At any rate I don't like how next ep would mark a third storyline about Burgess and Roman.  Burgess is the worst, even worse than Ruzek now, and the two need to be split up ASAP.

Well they already did the whole thing where cops shot an unarmed person after a mistaken identity foot pursuit in SVU just recently. So if Dick Wolf wants to rip himself off for his new show he should probably try and use storylines that are more than a year old. 

[Raja]

The two franchises are already in the same Tommyverse with Homicide Life on The Street they might as well call Chicago Law & Order, or would that be Law & Order: Chicago

[Sandman]

Backdoor pilots always look and feel like exactly what they are, don't they?

[zoey1996]

On 5/17/2016 at 9:15 PM, Sandman said:

Backdoor pilots always look and feel like exactly what they are, don't they?

I didn't know there was another possible spin-off, so I didn't even consider that this might be a pilot or trial balloon.

I liked the episode, but then I like Burgess.  Burgess & Roman together, not so much.  Just stay friends, not romantic partners!

[Sandman]

I didn't know there was going to be a spinoff either; but there was something in the way the new set of characters was introduced that suggested the possibility.

[maraleia]

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/dick-wolf-nbc-chicago-fire-chicago-med-chicago-justice-1201774571/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/chicago-justice-dick-wolf-interview-891259

[Watermelon]

I really enjoy that he knows Fire is a soap opera. They all are, really, but most especially that show.