Chicago PD Season 12 Episode 20 "Black Ice" Review

The episode starts with Ruzek leaving his dad’s nursing home. He’s clearly still carrying the weight of that visit when, out of nowhere, a man stumbles into the road. Ruzek hits the brakes and jumps out, it’s Frank Bailey. The guy looks out of it, dazed, like he doesn’t even know where he is. Ruzek tries talking to him, but Frank bolts, heading toward a nearby bridge. Frank goes over the bridge and Ruxek tries to pull him up but he slips and falls down onto the ice.  t Ruzek tries slowly to get to him. When he does, Frank is gone. When he checks him for identification Ruzek sees it, he’s bleeding. Badly. Ruzek is at a loss and then the ice starts to crack. Ruzek just barely makes it to safety, but Frank goes through the ice. Ruzek calls it in to try and get the body recovered. 

Back at the district, Ruzek updates Voight, Burgess, and Torres. They ID Frank, 36, lives in Logan Square, married with two kids. He worked at the same firm for years. No priors. Nothing weird in his financials or on his phone. His wife, Evelyn, is in shock. She tells Burgess Frank wasn’t the type to be out partying, he was a family guy, loved his kids, never gave her a reason to doubt him.

The team finds his car abandoned near a rundown building registered to some LLC. They head inside and the scene is clearly a rave party upstairs, but downstairs trash everywhere, blood on the floor, rooms with stained mattresses and missing sheets. Clearly not just a party. 

Later at the district it’s Burgess who spots the truth in the security footage, young girls, too young, high, barely able to stand. Some are being carried. Frank walks in at 10:02 p.m. and never comes out.

Digging deeper, they find a DM in Frank’s inbox with the party location and an entry code. It came from Steve Bartlett, a former coworker. Steve’s already in holding. When they press him, he admits Frank asked him for the number that gets you into these parties, the number men pass around to buy girls. Steve claims he never used it, but eventually gives it up. It’s saved under “Sean.”

The burner number is still active and pings at a second location in Wicker Park, another building tied to a shadowy LLC. Voight gets a warrant. Inside, they find terrified girls and Anton, who’s carrying cash and a burner phone. Voight leans hard, and Anton finally breaks. He gives them Dmitri Salton’s name. Dmitri’s got a history,domestic abuse, no paper trail, but they track him to the finances behind the parties. He recruits girls with no family or support, locks them down, and sells them. They don’t get paid. They don’t leave. He controls everything.

Anton gives up Dmitri’s car and burner. It isn’t long before they catch a hit on I-90. Ruzek’s the first to spot the truck at a rest stop. He moves in, and Dmitri tries to climb into the trunk. Cops swarm, weapons drawn, and they arrest him. Ruzek confirms he’s okay, but the moment clearly hits him hard.

Later, at the district, Ruzek talks to Demetri and wants to know why he stabbed Frank. Ruzek is invested and he promised the widow he would tell her what he found. Demetri is honest and says Frank was choking one of the girls. He heard her gasping for air, so he stabbed him to get him off of her. Ruzek and Kim discussed not letting the widow know, but in the end Tuxek thought it was best to tell her the truth. Just in case there was a trail he didn’t want her blind sided again. 

After speaking to the widow, Ruzek returns to talk to his dad. The Florida bank account comes up again. His dad doesn’t remember much, just starts talking about blackjack strategy, hit on 11, double on 10, that kind of thing. Then it clicks. This wasn’t a gambling thing. Years ago, his dad took out the money for Adam and Mac, to help them. Quietly, and without ever saying it, he’d been trying to do right by them all along. Ruzek takes it in, looks at him, and just says, “Thank you.”

The episode ends with a deep breath of truth. Frank’s story gets told. The girls are finally safe. And a son realizes his father was fighting for him in his own way the whole time.

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