Chicago P.D. Season 13 Episode 12 "Missing" Recap: Some Losses Never Stop Echoing
- Zakiyyah
- 21 hours ago
- 4 min read
This episode opens quietly, but with purpose, by reminding us who Imani is before the case even begins. She isn’t just Intelligence; she’s someone who has been living with unresolved loss for years. A case worker from Missing and Exploited children reaches out to her for help on what sounds, at first, like a favor. A mother is behaving erratically, insisting her son, missing for nearly eighteen years, has come home. Because of Imani’s background, because she understands what it means to never stop looking, she answers the call. That decision is what brings officer Imani into Gemma’s life.
When we first meet Gemma, she’s frantic, emotional, and absolutely convinced her missing son Ben came to her door. Sarah, the case worker and Brady, her son Ben’s little brother hover between concern and fear, unsure whether they’re dealing with a real lead or a mental health crisis. The writing is careful here. It doesn’t rush to discredit Gemma, and neither does Imani.
Instead, Imani listens. She notices the details Gemma offers information the man that came to her home said, the song, the nickname, the memories no one ever released publicly. These aren’t things someone should know, these are things only Ben would know. That tension sits under every conversation that follows.
As Voight gets involved, the episode shifts into investigation mode without losing its emotional grounding. Imani finds security footage that shows a man was at Gemma’s home. Now they have to find this man who may be Ben. Evidence, timelines, and witness statements start to poke holes in the story, but none of it fully explains how this man knew so much about Ben. When the man is located the first thing Imani does is look for a birthmark on his neck, there isn’t one and he is questioned, but refuses to speak. The team runs DNA on the man that will not give his name. His DNA doesn’t match. The easy explanation, that Gemma was simply scammed, doesn’t sit right and Imami goes to inform Gemma that the man was not Ben.
What follows is a slow, unsettling unraveling. Tillman becomes the unexpected hinge point in the case. His reluctance, his bitterness, and eventually his honesty expose a much darker truth. Eddie Brandt isn’t just a name from the past; he’s a predator and Tillman’s brother who moved quietly, invisibly, and for a long time. The realization that Ben’s abduction may have been impulsive, not planned, lands hard. There’s something especially cruel about how ordinary it all was, one bad moment, one wrong person, one child gone forever.
The investigation escalates when Tillman says he can try to reach his brother but it’s not so simple; he will not do a casual meetup. The team devises a plan to entice Eddie by using Brady as bait. This is when Charlie Cruz enters the picture. For a brief moment, hope spikes again. A child is seen with Eddie Brandt, and suddenly this isn’t just about the past, it’s happening now. The operation is frantic, messy, and tense. Torres losing sight of them feels like a gut punch, especially once it becomes clear how carefully Eddie Brandt has manipulated the situation and has been doing this for years.
Losing Eddie is very difficult and Charlie seems to be the only hope. Charlie seems young and when the team identifies him they find out he has almost every social media platform there is. Combing through his social media they find one private IP address that leads directly to their offender. When the case finally catches up to Eddie Brandt, there’s no satisfaction in it because they find Charlie and remove him from the home, but when they find Eddie he draws his weapon and Imani fires at him and he is down. His death doesn’t bring answers so much as confirmation.
Charlie is brought in for questioning. Initially he didn’t know what Eddie was doing to him was wrong. He had a tough life and Eddie was nice. The more he talks he knows it was wrong. Imani shows him a picture of Ben when he was young and an aged photo. Charles says he never met hibut he heard Eddie talk about him. The evidence laid out afterward is devastating in its clarity: Ben was alive for only a short time after he was taken. The injuries. The boat. Lake Michigan. Everything points in the same direction, even without a body. The truth is there whether anyone is ready to accept it or not.
Gemma isn’t ready. And the episode never pretends she should be. Her refusal to believe isn’t framed as madness, it’s framed as survival. After eighteen years of searching, of waiting, of believing Ben could still walk through her door, how do you stop? How do you let go when letting go means admitting your child died alone?
Imani’s final conversation brings the episode full circle. She doesn’t speak as a cop at that moment. She speaks as someone who has spent years searching for her own sister, chasing sightings, photos, rumors, anything that might keep hope alive. She admits how exhausting it is, how consuming, and how grief doesn’t end just because evidence says it should. That honesty doesn’t fix Gemma’s pain, but it validates it.
By the time the episode ends, there’s no neat resolution. No healing montage. Just the quiet understanding that some cases don’t close cleanly, and some losses never stop echoing. This episode doesn’t ask the audience to feel comforted. It asks them to sit with discomfort, and that’s exactly why some episodes just sit in your gut like lead.
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