The NBC police drama resumes season 8 on Wednesday.
Is Burgess' past trauma about to take center stage?
In ET's exclusive sneak peek from Wednesday's winter return of Chicago P.D., titled "Tender Age," Ruzek (Patrick Flueger) and Burgess (Marina Squerciati) discover a child walking alone in the middle of the street, moments after sharing light banter about change being overrated. But when they take her home, they discover that her entire family has been murdered in a gruesome multiple homicide.
It's a brutal start to a powerful episode, which forces Burgess -- who suffered a miscarriage last season -- to face her repressed grief in losing her baby and ever-shifting desires of becoming a mother someday. Could this little girl and the unimaginable trauma she's suppressed finally offer a bit of clarity for Burgess with what could have been with Ruzek and what her life priorities are now?
Ahead of the season, Chicago P.D. star LaRoyce Hawkins previewed what was to come, with Intelligence balancing cases of the week with a pandemic and racial unrest.
"We're definitely doing our best to show how real people navigate these circumstances, whether it's COVID or the social unrest, every character is telling their own personal truth," Hawkins, who plays Atwater, told ET in November. "As we watch Atwater and his truth unfold, he has a pretty dynamic assignment ahead to not just be a cop and an officer that we trust but also a Black man and staying true to his culture and to what he understands the truth to be."
"I've grown a lot just learning from Atwater's decisions and what I hope that the audience will take from this whole situation is we're just doing our best to be examples of strength and examples of honesty," he continues. "I think the pandemic has taught us all how to be a little vulnerable and how to deal with the vulnerabilities in a way that we have to see it through. So, Atwater is definitely on the front line of everything that deals with that -- of telling his truth, holding onto it and it's pretty much the last thing he has. If you take that away from him, I don't think he has anything left. He's doing his best to just hold onto it and whatever happens, happens. It's going to be an interesting journey."
Chicago P.D. returns Wednesday, Jan. 6 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. For more on the series, watch below.
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