Pretty much every single part of Officer Kevin Atwater’s (LaRoyce Hawkins) life collides in the May 3 episode of Chicago P.D. when there is a shooting at the building he owns in Burnside; a child dies.
“He handles it in an extremely human way. This episode taught me that humans make heroes and not the other way around,” Hawkins tells TV Insider. “I think from start to finish, we see Atwater in an element that’s not cop-like. He’s in landlord mode and really doing his best to give his tenants the best service that he can possible, but Atwater’s spread thin.”
Then, once the shooting begins “and in that moment where hell starts to break loose, he’s a human and he responds the best way that he can,” he continues. “And I think we watch him warm up into more hero-like postures toward at the end of the episode.”
Also in “The Bleed Valve,” as a result of the case bringing them together, Atwater must confront his relationship with his previously incarcerated father, Lew (Erik Laray Harvey). It was earlier in Season 10 that, to Atwater’s surprise, he ran into his father (again during a case).
“We pick up on a father and son that are still doing their best to figure it out. They don’t communicate as much as they should. And I think in this episode we see them navigate miscommunication and missed communication,” Hawkins says. “Atwater finds himself learning a lot about his father on the back end, and it’s because they missed those moments when they could have communicated with each other and Atwater probably would’ve felt more prepared.”
That was important to Hawkins and Harvey. “We wanted to really identify those moments as we performed,” the P.D. star explains. “It was, ‘OK, where are we miscommunicating and where is the missed communication?’ And hopefully the audience can identify, too.”
Can father and son find a middle ground?
Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC
