The Chicago Code-"O'Leary's Cow"

Teresa tries to get help from a businessman to help solve a case.
Credit: FOX

My review of tonight's episode of "The Chicago Code" is after the jump.

The Chicago Code followed up a decent outing last week (which I didn't review because of time) with a much stronger episode this week. The case of the week, in my mind, served more as a way of introducing more of Chicago's politics then being a typical procedural murder case. What made the episode be good, rather then another decent (which is relative, the episodes were very good on a procedural level) were the other plotlines. The Teresa plotline was very strong and this episode had the first good use of Liam, that I've seen on the show, yet. The episode made everything personal for the character, which added stakes and made me care about everything that happened in this episode.

The case of the week was very interesting, but not because the solving of the murder was interesting, but it was because it showed the politics of a new area of Chicago that I personally have never been exposed to (I'm not from Chicago and I've never been there so this show is almost serving as a tour of Chicago). Everything dealing with the mayor of Chinatown (*) was very interesting and worked very well. As I said, it focused on the politics of the area and that made it better because it added a new level of interest to the plotline. It also helped that Wysocki had a personal stake in what was going on in the plotline. Jason Clarke has been very good (not brilliant, but he's not bad by any means). It added yet another level to the plotline. A plotline with this many layers on a procedural is almost always good because I din't normally expect this from a procedural. This show is showing that it's especially good at building plotlines with more then just the typical murder and solving the murder and that's what separates this show from the many others like it.

(*) Who was played by the very good Francois Chau (Chang from "Lost"). He seems to be making the Monday night rounds lately, after appearing on last Monday's Chuck.

The plotline involving Teresa and her brother (**) was very good and a nice way add sakes to a Teresa plotline. Jennifer Beals is fantastic on this show and this plotline was no exception. She played everything involving her brother very well, and played off Dunbar and his character's wife really well. It was interesting to see exactly how far her character is willing to go to stop corruption. She's not willing to tolerate corruption in any case and this helped flesh out Teresa as a character and what her goals are. She's not even willing to tolerate corruption in her family and is willing to have her own brother arrested in order to help stop corruption. The scenes with her, her brother, and his wife were fantastic because the cast played off each other very well.

(**) Who was played by Terriers's Rockmond Dunbar, who did a fantastic job in the episode.

This was the first use of Liam that didn't leave me bored. It's clear that they were setting up this episode's plot with the previous few and it hasn't even paid off yet. It was interesting to see him go deeper undercover and to see his reaction to the dead body. It's obvious that this will continue to pay off in the future and I'm actually interested in what's going on with his character.

Some other thoughts:

• Delroy Lindo's presence wasn't as prominent as in previous episodes. He is my favorite actor in the show and I wish he was prominent in every episode but I understand that will not move the plot along. Lindo continued to nail every scene he was a part of in the episode.
• Loved the Blues Brothers reference! "On a mission from God".
• Liked the small Caleb subplot in the episode. I'm growing to like his character and this helped that.
• The voiceover is starting to become a hitch, but it's still being used for the right reasons.

Overall, a much stronger episode of The Chicago Code that was an example of why it's better then most other cop dramas.

What did everyone else think?