Spoilers ahead for Episode 9 of Chicago P.D. Season 11, called "Somos Uno."
Chicago P.D. finally revisited Torres' story after he went undercover nearly two months ago and got a little too close with CI Gloria. By the events of "Somos Uno" in the 2024 TV schedule, the pair had become lovers, which complicated a case that was already sticky, made all the stickier when Burgess found out about the affair. While this was a new kind of case for P.D., I still found myself flashing back to an arc that put Halstead through the wringer back in the day, and that just made me miss a Halstead bond that's not just Upstead.
Let's start with a blast to what now seems like the distant past. As fans may remember, Halstead had his own ill-advised undercover romance back in Season 5 (available streaming via Peacock Premium subscription), and his was bad enough that I was paranoid about him repeating old mistakes in Season 7. He had an ongoing relationship with a woman by the name of Camila, who knew him as Ryan. He successfully kept it secret for a time before Upton found out and everything unraveled. He even faced potential jail time himself, until Upton had a talk with Camila about keeping her mouth shut.
All in all, post-Erin Halstead in Season 5 was not his healthiest era, and I would say that his actions with Camila were way worse than Torres' with Gloria. After all, Torres and Gloria shared a secret, whereas Halstead was keeping a very big one – up to and including his actual name – from Camila. Season 11 Torres is in a better place than Season 5A Halstead was, in my opinion.
But Halstead moved on from the Camila mess and eventually settled into a pretty healthy relationship (by Chicago P.D. standards, anyway) with Upton until Jesse Lee Soffer's departure meant that not much could be up with Upstead. Looking back, Torres' first bond in the Intelligence Unit was with Halstead, in the Season 9 episode that introduced the future series regular.
The young cop's first mentor was Jay, to the point that Benjamin Levy Aguilar explained how Halstead's absence would affect Torres back in Season 10, and losing that connection was something he could have bonded with Upton over in scenes that were ultimately cut.
All of this is to say that the two had a mentor/mentee relationship in the Intelligence Unit, and Halstead's series of very bad decisions in Season 5 could have made him a valuable resource for Torres with Gloria in Season 11. It would very much have to be a "Do as I say, not as I did" approach, because Torres would definitely not want to do what Halstead did back in the day! Bad decisions were made, and Torres could have learned from what went down with Halstead.
On the whole, as much as I enjoyed Torres leaning more on Atwater after Halstead left in Season 10, and liked seeing Burgess as Torres' accidental confidant in "Somos Uno," I couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to see Torres get some advice from the man who went through the mess with Camila.
It remains to be seen if Benjamin Levy Aguilar and Jesse Lee Soffer ever share the screen again as Torres and Halstead, but Soffer has been back on his old stomping grounds to direct the penultimate episode of Season 11, and all three shows of One Chicago have been renewed for the 2024-2025 TV season. For now, keep tuning in to NBC on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET for the remaining episodes of Chicago P.D. Season 11.
