Let’s be honest: I’m mostly writing this so we all have a place to dump the pretty pictures from Burzek’s wedding — because goodness knows the show itself didn’t bother to show it.
Is that brutally honest enough?
Because the thing is, when it came time for the series to give the longest-standing couple in the One Chicago franchise their happy ending (or at least their happy nuptials), forgive a girl for expecting more and better.
Here’s what frustrates me: there’s always this narrative that romance doesn’t have a place in certain genres, especially gritty ones like crime procedurals. That love stories are frivolous, unrealistic, or somehow a narrative burden. And that, frankly, is nonsense.
Ironically, I’m not a diehard shipper.
I don’t prioritize pairings in everything I watch, and I can be a fairweather fan at best. But there are two things I stay steady on: 1) challenging the ridiculous idea that romance is narratively inferior, and 2) following through on storytelling promises, which brings me right back to Burzek.
This wedding should have been a payoff — 12 years in the making. Kim Burgess and Adam Ruzek have been circling each other since the beginning.
They’re not a last-minute pairing or a fan-service couple. They are the foundation. And when your series finally brings them together with a wedding, you’d expect a moment. An event. A payoff.
Instead, we got… scraps.
Clearly, Chicago PD Season 12 Episode 22 ran out of time and left most of its featured event on the cutting room floor.
It wasn’t just that the wedding was underwhelming — it was practically nonexistent. A montage. A few glimpses. No vows, no kiss, no emotional center to tie it together. It’s an episode literally titled “Vows” with no vows. The math isn’t mathing.
And spare me the excuse that Chicago PD “isn’t that kind of show.”
If that were true, the show wouldn’t have featured romantic entanglements since the first season and wouldn’t have committed to a dozen or so internal romances, hookups, and heartbreaks. This show has always incorporated love, lust, and complicated relationships into its core. Saying otherwise is disingenuous.
It’s not unrealistic to showcase romance. Are we pretending that love doesn’t exist in high-stress, emotionally complex careers? Especially in a job like policing, where deep bonds and messy entanglements are part of the job? If anything, not showing that side is the unrealistic move.
What good would exploring a series about rich characters who are cops be without addressing how they balance their jobs with their personal lives, how they influence how they approach the job, or how they carry that job home with them?
It’s at the crux of character exploration in any cop show and has been foundational to them since they crossed the airwaves. It is absurd to act as if it isn’t in some righteous attempt to treat themes like romance as inferior, but I digress.
The real problem here is the bait-and-switch. NBC leaned hard into the Burzek Wedding as a selling point of the season. Interviews, teasers, magazine features — they promoted this.
Fans didn’t conjure the hype out of thin air. The network fed it to us. And then, when the time came to deliver? They blinked.
Here’s the kicker: I didn’t even need the wedding to happen this season. I would’ve been fine waiting until next season, especially with a renewal already likely. There was space to postpone if needed.
Let them build toward something meaningful.
I made waves when I expressed frustration with the proposal between the two during Chicago PD Season 11 Episode 3 because it was quieter than I envisioned.
When I took in some of what people were sharing about the pairing and their history (because I’m not a diehard shipper like many of you), I saw the vision and appreciated what it meant for Burzek’s Journey.
But I cannot reconcile that with whatever this wedding is.
Shoving it in with no weight, no presence, no center? That’s just bad planning.
Anyone who can objectively appreciate narrative direction can at least agree on this.
Even if we had to address the “this is not that type of show” crowd, there were so many easy, creative ways to make the wedding event work within the show’s gritty format.
Whether a season premiere episode next season or a midseason finale, the wedding could’ve gone off without a hitch. However, an Intelligence member could’ve encountered a crime or caught a case on their way to the reception.
How entertaining would it have been if Burzek showed up at a crime scene in wedding attire and jumped right into working a case while their non-Intelligence loved ones carried on with the party?
Because no one said that their wedding couldn’t have led to some other type of drama or been a perfect vehicle for a bigger plot that suited the series.
They only wanted to actually see this pairing exchange vows and kiss. After all, how exactly do you title an episode “Vows” and never show them?
Nearly every other One Chicago couple had their wedding event complete with a vow exchange and a signature kiss. Even if they didn’t have a full-blown traditional wedding, their nuptials were handled carefully, considering the pairing and the audience.
Hell, at least Chicago Med‘s Natalie/Will disaster wedding fit with the narrative structure and development of the storyline while it pissed off fans. It coincided with the plot and was a consideration rather than an afterthought.
Chicago PD just delivered its most introspective, character-focused season in years. We got deep dives into long-standing characters and fresh ones alike. So why drop the ball now? Why not let the wedding be a culmination of that emotional arc?
Given the more personal theme of the whole season, Burzek’s wedding, as a feature event that centered this couple and solidified this work family, should’ve fit beautifully, no?
I’m just following the very themes the season set up!
Even Chapman, quietly crying at a wedding that wasn’t hers, would’ve hit harder if we had actually seen the ceremony she was reacting to.
Every other One Chicago couple got their moment. Their kiss. Their vows. They fit the narrative even when the weddings were chaotic, messy, or bittersweet. They mattered. Burzek didn’t. And that stings.
Whether you love them, are indifferent, or appreciate good storytelling, this wasn’t it. It was a letdown. A missed opportunity. It’s a disservice to two original characters and fans who’ve stuck around for a dozen seasons.
We can analyze, debate, and justify, but none of it changes this: Burzek’s wedding event was a fail.
Burzek deserved better, and so did the fans.
And while we’ll move on, we’re absolutely going to grumble about it for a while.
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Over to you, Chicago PD and/or Burzek Fanatics.
How did you feel about this wedding event? Let’s hear it below.
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