Spoilers ahead for Episode 4 of Chicago P.D. Season 10, called “Donde Vives.”
Chicago P.D. has officially entered the post-Halstead era of Season 10, and “Donde Vives” was a fast-paced episode that explored Dante Torres and why he is the way that he is as a cop. A shocking murder of a loved one brought the Intelligence Unit to Torres’ own neighborhood, and he had to try and use his connections to friends and family to crack the case. It was a doozy of a case for the rookie cop to handle, and new series regular Benjamin Levy Aguilar spoke to CinemaBlend about Torres’ transformation by the end… and the scenes with Upton that fans didn’t get to see.
The episode ended with Torres facing the threat that something bad could happen to his mother if they stayed in the neighborhood, and the young cop more or less snapped and took off his badge and gun for a brawl with a man who finally broke his restraint. After a pretty brutal beating, it’s safe to say that Torres won that brawl, but it wasn't a happy ending. Benjamin Levy Aguilar spoke about how his character will be different after the end of “Donde Vives,” saying:
I definitely think there's a transformation. This is a transformation moment, it shifts his priorities. He's feeling in so many different ways. There's so much, [so] many gray areas. There's no black and white, and he's trying to do the best he can to protect the people in his neighborhood, but mostly to find who murdered Provi, who was such an important person for him. In the middle of trying to do what's right, he hurt so many people that he loved.
While Torres and the rest of the team did manage to close the case and get some justice for Provi, there was some serious collateral damage for the rookie cop and the people he cared about back in the neighborhood. He stayed on the straight and narrow during the investigation (at least by Intelligence standards), but the episode didn’t exactly end well for him. The actor continued:
There is also a moment that I felt where it was like, 'They'll never understand me and that what I'm doing might be greater than me or them,' because there's a reason why he does it, because there weren't people to help him when he needed them. So there's definitely a shift in priorities and also more of a transformation of like, 'I'm gonna go all in, in my integrity and in what I believe in.'
Torres clearly passed a point of no return by the end of “Donde Vives,” and only time will tell whether his character will be noticeably different as Season 10 continues. “Donde Vives” was a showcase for Benjamin Levy Aguilar that filled in a lot of blanks about his character, whose backstory was only touched on when Aguilar appeared as a guest star as Halstead’s temporary partner back in Season 9. (You can rewatch that episode streaming with a Peacock subscription.)
Of course, the departure of Jesse Lee Soffer means that Torres no longer has Halstead around as the mentor who brought him into the Intelligence Unit, and Benjamin Levy Aguilar also opened up about how Halstead’s absence affects Torres. “Donde Vives” did give Torres at least one little moment with almost all the cops in Intelligence, with Burgess and Ruzek giving him some tips while Atwater and Voight were more hands-on with him. He even had a moment with Platt!
Notably, however, Torres did not have a one-on-one moment with Upton. In fact, most of the unit seemed to be giving her a lot of space in the wake of her husband rejoining the army and heading to Bolivia. After Torres didn’t get a moment with Upton in this episode, Benjamin Levy Aguilar revealed that there were actually plans for some interactions that didn’t make the final cut. When asked whether fans can expect some Upton/Torres interactions, the actor shared:
I really hope so. By the way, there were beautiful moments with him and Upton. I just think it was just a lack of time. We wanted to put that in because there's a commonality there too, like they both love Halstead, [laughs] in very different ways. There's a strong connection with Halstead, and there were actually some beautiful moments with Upton and Torres that, unfortunately, due to time had to just not go in. But I think that the relationship and the chemistry is there, and I really, really hope and have a good feeling that they will have beautiful moments together.
So, Chicago P.D. planned some “beautiful moments” for Upton and Torres in the wake of losing the man who they both love (in their very different ways), but they never made it to the screen for “Donde Vives.” Aguilar is enthusiastic about hoping to get some of those moments with Tracy Spiridakos as Upton, however, so fans can cross their fingers that we see them sharing some scenes moving forward after Torres’ transformation.
You can look forward to new episodes of Chicago P.D. on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, and expect more of two new characters in the first half of the season. One Chicago is already going strong this fall, although Fire tragically killed off a character, and Med is already setting the stage for the departure of another.
