Chicago P.D.‘s “Canaryville” featured a haunting narration from the episode’s tragic victim, and it had One Chicago newlyweds Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Adam Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) reconsidering the place they’ve called home for years.
Burzek has been navigating a chapter of change in Season 13 of Chicago P.D., especially regarding how they want to raise their adopted daughter, Makayla Ward (Ramona Edith Williams). After one of Makayla’s schoolmates and neighbors was murdered, Burgess and Ruzek took it upon themselves to track down the killer. Meanwhile, a haunting voiceover teases details of the truth lying at the center of the investigation.
The voiceover in Chicago P.D.‘s “Canaryville” is also the victim
While the P.D. voiceover is initially kept hidden from viewers, it is eventually revealed to be the victim, Sasha King, played by Lauren Alexandria Roth. Roth voiced Sasha, Burgess and Ruzek’s young neighbor and the tragic victim that triggers the events of “Canaryville.” The episode is named for Burzek’s neighborhood and Chicago’s real South Side community of the same name, which has a strong Irish American and law enforcement population.
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“Canaryville is Chicago, but it’s kind of not at the same time, you know?” Sasha’s voiceover says at the top of P.D.‘s October 15 episode. “My whole life’s been here, nowhere else but this neighborhood that felt like a small town growing up. My best memories happened here, so I guess it was the biggest place on earth.
Everything seems bigger when you’re a kid, but then I grew up, and now this place feels so small, so familiar. People love familiar things because it reminds them of their past, makes them feel comfortable. But what if that comfort is lying to you? Or what if you’re lying to yourself?”
Viewers learned the identity of the mysterious voiceover after Burgess searched Sasha’s bedroom for evidence following the girl’s murder, finding a recorder and several cassette tapes in her bedside drawer. After finding a tape left in the player, Burgess pressed play and heard Sasha’s voice again.
“You know that saying ‘a canary in a coal mine?’ It’s like that,” Sasha said. “Canaries were put in coal mines to warn the coal miners of carbon monoxide poisoning. They’d first stop singing, start suffocating, until they fell off their little perch. Dead, just like that. No warning, just a quick, horrible death.”
Sasha’s tapes helped Burgess make a break in the homicide case
The detectives rarely get the opportunity to connect with their victim on such a personal level, and the case grew emotional as Burgess and Ruzek tracked down their neighbor’s killer. After reaching a dead end on evidence, Burgess revisited Sasha’s cassette tapes in hopes of catching something she may have missed.
“I’ve been thinking about the people closest to me,” Sasha said in an investigation-changing cassette. “Who’ve been there for most of my firsts, who have made me feel comfortable, safe. It feels so good when it’s good, you know? But really, they’re hiding something dirty. Dangerous even. And one day, all I see is a familiar stranger, and it’s the face of someone I’d never want to know.”
Burgess realized that Sasha had been killed by someone close to her, someone she’d trusted. After finding a recording taken by a neighbor’s smart car, the Intelligence Unit discovered that Sasha had been killed by her childhood best friend.
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After arresting everyone involved, the case sparked a gripping conversation between Burgess and Ruzek about their daughter’s happiness in Canaryville. Ruzek had called that house his home for decades, but maybe Makayla needed something different, to establish roots of their own. As Ruzek and Burgess headed to bed, Sasha’s final voice recording echoed in the distance as they contemplated their future.
“I’m scared to let go. To leave this place, my home, my mom. She needs me, but I think I really need this, too. Because maybe I can be whoever the hell I want to be. I can just be me. I don’t know what it will all be like, but I’m excited for what comes next.“
