After more than 20 years searching for her kidnapped sister, Shari (Selin Çuhadaroğlu), last week on Chicago P.D., Officer Eva Imani (Arienne Mandi) tracked her down and rescued her from the man who had kidnapped her when she was just six years old.
But Shari is in complete denial of her early life, which isn’t how the reunion was supposed to go. Eva is supposed to have an overwhelming sense of relief that her search is at an end, but that’s not what is happening going into the finale.
“Thankfully, she’s alive, right?” Mandi exclusively tells Parade. “There’s any world of possibilities of what could have happened to her, but she is alive. Unfortunately, she’s not what maybe Eva had hoped. We’re not sure if she’ll remember or ever be a whole person again after all that she’s been through. So yes, there’s some sort of relief, but also a whole world of questions, and the possibility of things like, can she have a relationship with her? Will she be okay? Can she move forward in the world?”
With so many unanswered questions and with Shari denying that they’re sisters, Eva is in shock because it’s the total opposite of the reunion she had hoped for. She had hoped to finally have a family since her parents are gone.
“I remember walking into that room and not even being able to touch the door handle outside because of all the thoughts that you’re consumed with, like what happens, you know?” Mandi says. “As soon as she walked in, it’s like she’s hanging on every second, every breath, every moment of things that are unsaid. She’s just waiting there to see that glimmer in [Shari’s] eye of her sister recognizing her, and it just never happens. So, it’s really devastating.”
The title of the episode is “Born or Made,” which seemed like a reference to Shari. She was born into a happy family, and her formative years were good ones, but now it’s a case of nature or nurture. How much has her kidnapper formulated the woman she’s become?
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Interestingly enough, showrunner Gwen Sigan says the title isn’t specifically targeted at Shari, but Shari, Eva and Hank Voight (Jason Beghe).
“We started this season wanting to talk about roots, and that was sort of our theme of this season, wanting to explore all of our characters, where they came from, who they are because of it, and even Voight, getting into his backstory,” Sigan explains. “So I think in a lot of ways that title is referring to Voight and the things that we learned about him this year, and also Imani. I think both of these people have this unique relationship to violence and to action and adrenaline, and that they were born with it sort of inside of them in a way.
“Shari is in this world of crime because of the person who kidnapped her. For someone like her, who was taken at such a young age, is she this person that she was born as that Imani can remember so clearly and so vividly? Or is she what she was made into by this man that has kept her captive for all of these years?”
When we think of real-life cases of kidnap victims who have developed a positive relationship with their captors and aligned with them, Patty Hearst comes to mind as the most famous of those. But Sigan says she isn’t sure that what Shari has experienced is Stockholm Syndrome specifically.
“That last question we see her ask at the end of Episode 20: who are you, it’s genuine that she doesn’t honestly remember her sister,” Sigan says. “And whether that is something that slowly happened over time, or if it was bred out of her by this individual, he wanted her to forget. I think what we see right away in Episode 21 is that she really does identify more heavily that her family is this man, Kirby, who she spent 22 years with.”
Even though Eva soon discovers that Shari refuses to cooperate and won’t provide her with any information on Kirby’s whereabouts, Eva is determined to bring Kirby to justice for the crime he committed against not just her sister, but her whole family and Voight is happy to help. Tune in to watch the story play out.
Chicago P.D. airs Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Streams next day on Peacock.
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This story was originally published by Parade on May 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the TV section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
