Season 11 of Chicago Med has had its ups and downs, but Episode 9 gets back to what makes the NBC show great. It has several genuine emotional moments that get the audience to care not only about the main characters, but about their patients. The only thing that keeps it from being amazing is that it stops some of those moments short.
First and foremost, it’s time to subtitle this the Hannah Asher and Dean Archer show. For the second week in a row, Hannah and Dean have the best part of the episode—and both Jessy Schram and Steven Weber are fantastic. No one who’s watched this series expected that Hannah and Dean meeting her father would go well; family material is almost always difficult on Chicago Med. But both Dean and Hannah get chances to assert themselves with Mark, and both those moments land. Hannah has her confidence back, and Dean does what everyone hopes a best friend and future co-parent would do. Although when Mark leaves by telling his daughter that Dean is “head over heels in love with you,” the shippers will obviously be cheering.
At this point, it’s hard to argue with them. It would be interesting to see Chicago Med depict a co-parenting relationship just because it is so atypical, but these two characters have the most genuine dynamic on the entire show at this point. The pregnancy twist felt forced at the time, but that’s necessitated an even further look into how these characters work together, and that’s taken a pairing that worked and made it even more honest. So many romantic relationships on TV feel forced (and more on that later), but if this were to happen now—and seriously happen, not just have them hook up again for dramatic effect—it would feel like a natural progression of their arc.
The other thing in “Blindsided” that works is the investment in secondary characters. It’s really interesting that all of the three cases come out of the same car accident, which makes the storytelling more effective. There’s no ping-ponging between ideas. Even though there are three patients being treated, all of those are pieces of the same big picture. All three patients have emotional stakes that viewers can feel, and the resolution of the plot has little to do with the doctors—it’s about the new mother and the cab driver who rushed her to the hospital. The writers also resist the urge to have a bad ending somewhere in the bunch.
In fact, the best non-Hannah and Dean moment comes from Dr. Theo Rabari (a returning Manish Dayal), who unloads on a patient’s family lawyer about the dangers of misdiagnosis. It’s fantastic that Theo gets the big “slap in the face” moment that viewers know all along is coming. The only criticism is that his speech doesn’t go on long enough; Dr. Daniel Charles jumps in and finishes it off. Theo deserves that moment to be entirely his, and the writers also leave fans hanging when Theo doesn’t explain (yet?) to Charles his personal history that led to said unloading. The best Chicago Med episodes are the ones that remember the secondary characters are people, too. Now Theo feels like more than a roadblock to Charles.
And off of that, Charles making the decision to take some time away is lovely too, because it comes down to the two people it should: him and Sharon Goodwin. It still feels like this is a reason to explain Oliver Platt taking a few episodes off, just like having Dr. Caitlin Lenox recovering is the signal that Sarah Ramos is getting a week off, but Charles gets to say his temporary goodbye exactly as he should. The emotional beats that Episode 11 needs to hit, it hits well. Those scenes impact the audience not just in the moment, but the viewers leave with better understanding of those characters.
“Blindsided” does have a couple of elements it could have left behind. While Frost’s subplot works on an emotional level, the stories and jokes about his acting career are incredibly tired. And a second co-star who comes out of the woodwork, wanting to be chummy, who turns out to be a bad influence? The storyline is pretty familiar. The one way it would have been a lot stronger is if Marlyne Barrett had been available; when Frost mentions that his charge nurse is going to call the cops, it’s a reminder of the friendship Frost was building with Maggie, and this story could have been a way to explore that. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and so this just feels like a retread. The writers would do well to follow Frost’s example and leave his past behind.
Along the same lines, bookending the episode with Sharon Goodwin mourning her late ex-husband Bert is moving, yet the Bert story already had a perfect ending in “The Story of Us.” Going back to that doesn’t feel necessary. Plus, that means bringing the awesome Gbenga Akinnagbe back for just one scene.
Yet that’s the vibe of Chicago Med Season 11. When it focuses in on its plot and characters, it does really wonderful things, because this show has an incredibly underrated cast. The show just sometimes drifts away from that in favor of what’s more exciting. Another example of that happens with the promo for Episode 12, which is entirely focused on who Archer may be sleeping with. There’s so much more to say about his character and so much else going on at the hospital—as proven by how strong Episode 11 is—but that’s what the lead is. Still, “Blindsided” is a reminder that there’s still something special here. It recaptures the magic that got Chicago Med to Season 11 in the first place.
Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.
