SPOILER ALERT AND WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Med Season 11, Episode 17. It also contains discussion of suicide.
After Chicago Med had its best episode of the season, “Altered States” has a very high bar to clear. It has to resolve the fate of Dr. Daniel Charles, but it also has to be as emotionally compelling as “The Book of Charles.” The NBC show can’t have a potentially life-changing cliffhanger and then peter out at the end. Luckily, Season 11, Episode 17 delivers and is even more likely to make One Chicago fans reach for their tissues.
“Altered States” almost picks up exactly where “The Book of Charles” left off. Writer Deanna Shumaker opens with a surprising fakeout, in which the viewer thinks that Dr. Caitlin Lenox is rushing Charles into the ED, but then it’s revealed she’s looking at a completely unrelated patient who will never get mentioned again. Some audience members may chuckle nervously at being surprised; others may be annoyed by it. But that also serves as a little indicator that this is not going to be a standard Chicago Med episode.
The idea of setting most of the hour within Dr. Charles’ subconscious is an interesting one, and one that serves as a perfect complement to what Allen MacDonald did with “The Book of Charles.” That episode was all about these external forces pushing Charles into ultimately having a stroke; this is the flip side, in which everything happening to him is internal.
There’s a neat compare and contrast happening here; it would actually be interesting to see these episodes as a combined two-hour event, if not for the dramatic impact one would lose by not having a cliffhanger. They flow together very well, which is always tricky to do with multi-part stories, especially if they’re divided up between multiple writers.
What doesn’t change is that Oliver Platt is absolutely the center of the action, as he should be. It’s not just a Charles backstory episode; the whole underlying point of this plot is that Charles is in the middle of everything. TV episodes that do dream or subconscious sequences really rely on the actor involved to act as a sort of navigator for the audience, and Platt fulfills that role perfectly. He plays the confusion and upset that Charles should feel, but he’s not overdoing it.
There’s no need, either in the acting or the writing, to heighten things for dramatic purposes. The only sort of gimmick is the use of the TV as a dramatic device; one wonders if Shumaker is a Life on Mars fan. But other than that, the audience already knows this is an elevated situation; the emotion comes from between the characters.
A high point is that Shumaker gives every player in “Altered States” at least one strong moment. Some are smaller than others, given that some folks only appear for a scene. But every character registers. Credit must also be given to the absolutely outstanding guest cast assembled to populate this episode. Tony Award winner Deanna Dunagan, whom die-hard One Chicago fans might also know from her role in Joe Chappelle’s film An Acceptable Loss, returns to play Margaret Charles again as a sort of mistress of ceremonies.
It’s moving to see Charles and Margaret have the talk they should’ve had before she died in Season 10, Chicago Med is rife with complicated and tragic family relationships, but at least this one gets an attempt at closure.
Elsewhere, that’s Elden Henson—of Daredevil: Born Again fame, but much earlier in his career, the Mighty Ducks film franchise—playing a younger version of Dr. Charles’ father, Lucas. The whole episode rests on the scene between Charles and his father, in which Charles tries to stop his father from dying by suicide. At this point, the audience knows that this is the formative event that set Daniel on the path to becoming a psychiatrist. They know it can’t be stopped.
But it’s amazing how much Henson and Platt are on the same page with their performances, like mirror images of one another, and that lends itself to genuine heartbreak. Not only how hard this tragic ending is to accept, but also the knowledge that fans won’t get to see these two actors collaborating again, unless Chicago Med finds some other reason to do further Charles flashbacks.
There are also younger versions of Charles’ ex-wives and his children, which help to add further perspective to each of those stories. The fantastic Brenda Strong (Sports Night, Desperate Housewives) makes one more appearance as Suzie to say everything that the audience wants to say to Charles. And this isn’t counting the usual cast of characters, most notably Hannah Riley as Anna Charles and Brennan Brown as Dr. Sam Abrams. One of the most thought-provoking scenes is actually between Anna and Sharon Goodwin, and it’s meaningful that as much as Goodwin is there to support Anna, that Anna also provides support for Goodwin.
It would be too easy to simply relegate Anna to hand-wringing over her father, but she’s given more space than that. The absence of Mekia Cox as Robin Charles is noticeable—but forgiveable, as viewers may remember that Cox is a series regular on The Rookie. And as many laughs as Med viewers have gotten over the years from Brown’s deadpan humor, it actually really helps in this episode to have his moments of commentary as a way to break the tension subtly, without undermining the whole situation.
As if that’s not enough, there’s room in “Altered States” for Goodwin and Dr. Mitch Ripley to have their say, as well. Shumaker recognizes that how this incident affects them is also important, and so there are moments for each of them, as well as the two of them together. Oftentimes, when a TV hero is in a life-threatening situation, the episode is very singularly focused, and the other characters are often just hitting the same emotional notes. But there’s room here to explore everyone else’s perspective. It’s not a huge part of the episode, but it’s there, and it makes the whole thing feel more well-rounded.
There’s about one and a half subplots here, which honestly the show didn’t need to do; if this episode had been wholly about Dr. Charles, fans probably wouldn’t have complained. But there’s a story about Dr. Hannah Asher butting heads with a returning Dr. Vera Lovell (last seen in “What’s Hiding in the Dark”), which turns out to be a commentary on where Hannah is emotionally. She actually has a pretty valid point about Vera’s bedside manner, but Vera also has a point that Hannah deserves the time and space to focus on herself, whether or not she wants it.
“Altered States” also wants to be a step forward for the Ripley and Dr. Caitlin Lenox relationship, as Ripley tells Lenox that sleeping together isn’t a relationship. That part is less successful, just because it highlights the fact that this pairing has never seemed to actually do anything for either character. Having said that, this episode can be the start of changing that. If the writers are really going to put in the effort to crack Lenox’s emotional walls, maybe this pairing turns into something meaningful. She deserves to move beyond her diagnosis storyline, and Ripley deserves to move past being dumped twice.
But ultimately, this is a Charles episode with a side of Goodwin. It is a chance to once again appreciate what Oliver Platt and S, Epatha Merkerson bring to Chicago Med and have brought for over a decade. It’s also the opportunity to see beyond the image of Dr. Charles that fans have in their heads and gain a greater appreciation for him as a human being, not just as a fan-favorite hero. He is a character who is deeply flawed (you don’t get divorced that many times for nothing), but he comes from the most noble of places.
Some may say it’s cliché to have his motivation be a tragic family loss; after all, how many characters in TV procedurals have some kind of sad backstory? Yet “Altered States” makes it make sense; this is a character who has experienced loss over and over again. And even as much as this is full of sadness for Dr. Charles, it’s also a celebration of him, in reminding viewers about the lives he’s touched. The audience can now take a breath and let themselves relax emotionally, while also looking forward to how Dr. Charles and the people he loves will grow from this.
Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.
