Well, that happened. And by that we mean Frost’s father passing away, Lenox and Ripley exchanging I love yous, and oh yes, Hannah Asher finally giving birth to a baby girl. But Lenox and Ripley were not the only ones exchanging I love you’s in this hour, as Hannah and Dean got into the fun too. And fans had been waiting a long time for just this conversation.
Before the finale, titled ‘Heaven Help Us‘, we caught up with Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald and Hannah Asher star Jessy Schram, who discussed why now was the right time, and what comes next for the new couples.
First, let’s make one thing clear. MacDonald was always working towards these big moments in the finale. “I had to balance [the prison riot storyline] with some major scenes that we knew were going to happen all season long, which is the scene between Lenox and Ripley, Hannah having the baby, Frost’s father dying.”
And that I love you for Archer and Asher. And boy, did they take a while. In fact, for a moment there, we were worried they weren’t gonna talk about it. Which MacDonald actually enjoyed, telling us, “I want that. I want you to be worried about that.”
But Schram went much deeper into Hannah’s psyche as she analyzed why it took them so long to actually talk. “I feel like I learned through the season that Hannah is actually an avoidant. She’s an avoidant on most levels. And I didn’t really realize that’s what she was, but she definitely avoided feelings, but also avoided committing to what life could be after this, like she needed to see that everything would be okay. And then it would be like two different chapters.”
Things, however, worked out for most people. Frost and Goodwin might disagree, but Lenox and Ripley, and certainly Asher and Archer, got a little bit of happiness. But this is network TV, so we shouldn’t get too comfortable. “Other things will definitely happen, and it will not all be happy. There’s no such thing as staying steady forever.”
However, MacDonald admitted that “we haven’t started talking about next season,” and yet also told us that “I know in my head, generally what I want to do. And I’ve already talked to Jessy and Steven Weber about it. But you know, there are bumps in the road for sure.”
Archer and Asher is a ship that, in many ways, felt like it came out of nowhere. People saw the spark and started shipping it, and at first, it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. But here we are, and it’s clear that the show committed a while ago and started writing towards it.
Ironically, though, Schram shared that back when people first saw it, Dasher was brought up as a possibility to both her and Steven Weber. “I remember early on, I think it was four episodes in after Hannah came back in Season 7, they were like: “Hey, what about Archer and Asher?” And we were both like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don’t see that. And also, we both want to stick around. And if we do this too early, and if we do this in a way that’s not grounded and authentic to them, you know, one of us could say, see you later.”
Things changed with MacDonald. “I feel like when Allen came along, he was like: No, we’re doing this. We’re taking it there. But I’m gonna take you guys there in who your characters are. And we’re gonna make it something special, as opposed to something expected, or something that we’ve seen before. Because I don’t feel like we’ve seen this relationship before in many places, and definitely not on our show.”
Funnily enough, MacDonald didn’t know the possibility of Dasher had come up so early on.
“I think we were four episodes in,” Schram continued. “And I think because we were butting heads so much, our producing director at the time came up and was like: ‘Hey, what if we did this with you guys?’ And we were like: ‘Hey, I don’t think so.’ Which is lovely that it was even thrown out to us. But again, it was so early on. And we were like: Ooh, we understand when people butt heads, that’s such an interesting chemistry, and people want to see them together, but it felt too obvious and hadn’t been earned yet.”
In this, Schram and Weber agreed. “I know Steven felt as strongly as I did, like, let’s earn this. Let’s earn this, even if they are butting heads, as opposed to just doing the normal two people that are not peas in a pod that just get together because they’re together. We wanted it to be something that made sense if it ever did happen. And they listened, which was amazing. And then Allen was like: We’re doing it.”
For MacDonald, there is a right way to write a ship and a wrong way to write a ship. “I think those things have to be… as Lauren McKenzie, one of our EPs on the show, says, she likes a good slow burn. And you have to earn the relationship and move slowly.”
“I feel at times on TV, couples hook up too quickly. And sometimes that works. And sometimes it doesn’t. That’s how I feel.”
Allen MacDonald is right in one thing: the good slow burns are the ones we remember.
“My reference is the Ross and Rachel,” Schram pointed out.
Now comes the post-canon glow for Hannah and Dean, and well, it won’t be easy. They have a newborn! Or is it the worst time? “I guess it’s more of a reason to try and make things work, right?” Schram pointed out.
But Hannah Asher is not just going to have to figure out how to be in a relationship; she will also have to figure out how to be a mother. Her mother died in childbirth. And as a doctor, she knows pregnancy well. Motherhood is a different thing.
“It’s incredibly profound. As an OB, the baby isn’t her patient; it’s mom. It’s the woman who’s on the table or in her chair. And that’s where her focus is. And I don’t think she ever thought that it was possible based on the life that she’s already lived, with her addiction, and where she was in her career, and where her focus was. That wasn’t really in her sights. That wasn’t what she was around.”
But that’s what she will now have to figure out. “She was the baby of the family. So, it’s not like she was Lizzie babysitting or taking care of other places or other people. Her mom didn’t get to do this. She didn’t get to hold her baby. She got to go through the process, but also, she didn’t fully take care of herself along the way, which is why I think Hannah’s obsession as well with taking care of herself, or even trying to control the moment when the baby’s coming out, of needing an A-line if her pressure isn’t good. He wanted to get past the table. She wanted to get past the moment that her mom never made it through.”
And now she gets to go on a journey her mom didn’t get to experience. “She never got a mom. She didn’t want that for her baby girl either.” Plus, in many ways, Hannah was fighting against too much knowledge. “My character has seen all the things that can go wrong. She’s seen the things that can go right, but the things that go wrong are the things that stick out to you most. So, it’s not, it’s not some happy-go-lucky setting. She knows more than the average person. And that just means she knows everything that could happen that even her mom didn’t go through. So, I think that she wasn’t pessimistic about anything, but she wasn’t going to feel optimistic in case she had to fall all the way from, you know, optimism. She was too much of a realist, I think, in the beginning and through it.”
Hannah can rest now. At least for a bit. But Sharon Goodwin can’t. ‘Heaven Help Us’ ends with an angry Goodwin and a look from S. Epatha Merkerson that shook us to our core. And she’s got a right to be angry. We’ll pick up back there, MacDonald promised.
“That look tells you that you don’t want to f*ck with Sharon Goodwin and that Sharon has been activated and she’s righteously angry. There’s a backstory there that we will unveil next season, but she’s going to have to fight for her job.”
And one final remarkable tidbit? That last look was all S. Epatha Merkerson. “I have to give S. Epatha Merkerson, who is an amazing person and actor, the credit for looking into the camera. That was her doing. We had shot a whole bunch of takes, and at the end she said, I want to try something. And then she looked in the lens and all of us at Video Village, which is where we have the monitors live, and we’re watching it. are like: “Oh my God. Like, you know, it’s like, you don’t want S. Epatha Merkerson at it… You certainly don’t want Sharon Goodwin at it. And when she’s looking at you, she’s going to be looking at everybody in the audience, and they’re going to feel her anger because she’s looking at them.”
We certainly felt it. And it made us even more excited for the season to come.
Chicago Med will return to NBC this fall.
