SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Med Season 12, Episode 3.
One wonders if Chicago Med producer Stephen Hootstein is a movie buff, because Season 12, Episode 3, “They Call Me Ms. Goodwin,” reminds viewers of the 1967 classic In the Heat of the Night. Namely, the iconic line from Sidney Poitier: “They call me Mister Tibbs.” While this episode is obviously very different from the movie, the sentiment of wanting to be seen and respected is the same, and S. Epatha Merkerson delivers an impassioned performance, much like Poitier did in that film. This is some of Merkerson’s best work in the role of Sharon Goodwin, and proves that the NBC show’s surprising decision to have Goodwin resign did indeed have creative merit.
As the title indicates, the bulk of this episode is about Goodwin’s return to work as a rank and file nurse, and everyone else having to adjust to that. It’s understandable that Goodwin spends a lot of her time asserting herself and her expertise. She hasn’t forgotten her decades of medical knowledge just because she’s now at the bottom of the organizational chart instead of near the top. First and foremost, it’s wonderful to see Merkerson in a totally new element. Goodwin has worked on the ED floor before in times of crisis, but this is her doing the most basic things. Creatively, it’s great that she now has different scenes to play, and the audience is engaged because they’re adjusting as much as the characters are. They, too, have become used to seeing Sharon Goodwin in a very specific way.
That means Chicago Med really provides a showcase for its most veteran actors. Merkerson is front and center as she should be, but Steven Weber and Oliver Platt also have great scenes, both with her and separately. This episode is a joy to watch just to appreciate their work. Weber is wonderful as Dr. Dean Archer’s prickly attitude gets turned on two people who deserve it: new arrival Dr. Annie Wu, who dismissively treats Goodwin like the help, and Goodwin’s nemesis Miranda. As audiences have already seen in Archer’s Season 12 premiere interactions with Mallory Sloan, Weber’s sarcastic delivery makes these conflicts so much sharper. When Archer stands up for Goodwin to Annie, he’s saying what everyone in the audience wants to, exactly how they want to. Even if Goodwin doesn’t agree with him and she also has a point about not being “Ms. Goodwin” anymore.
And on that note, let’s give a hat tip to actor An-Li Bogan, who has fully leaned into Annie as the next character fans can love to hate. She’s gone from messing with Ripley to messing with Goodwin, and Charles’ description of Annie as a “clueless teenage resident” is spot-on.
The best scenes in the episode are between Goodwin and Charles, though, and viewers wouldn’t want it any other way. The two major scenes they share are excellent reminders not only of the friendship between Charles and Goodwin, but the rapport between Merkerson and Oliver Platt. When Charles loses his temper with Goodwin because he doesn’t know why she resigned, it’s startling yet also a reminder of how much he loves her and wants the best for her. And to see them make up at the end is exactly what viewers want: a sweet moment, but also a little sign to the audience that this is going to be okay, because they’re okay. (And also because they’re teaming up to take down Miranda, but we digress.)
Platt furthermore has a subplot that enables both him and Darren Barnet to shine. The story itself is worthy of an eyeroll by the end; the gist is that the duo realize a young patient is not being abused, but simply is insensitive to pain. Unfortunately, the boy is still taken away from his grandmother because Mallory Sloan’s next bright idea was an algorithm that notified the Department of Children and Family Services erroneously. And her response to this mistake is essentially a Steve Urkel-esque “Did I do that?” because since DCFS won’t find anything in their investigation, she doesn’t see the big deal. Aside from being emotionally tone-deaf, as Charles and Frost point out, she’s starting down the road to the medical version of Skynet. Mallory has fun potential as an antagonist, but making her antagonistic and naive is a bad combination—unless the long game is saying that she doesn’t know how terrible Miranda is and getting her to turn on her boss.
However, give Chicago Med credit for indirectly reminding viewers that not all medical applications of AI are a good thing. It’s also nice to see Platt and Barnet paired together again, and to give Frost something else to do after blowing up his personal life. Not only does he battle Mallory, there’s a separate scene of him finding Hannah Asher’s missing patient in a stairwell and helping to calm her down. Plus, when Charles points out to Mallory that Frost knows more about the resiliency of a child than she does, it’s appreciated that Chicago Med takes that beat to acknowledge why this would hit him so hard—without turning it into even more angst for him. He gets to kill a tablet, and then move on.
Elsewhere, guest star Dot-Marie Jones (Glee) is heartbreakingly wonderful in her portrayal of truck driver Gail, who accidentally hits a jaywalking pedestrian who ends up braindead. When Gail finds out that she’s due to receive the lungs of the man she hit, she refuses the transplant. Jones and Merkerson make a bittersweet duo. And while Gail finds out from one of those cringe-worthy Chicago Med mistakes that happen every now and then because TV, Hootstein turns around also serves up a feel-good moment because TV, in which Goodwin helps Ripley and Hannah find a way to keep Hannah’s unhoused patient and her partner at the hospital so they and their unborn child can get proper care. So at least the dramatic license goes in both directions.
“They Call Me Ms. Goodwin” is fundamentally S. Epatha Merkerson’s show, which is exactly what Chicago Med needs it to be. Goodwin’s change of career has too much of an impact on the entire show not to devote an episode to it. When Ripley admits he was scared of what the hospital would look like if she was gone for good, that’s a universal sentiment. Fans also need that time to process, and to take a pause and appreciate again the value that Merkerson has always brought to the show.
But Hootstein ought to get his flowers for crafting an episode that allows Oliver Platt, Steven Weber, Darren Barnet and Dot-Marie Jones to all have memorable moments as well. Too often, when TV shows focus so specifically on one character, the common result is that everything else is underdeveloped. But this episode finds space where it can for these other characters, without undercutting what it’s trying to do for Goodwin. Obviously the end result of this episode is something viewers will see later down the line, when the Miranda problem ends, but this is an hour that’s going to stick in people’s memories for a variety of reasons.
Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.
Stephen Hootstein is a miracle.