Luke Mitchell, Chicago Med
George Burns Jr/NBC
Chicago Med returned for Season 12 after a three-month time jump that has seemingly made the hospital a worse place to be in. The Season 12 premiere, “Shots Fired,” sets the stage pretty well for the challenges Gaffney Chicago Medical Center is facing this season. Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) is no longer the Executive Director of Patient and Medical Services, pending the investigation into whether she leaked Dr. Rabari’s (Manash Dayal) medical files. And things are falling apart without her.
The “new Sharon,” Mallory Sloan (Rebecca Breeds), seems more interested in the bottom line than patient care. And as Dr. Archer (Steven Weber) pushes back against her, the worst possible scenario for a hospital happens: a mass shooting, this time at a wedding. As the doctors scramble to care for a great number of patients, Hannah (Jessy Schram) is forced to step in to help the bride, who is pregnant, while Frost (Darren Barnet) tries to help a girl who lost her sight and Ripley (Luke Mitchell) ends up way too close to the actual shooter.
But can Gaffney even survive without Goodwin? Will Miranda Lewis (Orlagh Cassidy) win her cold war against Goodwin and banish her for good? How did the show account for Sarah Ramos’ maternity leave, and what does that mean for Lenox (Sarah Ramos)? Where are Hannah and Dean after his love confession? The show gave us some of those answers and set up how it’ll deal with the rest during the season.
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While we wait to get those answers on screen, we talked to Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald about the ships, what Goodwin will do next, and what he’s planning for the characters this season.
Let’s start with the obvious: Why a wedding?
Allen MacDonald: Well, we’re always looking for a story that can allow us to come into the premiere with guns blazing. But I’m always, and so are all the writers and the writing staff, looking for a way to incorporate a lot of emotional dynamics between characters. And we just thought having the worst possible thing on what’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life was a very good place to go dramatically. And to get to know some of the survivors of that incident and what their relationships are with each other.
And to live in that fear of something like that… there’s chaos, people go to different hospitals. You don’t know if your loved one is alive or dead because you got separated. And we just wanted to really live in those higher stakes.
You previously teased that the theme of the season is “moving into the unknown.” How do you set that up?
MacDonald: The director of the episode, Anna Dokoza, and myself, tried to set that up in the opening sequence, where you come in with our new Executive Director, our new Sharon Goodwin, Mallory Sloan, and she’s walking around the hospital, and it seems to be a little bit underwater, doing its best and keeping people alive, of course. But Archer’s in charge. What happened to Lenox? Where’s Goodwin? Who’s this new doctor, Dr. Wu? And three months have gone by.
We see where Goodwin is, and we also find out she wasn’t the one who leaked Dr. Rabari’s medical files. But knowing it was Doris doesn’t help Goodwin much. She would never throw Doris under the bus.
MacDonald: Yeah, that’s exactly right. Because the idea was, you think it’s just going to be a very clear answer. Did she do it or did she not do it? And now you find out someone she cares about did it. But what we don’t know is why. You’ll find that out very quickly in Episode 2. And I think you may also find out that it’s not as black and white as you think it is. It may be that Sharon Goodwin didn’t know exactly what had happened, but she may be somewhat complicit in it herself, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
From Goodwin we go to Ripley, who had a really bad day. He had a confrontation with Dr. Wu about whether she deliberately let a patient suffer, and she accuses him of wanting it too. And that’s juxtaposed with what happened to Bruno, and how that ties into Ripley’s whole belief in second chances. That’s a lot of setup!
MacDonald: I think that’s a very obviously loaded scene with Ripley and Wu. I think Wu senses that something’s going on with Ripley. She doesn’t know him well enough to know exactly what it is. But he questions her about what she did and accuses her of making that guy suffer because of what he did. And as doctors, they’re not supposed to do that. We leave it for the audience to figure out if she did it on purpose or not, but I think it’s safe to say that her ethical line is different than most of the doctors and that she has a little bit of a looser relationship with the truth.
She’s not a liar per se, but I think she’s got a very, very competitive, tricky, wily personality. And I think she, maybe not even on purpose, is going to stir a little sh– up while she’s there. And she’s also attacking Ripley to deflect from herself.
He’s also got Lenox’s absence hanging over him, and in that conversation at the end with the return of Sarah Ramos, we get to see him frame what happened in the best way he can. But is he lying to himself?
MacDonald: He’s just in a bit of a dark place. He started that way because Lenox is gone. He misses her. He’s glad she’s doing what she’s doing. But she’s been gone for three months, basically. And he’s also very much, you know… the hospital is not running like it’s supposed to. He’s watching a lot of people die. I’m not saying they’re dying because the hospital is not running well. Our doctors always do everything to make sure that they save the people that need to be saved.
But I think at the same time, not having Lenox there has put him in a funk, and he’s kind of focusing on the darkness and the death. And watching Bruno die right in front of him is not helpful to that mindset, nor is the idea that: ‘Oh, my God, if I had stayed there for another 10 seconds, that car would have hit me, too.’ Which puts him, interestingly, in a mindset that Lenox knows very well, which is that you could die at any moment. So, he’s kind of, you know, coming around to what that must feel like. And she’s like, welcome.
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From one ship to another, you also have Hannah and Dean. Obviously, there’s a baby. It’s not the ideal time for romance. They’re in a bit of a holding pattern. Is Dean maybe feeling like he said his piece, so the ball is in Hannah’s court now?
MacDonald: I think that’s fair. I think that the ball is in her court. I think that, Hannah, this was not accidental on our part; I think she sent very mixed signals in the finale. She kissed him. She obviously loves him, but, you know, it’s that old age-old question: Is she in love with him? I don’t think she knows yet.
I don’t think she knows how she feels. I think there are a lot of new feelings going through the brain and heart of Dr. Hannah Asher right now, and being a mother is one of them. Wanting to make sure that she doesn’t lose or forego her identity as a highly respected OB-GYN. She has all these facets to her life; she has her career, which she’s always had. She has Mabel now, and she’s trying to figure things out with Archer, who’s living with her.
But I think that they aren’t actually talking about what they are or where they’re going to be or how they feel about each other because the baby is kind of a buffer. It’s kind of an excuse to not talk about it.
Finally, Dr. Frost seems to have the worst luck with love. First Lizzie, then Naomi. Is he going to get a relationship that lasts?
MacDonald: You know, I hope so.
That’s not very reassuring!
MacDonald: I think the poor guy’s got a few bumps ahead first. I’ll say that.
Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC.