Chicago Med kicked off its 9th season with everyone working together to treat mass casualties following an interstate pile-up.
It was a logical way to get the whole cast in the same room and working together, especially after a nine-month hiatus due to the Hollywood strikes.
Fans have been waiting and longing to see their favorite characters back in action, so the Chicago Med Season 9 premiere delivered on full fronts.
Dr. Charles assisted in the ED, confronting a patient from his past head-on, who is now a new attending at Gaffney.
Luke Mitchell stars as Mitch Ripley, who seems to be impressing everyone on his first day of work until he has a run-in with Dr. Charles. And it’s clear that there’s a lot of unresolved resentment between the two, particularly Ripley, who believes he was overmedicated as a teen during a stint in county juvy.
Charles, however, remembers the time differently, reminding Ripley that he was aggressive and violent and that the other kids in juvy needed to be protected. Even so, he tells Ripley that he’s proud of how he turned his life around considering all the obstacles he faced, but that isn’t much of a consolation to the young doctor.
In the end, it’s one of those situations where there are two sides—Charles’, Ripley’s and the truth.
There’s also an interesting moment where Charles doesn’t seem to remember why he left the county juvenile center after Ripley accuses him of “booking it,” chalking it up to his rotation ending. There’s evidently much more to this storyline—and we’ve only grazed the surface, but it’s exciting that it will allow us to get to some insight into Charles’ behavior. He’s always regarded as such a hero of the hospital, but that might not have always been the case at the start of his career. And it also underscores that even the best of doctors make mistakes—they’re human.
It was a bit concerning that Ripley’s negative experience with psych unconsciously swayed his decision. He was trying to do right by Harris, whose metabolic results were concerning, and it’s great that he weaned him off the mood stabilizers in a controlled setting, but he should have consulted psych and gotten a second opinion. But alas, tension is necessary!
Archer is on the eve of his kidney transplant, and while Sean has been cleared and is ready to go, his father hasn’t exactly come to terms with the procedure or the fact that his son is donating to him.
Most of it stems from feelings of being unworthy after claiming he was a bad father growing up. I’m happy the one thing that hasn’t changed is his friendship with Hannah, even after Sean professed his feelings for her and assumed that she was into his father. That could have made it weird, but it didn’t. Hannah didn’t even skip a beat. Even if things get testy sometimes, she’s always there to help steer him in the right direction. And her speech during the premiere about Sean no longer wanting drugs but craving a connection with his dad was one of the best ones to date. She meant every single word because as a former addict, she knows a thing of two about feeling unworthy—Archer wasn’t doing this for himself, he was doing this for his son. This was their second chance; his redemption to be there for his son when he needs him. As she explained, if he denies him this, it would ruin him. As Sean told his father, helping people is when he feels happiest.
Maggie Lockwood kept being reminded of how great Ben is—from patients and her fellow co-workers—until she finally cracked and told Hannah that he wanted a divorce. She’s been bottling up so many feelings inside, it was bound to come out eventually, but the one thing I hope this season does is fix things between her and Ben because they are couple goals.
As for Crockett, he was working miracles when his patient, Brice, was airlifted following the accident that pinned the car he was in under a semi, killing his father, and internally decapitated him. The only thing holding his head to his body was skin, which proved to be quite a complex and unprecedented case with a projected survival rate of approximately 5%.
The only time the surgery to fix the issue was ever performed was on an adult cadaver, which meant they had to get pretty creative. Crockett got Goodwin’s permission to use 2.0, even though the machine went haywire and drove the hospital into bankruptcy not long ago, as it was the only shot they had of performing the life-saving surgery. When everything is working against you, you do what you have to do.
What I loved is that they didn’t simply rely on the AI, they used it as a guiding tool, still enlisting their own research, theories and expertise first and foremost. There’s so much talk about AI these days, but it makes sense when you use it as an asset versus something that replaces humans.
Thanks to the AI’s input, they were able to work around critical errors and save Brice’s life!
The new owners of Gaffney should be happy, and though the business aspect of the hospital’s financial woes wasn’t addressed, it’s definitely a storyline that will rear its head this season.
Hannah’s patient Ivy sadly didn’t make it, however, she ended up being a kidney donor to another young girl, Kayla, whose recent kidney transplant failed. It was fitting considering she loved saving people and animals—and Hannah ended up saving the hamster she had with her at the time of the accident.
For Kayla, the car crash was a blessing in disguise as doctors were able to notice that her kidney was bleeding.
And finally, the patient that caused the whole pile-up, Judith, was so guilt-ridden, she was refusing treatment for a life-threatening hematoma, stating that she deserved to die. It was heartbreaking considering the whole accident was caused by black ice; it was something beyond her control.
Eventually, Dr. Charles was able to get through to her that the only way to one day forgive herself was to live long enough to get to that point. As far as inspirational speeches from Charles go, this one was at the top of the list, and it resonated with Judith who agreed to get treated.
What did you think of the episode? Was it good to be back again?
Chicago PD Season 11 Premiere Promo – Unpacking