'Chicago Med' Season 6 Episode 2 Preview: Will Halstead and Ethan Choi clash over Goodwin's choice of ED chief
When it comes to NBC's 'Chicago' shows, it is usually easy to predict which show might do best – 'Chicago Fire' and 'Chicago PD' have consistently gone for grittier stories while 'Chicago Med' opted for romantic tension. However, when the season premieres came about, we were all surprised. While 'Chicago Fire' and 'Chicago PD' kept their usual standards, 'Chicago Med' raised them, and after a disappointing fifth season, that was more than welcome. With Covid-19, it would seem like the medical drama would not need to resort to petty issues to create interest in viewers.
But hey, there is only so long that such a scene will remain novel and it looks like this week's new episode of 'Chicago Med' will see the medical drama going back to some soap opera-level tension – and it may be a good thing. We saw in last week's episode that Sharon Goodwin (S Epatha Merkerson), Gaffney Chicago Medical Center's administrator, will be continuing to work from home for the time being, given her susceptibility to the virus. Additionally, we saw that Dr. Ethan Choi (Brian Tee) is heading up the Covid response team, while Dr. Will Halstead was approached to head a clinical trial, which he rejected.
Now, one of the things that makes 'Chicago Med' so interesting to watch is the way different characters interact with each other. Usually, those interactions are taken over in bulk by the romantic interest – like Will with Dr. Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) or Ethan with nurse April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta). Now that both doctors are broken up, 'Chicago Med' has a great opportunity to put them with other characters. This week's episode will see Ethan and Will face off -- for perhaps the first time ever, and we are quite excited.
When Goodwin appoints Ethan as the new chief of the Emergency Department (ED), Will is not happy. Later, when Will is handling a patient, he gets upset with Ethan for "meddling" with the treatment. However, Ethan guesses that it might that he was chosen over Will as the ED chief that is upsetting Will. Now, we have seen Ethan interact with other doctors, and the same goes for Will, but we have never seen these two go head to head, so it remains to be seen how exactly they may put their beef aside.
This is also an opportunity for Will's participation in the clinical trial to come back. Now that he broke up with Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram), Will does have the time to focus on it and Will is at his best when he is involved in medical opportunities like this -- like the illegal safe injection site he was a part of, or working on the cure for the novel flesh-eating bacteria that overtook Chicago during the previous season's 'One Chicago' crossover. All that said, we agree that there is no better choice than Ethan -- he has been a much more reliable and professional doctor than Will has been in the past, so we think it is well-deserved.
Elsewhere in the episode, Natalie Manning takes a stand for her patient and finds herself dealing with the repercussions. This would be a plot that surprises no one. Most fans gripe that Natalie is often too keen on pushing her own ideals on everyone, but she usually does not face repercussions. Whether she will face actual repercussions this time remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt), who is recovering from Covid-19, will be tending to some family affairs.
'Chicago Med' airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 8/7c. Watch the promo for the episode here.
