'Chicago Med' Report Card: How did Season 5 do? What worked and what needs to be improved
All three shows of the 'Chicago' franchise on NBC came to a premature end this year due to the ongoing pandemic. As such, many storylines did not get wrapped up. However, how much did the loss of three episodes each affect the shows and how did the current seasons do?
For 'Chicago Med', it was a big season. Colin Donnell who played Dr Connor Rhodes left the show after the Season 5 premiere along with Norma Kuhling who played Dr Ava Bekker. Both actors reportedly left because of creative differences with respect to their characters and viewers probably would have agreed with them.
Season 5 began with Ava shockingly putting a blade to her neck when Connor said he would report her to the authorities and the hospital for killing his father with an insulin overdose. Connor's departure was less ridiculous, he left because he wanted to start over at another place.
To replace Connor, we got Dr Marcel Crockett (Dominic Rains) and were it not for the uneven writing of the character, viewers could've probably made up their mind about him after nearly 20 episodes. Instead, we got moments where he was sensitive and arrogant alternatively or moments where he worked well with others or at other times, badly.
As always, 'Chicago Med' put its focus on the romantic dramas between colleagues. For the first few episodes of Season 5, we had to deal with Dr Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) trying to force Dr Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) to get her memories back after her accident. When she calls him out, albeit rather angrily, he backs off and later moved on to Dr Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram) whom he met while trying to save her from overdosing at the illegal safe injection site he was working at temporarily.
But the most explosive romantic drama was that involving the love triangle of Dr Ethan Choi (Brian Tee), his girlfriend, nurse April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta), and Crockett. Crockett and April were first antagonistic to each other, and then for nearly half a season, we had to watch them exchange longing looks while they hid their illicit kiss from Ethan. When Ethan found out, he acted out at both Crockett and April and in the end, everything just got really messy. This, we felt, was an unnecessary turn. We were looking forward to Ethan's and April's struggle to become parents and 'Chicago Med' would have done so much better had that gone all the way.
Nurse Maggie Lockwood (Marlyne Barrett) easily had one of the best stories of the season. First, we saw her diagnosed with cancer and she opted to get treated at another hospital so she could keep working. Then we saw her meet Ben during her chemo sessions. She eventually gets married to Ben after recovering from cancer.
Perhaps the problem 'Chicago Med' writers have is that they are either inconsistent with their writing of some characters (like Natalie or Crockett), or they are too consistent - Will seems to be making the same mistakes, either professionally or personally, every season. Will's focus on helping patients affected by drug addiction was one of the best things to happen to the character, but that story went out the window just as soon as we started seeing it.
So, it's no surprise that of all three 'Chicago' shows, 'Chicago Med' is the weakest. Thankfully, it doesn't derail the show as much as one would expect with such haphazard stories. 'Chicago Med', along with 'Chicago Fire' and 'Chicago PD' was renewed for three more seasons, so a lot could change over the next three years.