Yahoo Lifestyle Seven Spoilers for the Season 10 Premiere of 'Chicago Med,' Including New Cast Members
When Chicago Med returns for its 10th season, the medical drama will be helmed by a brand-new showrunner, Allen MacDonald, who will be bringing a new vision to the NBC series and in so doing, he will take some inspiration from ER, a show he watched as a fan.
“Something that I loved so much about ER, is that I would watch an episode, and I know this was 30 years ago, or if you watched the final episodes, 15 years ago, but I just loved the fact that every episode would make me cry, and also make me laugh, and sometimes at the same time,” he tells Parade. “There was such humanity there. There were a lot of characters that had that humanity and really cared about their patients and each other. I loved the idea that the doctors in the ED are a family unit, a dysfunctional family at times, but I liked watching all those characters bounce off each other and learn from each other and challenge each other.”
Toward his goal, MacDonald and his writing team are also looking for medical cases to utilize that will reveal something about the characters but also have an emotional component.
“I love medicine, and I love the accuracy of the medicine on the show, but if we tell a story, I really am looking for that pivot where you have the emotional reaction,” he adds.
Here are seven fun facts from MacDonald that reveal what we can expect in the coming season.
Spoilers the Chicago Med Season 10 Premiere
Photo by: George Burns Jr/NBC
No. 1: Dominic Rains
Rains is exiting his role as Crockett Marcel as was set up in the Season 9 finale, and, according to MacDonald, Rains will not be returning to wrap up his story. He’s just gone.
“I’m very much tempted to tease that, but I don’t want to have it be a false tease,” he says. “The reality is that we are not going to see Dominic in Season 10, and we will explain his departure in dialogue in the opening episode.”
No. 2: Sarah Ramos
Sarah Ramos is joining the cast as Dr. Caitlin Lenox and she is being brought in to shake things up.
“Specifically, we are bringing her in to shake up the ED and Dr. Dean Archer (Steven Weber) as well because he’s someone who’s a little cranky and cantankerous and likes to be in control and call the shots. So, I thought to myself, 'Well, why not bring in someone who also likes those things but maybe is even a little more efficient than he is?'
“I wanted to bring in somebody who made Archer seem gentle by comparison, and so Lenox is someone who cares very deeply about her patients, like all the doctors in our ED, but she doesn’t want to get over-involved because she feels the way she can be human as a doctor is to treat as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible, and the reality of that is she can’t spend a lot of time babying everybody and talking and getting to know everybody.
“She’s kind but she moves things forward very quickly, but in a way that rattles a lot of people because she challenges them and the way that they do things. And sometimes she likes the way that some of the other doctors are doing things, but she wants to challenge them to see how committed they are to it. So, there’s a little bit of game playing with her, but in her head it’s all about being as efficient as possible, and that includes cost efficient.
“I think the more mysterious she is, and the less we know about her personally, the more curious the audience will become and the more the character will land. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have some reveals in store for the audience about her character as the season progresses.”
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No. 3: Darren Barnet
Barnet is being added to the cast as Dr. John Frost, a doctor from a nearby hospital that is shuttering due to financial difficulties.
“We find out in the opening episode that the hospital where Frost works is closing down because of lack of financial resources, and Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) tells the staff in the premiere that Gaffney’s going to have to absorb all those people and all those patients, which means things are going to get a lot busier in our ED, which is one of the reasons that Goodwin hires Lenox.
“We meet Frost in the opening episode because he brings in a patient who needs an MRI, which he can’t do at his hospital because they’re closing in three days and they’ve already gotten rid of the MRI machine.
“We introduce him by having him cross with Maggie (Marlyne Barrett), and they work together on that case, hoping that it will move toward a positive outcome. Maggie’s very moved by his dedication to this young girl who’s about 10, and I guess I can spoil this, she facilitates his being hired at Gaffney in Episode 2.
Now, I should have led with this, Frost is a pediatrician, very dedicated to children, able to relate to them well, and he has a deep need to protect them because as a child he felt that his parents did not protect him. I don’t even know how conscious he is of this, but that was the reason he took this job."
Photo by: George Burns Jr/NBC
No. 4: Jessy Schram/Luke Mitchell
Hannah Asher (Schram) and Mitch Ripley (Mitchell) were just about to get romantic in the Season 9 finale when Dr. Ripley got an urgent call to the ED. The two will try to pick up where they left off, but, according to MacDonald, it won’t be smooth sailing.
“In the season finale there was a question of whether Mitch was involved in the attack on Pawel Wapniarski (Kristof Konrad). That definitely has a negative effect on their relationship as the season begins. When we come into the season premiere, we’re going to find some tension between Hannah and Mitch, and I would even say an iciness because of Mitch’s lack of transparency about what actually happened with Pawel in the season finale last season. That will all be revealed by the end of the season premiere, but it is safe to say there are a lot of bumps in the road for that relationship.”
Photo by: George Burns Jr/NBC
No. 5: Steven Weber
Dr. Archer is working on his PTSD, and he also has reestablished his relationship with his son, Sean (Luigi Sottile), although they did have a falling out at the end of the season. So, he seems more mellow than when he first joined the cast. Are he and Shawn going to reconcile? What are we going to see for Dr. Archer?
“That’s an excellent question, but I want to say that Archer’s definitely not going to be more mellow, it’s just in comparison to Lenox he seems like the gentle lion,” MacDonald says. “But because Lenox is so infuriating in her manner, because she’s maybe mildly on the spectrum but also has a military past like Archer, at the end of the day, they have this military background in common that actually you would think unites them, but it actually irritates them. The idea with Lenox and Archer is that Lenox is going to bring out the lion in Archer that is more on par with the way that he was in the earlier seasons.
Also, “We are going to see Sean again and we are going to see Margo (Beth Lacke), and there will be some further issues involving Sean that will cause a little bit of a rift between Margo and Archer, but beyond that I don’t want to say more.”
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Photo by: George Burns Jr/NBC
No. 6: S. Epatha Merkerson
Sharon put her ex into assisted living at the end of the season. It was really tough for her to do, but her boyfriend Dennis (John Earl Jelks) stood by her. Is she going to be able to deal with that this season? Or maybe absorbing the patients and doctors from the hospital that is closing will lead to financial issues at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center.
“I will leave it a mystery how the relationship goes with Dennis moving forward,” MacDonald teases. “As far as her ex-husband Bert (Gregory Alan Williams) and him being in the facility, that was one of my favorite stories in Season 9, I just thought it was beautifully played out. But I do think that that story was brought to a close in a beautiful way. I’m not saying we won’t see Bert this season but that won’t be a major storyline for Goodwin.
Photo by: George Burns Jr/NBC
No. 7: Henderson Wade
Loren Johnson (Wade), the handsome general surgeon and medical helicopter pilot, who is interested in Maggie and interested in working in the ED will be returning for Season 10.
"Loren’s story is definitely not done,” MacDonald says. “We see him in Season 10 as he falls harder for Maggie Lockwood.”
Chicago Med will premiere on Wednesday, Sept. 25 on NBC.
