“I got very excited about the possibilities of how they would get along,” Med’s showrunner told NBC Insider.
The midseason premiere of Chicago Med Season 11 was jam-packed with gripping twists and turns, but Dr. Caitlin Lenox (Sarah Ramos) and Dr. Mitch Ripley (Luke Mitchell) barely made it out alive after landing in a blood-curdling predicament.
During Season 11’s fall finale (“Double Down”), Lenox and Ripley were reunited with the sinister Devin Carter (Jack Falahee), the abusive husband of Faye, a woman who was previously admitted to Gaffney after an explosive argument culminating in a life-saving surgery. When Devin Carter was drunkenly admitted to the hospital after a physical tussle, Lenox and Ripley deduced that the “out of town” Faye was likely in worse shape. Lenox followed that hunch all the way to the Carter residence as Ripley kept Devin distracted at Gaffney, but the abusive husband caught on, following Lenox to his home.
Just after Lenox found a bloodied Faye in the Carters’ basement, Devin arrived to knock Lenox unconscious, leaving fans with a horrific cliffhanger ahead of this week’s “Triple Threat.” But fortunately for Lenox, the unsuspecting Ripley arrived ready to make sure she didn’t navigate the chaos alone.
Caitlin Lenox and Mitch Ripley now have a shared secret
During Med’s January 7 episode, Lenox and Ripley were the hostages of a panicked and armed Devin Carter, who understood that one too many people had caught wind of his abuse. After Lenox and Ripley were forced to treat Faye’s wounds to the best of their ability, they concocted a way to flip the script. Leveraging her time in the army, Lenox escaped her bindings and apprehended Devin, tying him up to avoid another issue.
But just as Lenox and Ripley prepared to whisk Faye to the hospital and take Devin to the police station, Devin woke up and tried to convince his emotionally tortured wife to shoot Ripley so they could escape together. In her emotional panic, Faye shot Devin instead.
Lenox and Ripley weren’t exactly shocked by this fallout, choosing to stage the crime scene to look like Faye shot her husband after he escaped his bindings in self-defense. The cops struggled to believe their testimony, but as Lenox and Ripley confirmed after leaving the precinct, sticking to their story worked wonders.
Chicago Med’s showrunner talks Ripley and Lenox: “Very excited”
NBC Insider chatted with Chicago Med’s showrunner, Allen Macdonald, about the Lenox and Ripley pairing, which has been a bit of a slow burn this season. As Ripley navigates not one but two difficult heartbreaks, Lenox has been processing her terminal prion disease diagnosis, which she has kept hidden from her colleagues. MacDonald told us that the pairing was inspired by wanting to see which characters hadn’t interacted yet, feeling that Lenox and Ripley could “push each other” throughout the season.
MacDonald also revealed that he’s a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and was inspired by an unlikely pairing from that hit series when dreaming up ideas for Lenox and Ripley. Buffy fans will recall the push-and-pull between Buffy and the vampiric anti-hero Spike, which coincidentally provided MacDonald with some fun ideas for the Med characters.
“There was a villain named Spike. And there was an episode where [Buffy] went through a really emotional experience, and at the end of it, she’s talking about it. And the camera pulls out, and she’s talking to Spike,” MacDonald explained. “And it was like the least likely person that she would ever confide in. He’s the villain. They’re enemies. But yet she felt like he was the only one she could talk to.”
“Now that’s not a great one-to-one example to Lenox and Ripley, who are not enemies,” MacDonald continued. “But the idea behind pairing Lenox and Ripley was simply that we hadn’t seen them before. And the writers in the writers’ room and I got very excited about the possibilities of how they would get along. And how they would work together. And how they would kind of push each other to be better doctors.”
So, what can Chicago Med fans expect from Ripley and Lenox now that they’ve covered up a homicide together? MacDonald explains that while Ripley will feel “shaken up,” the even-keeled Lenox will do what she’s been doing all season amid her diagnosis: Pretending the event didn’t affect her at all.
“I think that Ripley’s going to sense that there’s like this churning volcano of emotion in her that she is not dealing with,” MacDonald explained while adding that Lenox has kept her diagnosis a secret the entire season, so it’s only a matter of time. “But I think he’s gonna sense something is up with her and he’s going to kind of push at that a little bit and challenge her in a way that she’s not used to.”
Chicago Med airs on Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC and the next day on Peacock.
