Chicago Med Season 11 Episode 14 made the mistake of thinking that Lenox and Ripley’s love scenes were at all interesting.
The medical storylines raised some complicated questions, but the personal stuff — especially for these two — distracted from them.
Come on, Chicago Med. Ripley and Lenox are two adults who should know better, and Lenox deserves a more compelling storyline than this.
Lenox Had More Interesting Chemistry With Archer Than With Ripley
Lenox tried to pull Archer back when he went too far with a patient on Chicago Med Season 8 Episode 11, but he didn’t listen until it was almost too late.
Archer has gotten in a bad habit lately of yelling at patients about personal choices that are not directly relevant to their health care, and it needs to go, but at least Lenox called him on it this time.
Lenox and Archer’s case was about two guy friends (or perhaps lovers, I wasn’t clear on this point) who wanted to fulfill their bucket list before one died of cancer — except the patient’s cancer was secretly in remission.
As soon as Archer figured it out, he did what he’s been doing lately: engage in a very loud sermon/rant about what the patient should do, while making zero effort to understand where the guy was coming from.
It was annoying, although one step below the way he used to put people in comas so he could override their medical decision-making on Chicago Med Season 6.
He wasn’t exactly wrong that living a lie is a bad idea, but he wasn’t helpful in the way he addressed it, and he shut Lenox down when she tried to question it.
She was right — accusing the guy of stolen valor was a bit much, and probably contributed to the patient’s suicide attempt after his friend unexpectedly died in surgery.
It irked me that nobody ever addressed Archer’s role in that — obviously, it was Tim’s decision to try to end his life, but Archer berating him certainly didn’t help matters.
After all was said and done, though, Archer told Lenox he was a quarter Irish and joined a group singing Danny Boy, and that tiny scene was far more interesting than any Lenox/Ripley scene has ever been.
Ripley and Lenox Fulfill The Worst Relationship Tropes
The first part of Chicago Med Season 11 Episode 8 was ruined by too many scenes of Ripley and Lenox trying to sneak around to have sex in the hospital.
They aren’t teenagers — if they were, the behavior would be inappropriate, but developmentally congruent.
These two are supposed to be doctors. They are supposed to be professionals.
All this sneaking around wasn’t cute, and neither was Lenox pretending that underwear wasn’t hers or rambling to Sharon about the relationship.
Nor was it entertaining for the two of them to get it on in the elevator minutes after promising Sharon they wouldn’t have sex on the hospital premises.
Yes, I know Lenox is doing this because she’s got a terminal illness, but that doesn’t excuse this awful behavior, and I’d prefer it not be on screen.
Hannah’s Case Brought Up A Fantastic Question
Her patient had sex while under the influence of Ambien, got pregnant, and was left wondering whether what had happened to her was sexual assault.
I wish that Chicago Med Season 11 Episode 8 had dived more deeply into this.
The patient was unable to consent while Ambien was active in her system, but she appeared to her ex-husband to be the one initiating contact.
That muddied the waters, and I wanted to know if he knew she was taking Ambien, because that would have made a difference to what he believed was happening.
“Twist and Shout” barely considered this question, however.
Instead, the woman’s boyfriend punched her ex-husband and suffered no consequences whatsoever, while the patient wondered if this incident meant she secretly still wanted a man she couldn’t stand.
Dr. Frost Brought His Personal Life Into A Confusing Psychiatric Case
Dr. Charles’ cases are always among the most interesting of the hour, and Chicago Med Season 11 Episode 8 was no exception.
His patient was so violent when she was psychotic that the idea of his declaring she didn’t need restraints and likely would not relapse was scary.
The worker from the psychiatric hospital was annoying in her insistence that Charles’ diagnosis was wrong, but I understood where she was coming from.
This woman had been violent and her condition impossible to control for years, so Charles’ insistence that that was over now didn’t make sense to this aide.
It was also understandable that the patient’s sister didn’t want to let her back into her life.
She’d had to save her own mother from being stabbed to death, so why would she trust that her sister was safe to be around now?
I kept waiting for Dr. Frost and the aide to be proven tragically right. Instead, Frost gave the sister a speech about how he realized he should let his parents back into his life after all, and all of a sudden, the woman changed her mind.
I’m not a fan of doctors oversharing their personal lives to help their patients make major decisions, and this turnaround seemed abrupt to me.