Despite plenty of fresh storylines for season 11 to explore, Chicago Med needs to take advantage of a major casting development to close out a 3-year-old storyline. Issues like Asher’s pregnancy and the return of Ripley’s best love interest in the Chicago Med season 10 finale technically take precedence, but another serious cliffhanger’s been left unresolved for far too long.
While fans are understandably excited to see Chicago Med season 11 settle debates about the paternity of Hannah’s baby, a much more notable character still has their own lingering mysteries that remain unanswered. Now, with the return of a beloved member of the Chicago Med cast, the series can finally provide closure on questions regarding one character’s fate after Gaffney.
Will Halstead Is Confirmed To Return In Chicago Med Season 11
He Hasn’t Been Seen Since His Season 8 Departure
After two full seasons of waiting for Chicago Med’s Will Halstead return, fans will finally see Nick Gehlfuss stroll the halls of Gaffney as the series’ original protagonist once more. It hasn’t been revealed how many episodes Halstead will appear in, nor what his role in the story will be, but his homecoming is sure to feed long-time viewers’ nostalgia.
Halstead’s reappearance feels admittedly delayed. He resigned and moved to Seattle to rekindle things with Natalie Manning after indirectly bankrupting Jack Dayton’s AI-assisted OR 2.0 project, but Will’s resignation was framed as a method of protecting Song and Crockett from culpability for the sabotage. Now, neither of the doctors he potentially sacrificed his career to protect even work at Gaffney.
Nonetheless, it’s still an interesting time in the story for Will’s reappearance. He was quite vocal in his disapproval of the direction Gaffney was headed, so Goodwin’s recent staffing issues might not reassure him that much has changed. Those issues have largely been resolved, but there were also plans to resolve OR 2.0’s AI issues, and Will sabotaged it anyway.
On top of that, there’s a strong chance Halstead will have something to say about Gaffney’s newest Chief of Emergency Medicine. Caitlin Lenox’s god complex in Chicago Med mostly improved over time, but her cold self-assuredness could still cause her to butt heads with the equally egotistical Will. Yet that’s not the most intriguing aspect of his return to Chicago.
Halstead’s Shock Exit 3 Years Ago Can Finally Get A Definitive Ending
At Least Two Hanging Threads Need To Be Tied Off
Even though Will Halstead’s Chicago Med season 8 exit implied an ending of sorts by showing Will land in Seattle, the character’s professional life was left in a potentially dire position. As Sharon warns Will when accepting his resignation, sabotaging OR 2.0 put Halstead on the wrong side of someone with quite a bit of power to hinder his career.
Barring any shenanigans on Dayton’s part, numerous members of the medical community might still disagree with Halstead’s actions. First, he arguably violated the Hippocratic Oath by dangerously distracting Crockett in the middle of surgery with non-existent complications. And if that weren’t enough, he prevented research funding for a major technological medical advancement that could have become viable with more fine-tuning.
The impact of these actions (or lack thereof) on Will’s career should become apparent through whether he returns to Chicago Med in a professional capacity, but Halstead and Manning’s relationship presents another possible cliffhanger. There are no details yet on why Halstead’s returning to Chicago, which means we don’t know whether he still lives in Seattle with Natalie and Owen.
Med may simply answer these questions with a few lines of dialogue, but it’s also possible these concerns play into Will’s return story. Goodwin told him that she couldn’t give him a positive recommendation when he left, and he might be returning to see about amending that if his professional life hasn’t gone too smoothly since his departure.
Why Halstead’s Story Is Chicago Med Season 11’s Most Important Arc
This Could Very Well Be The Last Time Fans Get To See Him
Depending on how early in the season Halstead appears, he could prove useful in bringing real emotion to Marlyne Barrett’s Chicago Med departure as Maggie Lockwood. Goodwin and Charles are the only two left besides Maggie who’ve been with Will since the beginning, and one of them was at odds with Maggie almost right up until news of her departure.
But Will’s return provides another opportunity for fans to say goodbye, this time as a second send-off to Halstead himself. Thanks to Nick Gehlfuss’ CIA casting in a lead role opposite Lucifer’s Tom Ellis, he might not have the availability to reappear as Halstead after Chicago Med season 11. He at least won’t likely return for any major story arcs.
It naturally remains to be seen whether CIA will succeed enough to keep Gehlfuss occupied for more than one season. If it does, however, answering any lingering questions and concluding Will’s story now is the most effective way to bid him adieu. It certainly beats leaving his story open just to realize later that he’s already made his final appearance.
More than anything, Halstead’s arc matters because it allows the show’s fans to feel seen. Chicago Med fans have been hoping to see Halstead again since his departure, to the extent that many of Ripley’s detractors primarily dislike him because they see him as a poor man’s substitute for Will. Hopefully, his return will scratch an itch for long-time viewers.
