Chicago Med is wasting no time in Season 10 in upsetting the status quo of the ED, with new showrunner Allen MacDonald binge-watching his way to telling some new stories. The second episode of the 2024 TV schedule raised the stakes on multiple fronts, including Hannah making a bold move to keep Ripley from losing his license, Archer and Lenox clashing, and previewing Goodwin getting death threats. Throw in the fact that it was just one week ago that we learned about Dr. Charles’ breakup with Liliana, and I can’t help but look back to the showrunner’s comments on one thing that hasn’t changed from Season 9: Hannah and Archer’s friendship.
Admittedly, we haven’t gotten that much of Hannah and Archer’s friendship so far in Season 10, but recent events lead me to wonder if they both won’t need a friend to lean on sooner rather than later. Hannah’s decision to turn Sully in for the assault on Pawel rather than let Ripley take the fall didn’t exactly go over well with Ripley, not least because Sully had just learned that his cancer was terminal. If not for the showrunner’s comments about being “very much excited about the Hannah/Ripley relationship,” I might even suspect that this was the end for them as a couple.
As for Archer, he had a breakthrough with Lenox in “Bite Your Tongue” about working together in the ED, but a curmudgeon doesn’t drop his curmudgeonly ways in just one shift. Of course, Goodwin getting death threats in the promo for the next episode – presumably over decisions she had to make about cutting the staff – is the biggest concern, but we can really only wait and see what’s to come on that front. (You can revisit the episode streaming with a Peacock subscription.)
The events with Hannah/Ripley and Archer reminded me of when I spoke with showrunner Allen MacDonald about the new season. When he first previewed what was to come, he said this about the end of a couple after the time jump:
We’re jumping forward about a month. Not a huge time jump, but enough time has passed that some things have shifted between people and some relationships have hit bumps in the road, and some relations, as we’ll find in the first scene, have ended.
The time jump of approximately one month was something that all the One Chicago showrunners went with to keep the three shows consistent, and Dr. Charles’ relationship with Liliana proved to be the one that ended. When I spoke with the new Med boss in September, I had to ask about the status of Hannah and Archer as one of my favorite duos, and he confirmed:
We will definitely be seeing more of that dynamic between them.
Considering how rocky their relationship started, who would have guessed that they’d become so close and work so well together that fans would be speculating about a love triangle less than a year ago? When I noted to the showrunner that Hannah and Archer have a one-of-a-kind dynamic in Chicago Med after not getting off to a good start, he responded:
I think you’ve hit on something really special there, Laura, which is that they have a definitely unique relationship, where it was a little bumpy in the beginning, but they’ve settled to a place where they really trust each other, and they’re the ones that each goes to the other in moments of emotional need or when they need to talk something out. It’s really great to see, and it’s also a very hard to define relationship. He’s older than her, but they feel like they’re equals. They feel like they’re on equal footing.
Considering that I can easily imagine that Hannah will be in “moments of emotional need” and/or need to talk something out after the decision she made about Sully and Ripley, could the next episode be when we see the two reconnecting? We can only speculate at this point, but the promo that reveals the death threats about Goodwin at least confirms that Hannah and Ripley’s confrontation will play out. Take a look:
See what’s next for the characters and whether Hannah and Archer will share some scenes with new episodes of Chicago Med on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC. You can stream the full series so far on Peacock, along with Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. As always, Fire airs at 9 p.m. ET and P.D. airs at 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday nights.
