As Dominic Rains exits Chicago Med, it means that his character, Crockett Marcel will be leaving Gaffney Chicago Medical Center. While most of the regular cast members will be returning for Chicago Med Season 10, Rains’ exit was announced before the season even began.
As mentioned by Allen MacDonald, Chicago Med’s new showrunner to One Chicago Center,
“Dominic does not return at the top of season 10 and we explain his departure to you pretty quickly.”
Replacing Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell), Crockett Marcel had been one of the main surgeons in Chicago Med, since season 5. Over the years, Marcel’s character had gone through positive transformation as he turned into a caring and compassionate doctor from a sleazy womanizer, owing to his personal tragedy.
While reshuffling of cast is not a new thing in the industry as a whole, given Marcel’s importance in various storylines involving patients, his exit does seem like a big loss for Chicago Med.
However, Rains probably has good enough reason to leave the show and his departure would make space for new doctors to join Gaffney Chicago Medical Center.
What happened to Dr. Crockett Marcel in Chicago Med?
Marcel’s final storyline in the 9th season of Chicago Med served as his exit story. Toward the ending of season 9, Marcel had to take the tough decision of denying a liver transplant to a child named Colin as he had developed an infection that could not be cured timely.
Despite knowing the importance of the transplant and Colin’s father’s repeated pleading and a donor also available immediately, Marcel had to say no to the operation. The child died and what’s more shocking is that his father also committed suicide, as he was unable to bear the tragedy.
Getting the news of the double death in the last episode of Chicago Med Season 9 stuns Marcel and he is forced to confront his own tragedy of the death of his infant daughter.
Questioning whether he took the right decisions and also feeling overwhelmed with his own grief, Marcel reveals to Maggie that keeping himself busy with his work was not numbing his pain like it did previously.
While the scene ended with Marcel promising to come back the next day, it was speculated that he was most likely to quit given the emotional turmoil he was going through.
This incident served as the exit story of Marcel, though this was not explained or further elaborated in the season 10 premiere. Before the events of the opening episode of season 10, Marcel had already left the center and it was revealed through dialogue that he was thrown a going-away party before he left for Boston, presumably to work in another hospital.
Why did Dominic Rains leave Chicago Med?
Though Dominic Rains has not directly said anything regarding his exit from Chicago Med, there are some likely explanations behind his leaving. There are a number of actors who have left the Chicago Universe shows after years of playing the same role, in order to explore new opportunities and Rains might have felt the same.
Another possibility is that Marcel’s storyline and character arc came to a natural end, which made space for the character’s exit. It is indeed difficult to do something exciting with a character who has been in the medical drama for five years.
As Allen MacDonald said regarding Marcel’s exit and it’s quick explanation in season 10,
“The reason I decided to do that was just simply I felt that Dr. Crockett Marcel had already been written out at the end of last season.”
He further elaborated on is decision to let Marcel’s exit happen off-screen than on-screen, saying,
“It was left in a way that he could come back or if he left it, it was understandable that he had some issues of his own that he needed to work out in terms of his grieving process for the loss of his daughter. I didn’t really feel there was a need to bring him back to write him out because I felt that had been done.”
It makes sense since Marcel’s arc came full circle in season 9 itself and did not really call for a see off in season 10.
Is there a possibility of Dominic Rains returning to Chicago Med?
As of now, it seems that Gaffney Medical Center has moved on from the exit of Dr. Marcel as Chicago Med has already introduced two new doctors, Darren Barnet and Sarah Ramos, who are most likely to replace him.
However, since the character’s exit was not shown in a bad light, in future if Rains and the creative team of Chicago Med find it worthy to bring his character back, that can be made possible.
But, there are no official updates on this yet and it seems that Rains has left the show for good.
Chicago Med can be streamed on Peacock.
