CHICAGO MED ended its fall finale with Lenox (Sarah Ramos) in immediate danger–she was attacked when she went to the home of Devin (Jack Falahee) and Faye (Olivia Nikkanen); Lenox first met the couple when Faye came into the hospital after Devin hurt his wife, and he came to the ED, hurt, in the fall finale, with his wife MIA–but the show won’t be picking up there when it returns on Wednesday, January 7 (at 8/7c).
“Well, one of the things we’re doing…is we are going to time jump a day or two forward,” CHICAGO MED showrunner Allen MacDonald tells Give Me My Remote. “And there were several things that happened that night that were very serious, and in some cases, somebody died. And then it’s kind of unpacking what happened in flashback. We’ll see what happened right after the fall finale, but we’ll see it in flashback, because we jump forward. And so the [winter] premiere, ‘Triple Threat,’ is a different kind of structure. We’re breaking form a little bit here.”
“The episode was written by a very talented writer on our staff who’s been on MED since the very beginning, named Stephen Hootstein, and he’s the one that came in and pitched this structure,” he continues. “And, you know, we all obviously love television. That’s why we’re all doing the jobs we’re doing…I love playing with structure, so, like, I’m kind of a sucker for it. So I think Stephen Hootstein knew that he had a captive audience.”
So what can viewers expect from the show when it returns? MacDonald offers a few clues.
Will Lenox survive?
“I’m not going to say a word about what happens to Lenox or where she goes moving forward, because that assumes she’s going to move forward,” MacDonald says with a laugh.
Though he’s mum about that, the showrunner does acknowledge the writers did discuss the parallels of Lenox ending up in danger this midseason, a year after Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) fought for her life in the season 10 midseason finale.
“We talked a lot about that in the writers’ room, because, you know, we put Goodwin in peril last season, and last season’s fall finale cliffhanger was hard to top with the knife in the air and everything like that,” he says. “But we decided we didn’t want to try to replicate that in any way, other than putting a character, a series regular, in jeopardy.”
“But we knew early on that we were going to put Lenox in that house and that we were going to end it with her getting pistol-whipped, basically,” he continues. “And it was all part of her character arc in the first half of the season, which is that she found out she [was sick in the season 10 finale]…that when we see her in the season premiere, she’s kind of moving forward almost numbly. She’s got the diagnosis she’s pretending doesn’t exist. She’s not acknowledging it. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She just wants to move on like she has, and there’s a bit of a denial in that.”
After treating two sisters who were injured at a rave in the season 11 premiere, “I think that Lenox walked away from that with a new view on life, and that was that you need to experience as much as you can while you’re here,” MacDonald says. “And she wants to experience life to its fullest–sexually and risk-taking wise; she wants to feel big feelings. And so one part of the arc is that she’s kind of become addicted to that a little bit. Taking risks, the intensity of it, that feeling of it…every time she takes a risk, she has to escalate it. It has to be a bigger risk to give her that same high that she had before. And what that eventually moves into is danger starts getting introduced into the equation.”
“And although the reason, the first and foremost, the reason why Lenox goes to Devin and Faye’s house is because she wants to make sure Faye isn’t dead and get her out of there because she’s unsafe–and this case has infuriated her since she met the characters early on this year–there’s a little bit, I think, to her personality where she was attracted to the danger of it,” he continues. “She would have gone anyway. But I think because she could die sooner rather than later, there’s a part of her that’s like, ‘Why not put my life on the line? I might not be here anyway. Why not?’ I think she’s addicted to risk.”
Will sparks fly between Archer (Steven Weber) and Dr. Kingston (Merrin Dungey)–or will things change between him and Hannah (Jessy Schram)?
“In the first scene of the season, we find out that Archer is the father of [Hannah’s] baby, and the scene ends with them hugging, and Hannah saying, ‘Just two friends having a baby,’” MacDonald says. “So it was established right away for the audience that this isn’t going to be romantic, this is going to be friends, co-parenting. That they had a moment that they shared, and she ended up getting pregnant, and now there’s going to be a child, but they’re friends, and that’s all they’ve ever known how to be.”
“So I think that on some level, it’s very uncomfortable for them to think about actually embarking on a romance, or raising this child together, as full romantic partners,” he continues. “And so they’ve kind of put these walls up to kind of contain their feelings, because … I think they love each other. I don’t know that they’re in love with each other. I think at different points in the season, each of them will feel differently. But what I can say…is Kingston’s interest in Archer is going to shake a lot of those feelings up for both Hannah and Archer.”
The show is embracing a notable love triangle.
It’s been a few years since ONE CHICAGO had a real cross-series couple, and that might be on the horizon in 2026 as MED’s Frost (Darren Barnet) and CHICAGO FIRE’s Novak (Jocelyn Hudon) get closer. But, of course, there’s also the question of Naomi (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), who Frost tried to ask out, but initially turned him down…before regretting it.
“I can confirm for you that that’s going to be a bit of a major love triangle, which I believe is pretty well set up in the fall finale by Nurse Casey,” MacDonald teases. “I can confirm for you that [CHICAGO FIRE showrunner] Andrea Newman and I have been working very closely on arcing this storyline out, and that you can I can confirm that you can expect to see Lizzy Novak on MED multiple times, and you can also count on seeing Dr. Frost on FIRE multiple times.”
Goodwin gets a “heroic” episode later in 2026.
As Goodwin continues to deal with personal hurdles, “We’re gonna see more of her family as Bert continues to decline,” MacDonald previews. “We are also going to delve a little deeper into her relationship with her oldest son, David, because we found out in an earlier episode that there was the family secret that the other two siblings didn’t know, which is that David was not Bert’s biological child. And so we’ll be exploring that a little more and the feelings behind that.”
Later in the season, Goodwin will also get the chance to professionally shine. “There’s a big episode coming up relatively soon with Sharon Goodwin, who was a former nurse, where she’s going to end up in a situation where there’s a health crisis,” MacDonald teases. “And because she is a former nurse, she is the most experienced medical person on hand when this event happens. And it’s a real heroic episode for S. Epatha Merkerson, who is immensely talented and so vital to the show. So I think you’re gonna like it.”
And after I replied to that with excitement and the note that Merkerson is a “godd— queen,” MacDonald burst into laughter and wanted it noted for the record: “I agree with you–she is a god—n queen.”
CHICAGO MED, Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC
