He hasn’t even been at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center for a full year, but could Dr. Mitch Ripley already be getting fired on Chicago Med? With two new doctors in the Emergency Department-Dr. Caitlin Lennox and the equally handsome Dr. John Frost-there may no longer be a place for Ripley in the ED. But would Chicago Med really let him go so soon? Well, things do look that way
Is Dr. Mitch Ripley getting fired on Chicago Med?
Chicago Med‘s Season 10 premiere episode, “Sink or Swim,” ended on a cliffhanger as Ripley-who joined the series in Season 9-confessed to Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram) that he was, in fact, involved with his friend Sully’s assault on a man named Pawel, who also happened to be the brother of Dr. Daiel Charles (Oliver Platt’s) now-ex-girlfriend, Liliana.
In Chicago Med Season 9’s finale, Pawel showed up at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center accusing Ripley of attacking him, which Ripley later learned was a ploy for Pawel to get money from Ripley and the hospital to pay off his debts. Fast forward to Season 10’s premiere, and Ripley admits that he was there at the fight between Sully and Pawel and tried to stop it but Pawel saw his face. Now, he could face charges if another witness came forward saying they also saw him there.
A preview for the Season 10, Episode 2, “Bite Your Tongue,” saw Chief Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) consider firing Ripley because of his possible criminal record. “Your license in jeopardy,” she says.
So is Ripley getting fired on Chicago Med? It’s unlikely. Luke Mitchell, who has played Ripley since Season 9 of Chicago Med, has shared several Instagram photos of him on the set of the One Chicago show, so it’s likely that Ripley is in more than the first couple episodes and doesn’t get fired from Gaffney (or Chicago Med as a whole.)
In an interview with TV Insider after Chicago Med‘s Season 10 premiere, Mitchell also teased Ripley’s storyline throughout Season 10, seemingly confirming that he and his character aren’t going anywhere. “No matter which way you look at it and what you interpret from that, whether he is not saying anything because he is guilty or he is not saying anything because he’s protecting Sully or he’s not saying anything because he knows something else, and we’re going to be diving into that in the new season,” Mitchell said of why Ripley kept the truth about what happened between Pawel and Sully a secret. “There’s going to be a little bit of a time jump and we’re going to find our way through the climb of that storyline, but it’s not going to be a smooth ride.”
He continued, “It’s tricky because the question is obviously-[there’s] who Ripley was. He was an aggressive kid. He was capable of doing something like this. Is he still that person, and how much has he changed? Could he still be capable of doing something like this? We’ve seen Sully come back into the picture who is basically a representation of who Ripley was, so now it’s how much has he changed and could he be manipulated by his friend into doing something? Or is it simply he’s trying to protect his friend because he knows that his friend has gone and done something stupid?”
Mitchell also confirmed that Chicago Med Season 10 will be longer than Season 9, which was cut short due to the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild of America strikes. “It’s a longer season this season, and I don’t know exactly what’s going on for his entire arc, I would hope that there are things to explore job-wise,” Mitchell said of Ripley’s storyline throughout Season 10. “I think my longer-term wish for Ripley would be to maybe explore having an expertise of or getting into the expertise of psychology, given his past and also his relationship with Dr. Charles. I think that would be a really interesting thing to explore. But I don’t think that if that happens, I haven’t spoken to the writers about it. I think that would be down the track.”
