Which ‘Chicago Med’ Relationships Ended Season 5 in a Good Place? (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 5 finale of Chicago Med, “A Needle in the Heart.”]
Wednesday’s episode of Chicago Med wasn’t meant to be the Season 5 finale, but it did leave several of the relationships — romantic and familial — in interesting places.
Amidst dealing with a hostage situation in a grocery store, a patient using a friend’s insurance card and identity (and suffering from an allergic reaction as a result of the medication prescribed), a young boy in need of surgery, and a doctor’s ex-boyfriend checking in for an infection, the hospital staff had time to make some headway in their personal lives.
Here, we break down which relationships were left in a good place and which are on shaky ground after the fifth season.
Ethan and April
April (Yaya DaCosta) finished moving her things out of the apartment, so Ethan’s (Brian Tee) free to return. But she’s still wearing her engagement ring, so she hasn’t given up on them. And when she hears that he’s run into a hostage situation during a ride-along, she hurries to the scene.
Meanwhile, inside the grocery store, it seems Ethan’s having second thoughts about his relationship as well. “I blew it with someone I cared about. Made some big mistakes. Wish I could do it over,” he admits to the gunman and suggests he surrender so, “we both get a chance to do the right thing.”
(Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)
And April runs over and hugs him the moment he steps outside. “I’ve never been more scared,” she tells him. But their moment is interrupted when Ethan has to give his statement about the events. Still, there’s clearly hope for them in Season 6.
Will and Hannah
Will (Nick Gehlfuss) and Hannah (Jessy Schram) are doing well, and she leaves him in her bed to head to a meeting at the beginning of the episode. He notices she’s left her phone, but he’s too late to catch her.
Then at work, he begins treating an addict whose arms is showing signs of infection, and Hannah walks in; Christian is her ex-boyfriend. Outside the treatment area, Hannah tells him that she got a call from him this morning and brought him in as soon as she saw his arm. He was in no condition to drive, she says, admitting, “I might feel a little guilty for getting clean.” Then, he gives her back her phone.
Later, after Christian leaves — kissing Hannah’s cheek as he does — she tells Will she knows it seemed suspicious, especially with him having her phone. Christian called a mutual friend, and she was there. Will assures her he believes her, and they leave together. But the pieces are falling into place for this relationship to fall apart.
Natalie and Marcel
Two New Orleans detectives show up at Med with questions for Marcel (Dominic Rains) about a cold case. After, he has the impression he’s their suspect in a homicide because his DNA was found at the scene. And he’s right: they return with a warrant for his arrest, but Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) refuses to let them interrupt him while he’s operating on a young boy.
(Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)
Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) begins looking into ways to help him, first by reaching out to Chicago P.D.‘s Atwater (LaRoyce Hawkins). The detectives were sitting on the DNA sample, and they got a match when Marcel and Natalie’s samples were put in the system following their kidnapping, he explains.
Natalie then speaks with Dr. Moody, a friend of Marcel’s who was in medical school with him at the time of the murder. He, too, can’t believe that Marcel would ever hurt anyone. “Crockett was going through a lot back then, but no way was he killing people,” he says, and after Natalie presses, reveals, “His baby, Harper, died from leukemia not long after her first birthday.”
Natalie soon realizes how Marcel’s DNA was at the crime scene: he donated bone narrow. After confirming her theory, she and Sharon manage to stop the detectives as they’re arresting him. Sometimes recipients of bone marrow transplants inherit the donor’s DNA. “It’s rare but it’s real,” Natalie insists. The detectives agree to look into it.
After, Marcel thanks Natalie for her help and asks what gave her the idea that he donated bone marrow. “I always knew you were a good guy,” she says before sharing that Dr. Moody told her about Harper.
“Do me a favor, keep that to yourself? People hear that sort of thing, they tend to look at you different,” he tells her before bidding her goodnight. Might this be a road block in their potential relationship? It didn’t seem like he was too pleased to hear that she knew about his past, and he could be worried about how she’ll see him, like he says.
Charles and his daughter, Anna
Anna joins Charles (Oliver Platt) at the hospital, ostensibly because she likes spending time with him and thinks she can learn more there than on a class trip to a science museum. However, as he learns after she stays glued to her phone rather than volunteering, she just wanted to avoid the boy who laughed at her when she invited him to the mall — and everyone who laughed with him and the girl he’s now dating. In her eyes, her life is now ruined.
(Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)
At the end of the day, he offers his own embarrassing story from his childhood: he faked a note to get out of gym class and had to limp for the rest of the year. “We all have our ways of dealing with things, and some work,” he says. “Others, like running away, they just don’t.”
“Life’s always going to have its ups and downs,” he continues. “But in my experience, we do get better dealing with them. You will too.”
Those two were on rocky ground earlier this season, but it looks like things are getting better.
Sharon and her son, Michael
As it was left in the penultimate episode, Sharon wasn’t too appreciative of Michael’s determination to — and the way he was going about it — develop a rapport with the doctors he’s going to be selling devices to. Still, that seems like something that could be easily fixed and shouldn’t have too much of an effect on their relationship.
Maggie and Ben — and Auggie!
Also in the penultimate episode, Maggie (Marlyne Barrett) and Ben decided to foster Auggie after his potential foster parents bowed out due to his medical needs. Since nothing happened in the finale, we can assume that’s still going forward. Will we get to see them as a family in Season 6?
It might not have been planned as a finale, but “A Needle in the Heart” did well as one.
