Spoilers ahead for the January 22 episode of Chicago Med Season 5, called "Leave the Choice to Solomon."
Chicago Med is taking Will Halstead in some dangerous directions in the second half of Season 5 thanks to his determination to fight drug abuse following the events of the winter premiere. His decision to join the team at an unsanctioned safe injection site after the hospital turned down his request to open a legal one was already dangerous, but his call to bring one of the addicts from the site to work with him in "Leave the Choice to Solomon" may indicate he'll take somebody down with him if his spiral continues.
Will detected a heart issue in one of the addicts at the unsanctioned injection site and convinced the young man to come to the hospital, but he was dismayed to find at Med that Dr. Latham wouldn't perform the necessary surgery when there were kids who needed help, and Dr. Charles wouldn't vouch that he was depressed and therefore not at fault for his addiction. If Will was in his right mind about protecting his medical license and following the letter of the law, then that would have been the end of it.
Not this week! Instead of accepting that he wouldn't be able to help his patient due to the risk factors of choosing to live as a drug addict, Will wrote a prescription for antidepressants and claimed that Dr. Charles was behind it to convince Dr. Latham that the young man deserved the surgery. The addict got the surgery and Will was optimistic that he could have a clean future, while Dr. Charles was furious that Will had used his name to help somebody he met while at an illegal injection site. As if Dr. Charles hasn't been having a rough enough time already lately!
To make matters worse, the young man was still in the hospital when his girlfriend brought him some drugs. The surgery to fix his heart didn't fix his addiction. The smuggled drugs served as a wakeup call to Will, who then went to the injection site to quit, but he backed out when a woman who he'd helped, looking clean and fresh, turned up with a plate of cookies. He's not finished crossing lines just yet, and "Leave the Choice to Solomon" indicates that there could be some collateral damage along the way. There's more than just his medical license at risk.
For one, Dr. Charles knows that Will is actively working at an illegal safe injection site and has seen that Will is willing to cross lines at work. If Will continues to spiral, then could Dr. Charles turn Will in to Goodwin for his own good? Will isn't Dr. Charles' patient, so there's no doctor-patient confidentiality, and he is accustomed to making tough decisions as the chief of psychiatry. If others are in danger, or Will himself is in danger, I can see Dr. Charles outing Will.
Alternately, Dr. Charles could wind up in danger if he tries to reach out to Will at the safe injection site, which may not be so safe for people who are there to interfere with how addicts are getting care. Or could others wind up in trouble? If Will's reckless behavior continues, then there could be personal and/or professional consequences down the road. April is facing struggles of her own, but did Natalie finally recover from her TBI only to be caught up in some new complications?
Hey, at least Will's recklessness because he feels he's doing the right thing is a reminder that he and Chicago P.D.'s Jay Halstead are brothers! They may not look alike, but their decision-making process has some things in common. Hopefully major characters getting shot stays on P.D.!
See what happens next for Will in new episodes of Chicago Med on NBC Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, ahead of new episodes of Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. ET and Chicago P.D. at 10 p.m. ET in the winter TV lineup.
