Spoilers ahead for Episode 4 of Chicago Med Season 6, called "In Search of Forgiveness, Not Permission."
Chicago Med returned from its brief hiatus with an episode that delivered some big developments for the doctors and nurses, with no fewer than three doctors crossing some lines. While doctors and nurses crossing lines at Med without much in the way of lasting consequences is nothing new, "In Search of Forgiveness, Not Permission" leaves me wondering if the show needs to fire a doctor from the hospital, at least for a bit.
The doctors who left me wondering if Chicago Med needs to take action against rule-breakers were Natalie, Crockett, and Will, although they weren't all involved in the same story, and my big issue is only really with two of the three. Natalie and Crockett teamed up to fight for a patient whose abdomen was riddled with cancer and required a risky surgery to even have a shot with chemotherapy, and they both went rogue to do it.
Meanwhile, Will made a sketchy deal with an administrator at another hospital that resulted in heart failure patients being sent to Med for Will and Dr. Virani's clinical trial in exchange for a healthy kickback to the administrator. Even Will acknowledged that it wasn't an ethical move to make, although it admittedly is nothing compared to what he was up to in Season 5 that resulted in his romance with Hannah.
So, what about what these three doctors got up to in "In Search of Forgiveness, Not Permission" has me pondering somebody getting sacked at the hospital? It comes down to consequences. Chicago Med did land Crockett and Natalie in enough trouble that they were briefly concerned for their jobs, but fortunately for them, the surgery was successful enough that Goodwin overruled the board's desire for them to be fired.
They celebrated their narrow escape from unemployment by hooking up. I guess Natalie found a silver lining to staying somewhere without her son underfoot! They crossed a major line as doctors (although it was more Crockett's fault than Natalie's) and should have faced some real consequences, or at least had the suspense of their fates at Med drawn out longer than the hours that passed between the surgery and meeting with Goodwin. This wasn't a big deal for them overall, and it really should have been to the point that I have a hard time suspending my disbelief.
And this brings me to Will, who didn't exactly take long to start going rogue in his own way by prioritizing patient care over medical ethics. It's not exactly the worst rule-breaking that Will has ever done, but also not the smartest for him to do in a trial that technically belongs to Dr. Virani without actually bringing her into it.
I'm not distracted by this Will plot, however, because the Chicago Med showrunners have already revealed that his story is going to be very complicated, and he's going to do things for patients that "actually wind up getting him in trouble." Will is going to face some consequences of some sort, so him crossing lines doesn't actually bug me at all. He also clearly doesn't feel great about what he did, while Crockett and Natalie don't seem to have any second thoughts about what they're very, very, very lucky didn't go horribly wrong.
All of that said, the showrunners have also said that Natalie and Crockett's relationship is going to be "significant" as Season 6 continues, so there will presumably be emotional and character consequences when there don't seem to be any when it comes to their medical plot of this week. Their hookup definitely opens Med up to a number of intriguing new stories for a relationship that few probably would have seen coming at this point in Season 5.
Besides, I'm not necessarily saying that anybody should be fired forever on Chicago Med, because I wouldn't want to lose any of these characters. At least a suspension or a temporary firing would raise the stakes when doctors cross the lines moving forward, especially since Med won't be ending for at least another couple of seasons after the sixth. For now, you can find new episodes of Season 6 on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET to start the One Chicago block of NBC primetime.
