Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of Chicago Med Season 6, called "Some Things Are Worth The Risk."
The doctors and nurses of Chicago Med are no strangers to pushing boundaries and crossing lines, to the point that Med is a great TV hospital but probably not one that should exist in real life. In "Some Things Are Worth The Risk," two doctors went so far even by Chicago Med standards that it seems like there have to be consequences. Still, this isn't the first time that characters have seemingly crossed the point of no return, only to get off without any repercussions, so will Will and Natalie face some consequences this time around?
This episode isn't even the only instance of Will and Natalie going too far in Chicago Med Season 6, but even the show treated their latest actions as moves that are probably going to backfire. Interestingly, while they made their big moves separately, their storylines are likely to intersect if the sky starts falling and they have to face up to what they did. Since Will tends to be the one to go rogue more often than the rest on Med, let's start with him!
Will broke the rules of Sabeena's clinical trial pretty early on in their collaboration, secretly performing a test to prove that their heart medication wasn't responsible for a patient's illness, therefore proving that the drug worked and destroying the integrity of what was supposed to be a double blind study. He kept that transgression a secret from Sabeena, who is all about adhering to protocols, until he tried to ask a favor in "Some Things Are Worth The Risk."
In the process of trying to get Sabeena to bend the rules and add Natalie's mom to their trial despite enrollment closing, he revealed that he knew the medication worked because he'd destroyed the double blind nature of the trial. Sabeena was understandably appalled that he'd do this to their study, and it clearly changed the way she views her trial partner/boyfriend. When they went out for drinks with a Kender Pharma higher-up, the man went pretty hard on courting Will to leave the ED and come to work for Kender.
Despite Sabeena giving Will several outs and heavily hinting that he shouldn't come to Kender full-time, Will confidently said that's something he's interested in. Will not only broke a fundamental rule of the trial, but is now more or less pursuing a job that could lead to him jeopardizing more trials, and he put Sabeena in an impossible situation.
His actions in "Somethings Are Worth The Risk" aren't actually as bad as when he broke the double blind nature of the study, but I would call this going past the point of no return and setting himself up for disaster, either on a small scale with Sabeena or on a much larger scale with the trial itself and Kender Pharma.
And the Kender Pharma trial is also the root of what drove Natalie to cross a line in this episode. After the unrelated death of one of Will's trial patients, some of the Kender heart failure drugs were lying around the ED until they could be picked up... and picked up they were, but not for delivery back to Kender. Desperate to prolong her mom's life during the wait for a heart transplant but turned down by Sabeena (via Will) in her effort to officially get her mom in the trial, Natalie just went ahead and stole the bottle of pills and took them home to give her mom.
Natalie's actions put several people at risk, including herself and her career. Her mom didn't actually receive an official evaluation to be put on the medication, and is simply taking the pills that had been given to a man that neither Natalie nor her mom knew, so this could be bad for her health. The bottle also has Will's name on it, so she could take him down with her even if Sabeena doesn't get him booted from the trial. I can't imagine a way that she doesn't get caught by somebody, and surely Crockett won't be cool with it even if they did just take their relationship to the next level.
As of the end of "Some Things Are Worth The Risk," both Will and Natalie crossed lines in ways that have other people in on their actions as loose ends that can't just be tied off. This isn't Chicago P.D., after all! If Med doesn't deliver some consequences for both of them, I for one will be seriously disappointed that all of this setup comes to nothing. I do feel like at least one if not both of them are headed for disaster, and it should be interesting to watch if Med really goes all the way with it. I don't see Med firing Will or Natalie unless Nick Gehlfuss or Torrey DeVitto is leaving the show, but something's gotta give.
See what happens next with new episodes of Chicago Med on NBC Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, ahead of Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. (with a couple of Fire characters crossing over to Med this week) and Chicago P.D. (starring Will Halstead's brother) at 10 p.m. ET.
