Is S. Epatha Merkerson Leaving ‘Chicago Med’? Boss and Jessy Schram Break Down Finale (Exclusive)

What To Know

• Chicago Med‘s Season 11 finale ends on a very determined Sharon.
• Jessy Schram and showrunner Allen MacDonald unpack that and Hannah and Dean’s future.
• Plus, what’s next in Season 12?

Is Chicago Med about to say goodbye to one of its OGs?! The Season 11 finale certainly makes it seem like a possibility. Plus, Hannah (Jessy Schram) and Dean (Steven Weber) share a major moment. TV Insider spoke with Schram and showrunner Allen MacDonald about that and more. Warning: Spoilers for the Chicago Med Season 11 finale ahead!

For a moment there, it looks like Theo (Manish Dayal) will keep fighting to take Charles’ (Oliver Platt) job from him. But after Charles talks to the other doc and promises not to leak his personal information revealing his anti-social personality disorder, Theo removes himself from consideration. However, Miranda (Orlagh Cassidy) reveals, Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) will be leaving for leaking Theo’s medical files to her. Sharon argues she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and can’t fire her without the board’s approval. Sharon doesn’t plan to go anywhere, though she doesn’t answer Charles when he checks that she didn’t leak the files to save his job. The finale ends on her angry in her office, looking very determined.

Elsewhere, Hannah gives birth to her and Dean’s daughter — he makes it just in time after being taken hostage by an escaped inmate — and after, he tells her he loves her and has for a long time, that it was thousands of moments. Though her brain is at “maximum overload” with everything, she does kiss him.

Plus, Lenox (Sarah Ramos) and Ripley (Luke Mitchell) end the season together and in love. When she tries to give him an out, he refuses to take it because he’d rather have one more day with her than a lifetime with someone else.

And in sad news, Frost (Darren Barnet) is by his dad’s side when he dies.

Below, Jessy Schram and Allen MacDonald break down the Season 11 finale and tease what to expect in Season 12.

The finale ends on a very angry, determined Sharon. I love that look on her face. Allen, why did you want to throw this at her? And what can you tease about what’s coming up there?

Allen MacDonald: That was not scripted that Epatha looked into the camera. That was the fifth and final take, and she said, “I want to try something.” And then she did that and she scared everybody at Video Village because we all felt like we had done something bad and didn’t know what. But it’s a terrifying look. And she knew what she was doing and I got to credit her for that entirely. She knows her character. I’ll say the obvious, all the actors know their characters better than anybody.

But as far as why we did that, I needed a cliffhanger at the end of the episode, and I had the outline and I didn’t know what to do. And so it was something we had discussed earlier in the season when Sharon saves Miranda’s life on the airplane, that Miranda was going to fire her that day and then later she admits that. It just kind of hit me suddenly that the whole season has been worrying about if Dr. Charles was going to leave. Is he going to leave? Is he going to become a teacher? Oh, he’s had a stroke. Oh, oh my God, are we going to lose him? And then at the end you find out, no, he’s staying. And then, twist, Goodwin’s going. So that was the thinking behind that: last-minute writing desperation.

Jessy Schram: Everyone’s going to be protective of Goodwin.

Exactly. How worried should we be about Epatha leaving though?

MacDonald: You shouldn’t be worried at all about that. I won’t throw everybody into —

Schram: Or not yet, because she’s got to fight the battle of her life next season.

MacDonald: Yes. She’ll be back in the fall, and she has, yes, the battle of her life. Exactly. That’s exactly right. And we also liked the dynamic between Miranda and Goodwin, and we didn’t want that to end yet. We thought that there was more juice to squeeze there, basically. So that’s why we’re doing that.

Moving on to some happy news, the birth was a success. Everyone’s alive. Then we get that moment with Hannah and Dean, though. He says he loves her. She doesn’t say it back, but does kiss him. So Jessy, where is Hannah’s heart when it comes to Dean? And Allen, what can you say about what that kiss means and their relationship going forward?

Schram: I think it’s very clear, they definitely love each other. I think Hannah needs a moment to sort what that means, but the feelings are genuine and real when she does kiss him. She literally says the moment before that she didn’t have any space to think about this. This was not something that she could deal with. And so it was very important that this wasn’t a rash decision that she makes to kiss him or to shut him up or try and move on, or now all of a sudden her heart’s just exploding. I think it was a very, very conscious, very beautiful, very loving choice to kiss him, but she also is living in the moment of all of the emotions of the baby being born in the family that they have, but is also confused as to what that means and what that looks like. I think that it’s by no means the declaration of, everything is great, and it’s by no means the declaration of, “OK, I’m going to kiss you and then ghost you tomorrow.”

Peter Gordon/NBC

MacDonald: Well, I think the kiss means that there’s love there, and they just had a child together, and that child is sitting before them new, and they feel the weight of that, that their lives are going to completely change, and now they’re connected for the rest of their lives.

Schram: We’re figuring it out.

MacDonald: Moving forward for the rest of their lives, they’re going to be connected by this child. And I think the love between them is real, but the idea of that moment was for it to be ambiguous that he looks at her adoringly, and she’s looking at the baby. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him, she doesn’t care about him, but sometimes their signals don’t land on each other, they’re not feeling the same thing at the same time. And so you’re supposed to feel at the … And I think you do at the end of this episode because of the performance that we’re not really sure what that’s going to look like moving forward. Is it going to be a relationship? Are they going to get married and live together? I don’t know, but they’re going to definitely figure it out.

Allen, can you say if everyone will be back next season?

MacDonald: Everyone, in terms of series regulars?

Yes.

MacDonald: I am not at liberty to say.

Jessy, how will Hannah react to what’s going on with Sharon? Because she’s not privy to that yet. She’s busy having a baby at this point, but she’s going to have to find out.

Schram: Oh my gosh. Well, that’s the thing. I think all of our characters are very protective of each other. We even see in this episode Doris standing up for Dr. Charles. We see Lenox approaching Theo about, we know what’s going on. And I mean, Goodwin is the reason that Hannah was allowed to come back to the hospital. She’s the reason and very much a mentor figure and very much well-respected and a prominent figure in Hannah’s medical life and personal life. So I think that the protection will very much be there. And I wonder what kind of system that will mean of the support in which Goodwin gets to fight for herself, how that turns about and who’s on the team, and maybe even possibly who’s too afraid to fight. So I think it’ll be interesting really to see, but definitely Hannah owes her career at Gaffney to Goodwin to a certain extent for allowing her to come back in the position that she’s at. So I think that she’ll always do what she can to make sure that she sticks around.

Allen, are there any plans for any of the OG characters to return? Because we got Will (Nick Gehlfuss) and Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) this season. We got that great update about them in the penultimate episode. But what about seeing Connor (Colin Donnell) again, or after that mention of her in the penultimate, Maggie (Marlyne Barrett)?

MacDonald: I mean, the answer is yes. I have mentioned several times that I have an intention to bring back as much of the original cast as I can. Hopefully, we have plenty of years to be able to do that. But yeah, I’m planning to bring back probably a couple at least next season.

Jessy, what are you hoping to explore with Hannah in Season 12?

Schram: Obviously, now we’ve got to explore a bit of what it looks like for Hannah to become a mother, and now she is. I think we obviously have her personal relationship with Dean that we’ll explore to see where that lands. I think being a working mom of a newborn is an interesting thing to play, but also something that is an active choice on Hannah’s daily being is to continue her sobriety. So I’m very curious to see what we get to play, especially there’s always opportunity for everything that happens after the baby that a lot of people don’t normally express or talk about. There’s a lot of hormones, there’s postpartum, there’s so many different things that happen once the baby’s out, and so many people focus on the leading up to it. So I hope she continues to be the best doctor that she could possibly be, but I know that there’s so much opportunity there to explore how this affects her in the hospital and out and the choices that she gets to continue to choose to make or not.

Allen, is there anything else you can say about what we’ll see in Season 12?

MacDonald: I come up with these corny themes for the season, and they are very simple because they have to apply to everybody. Season 11, the theme was time is running out. And when I think about next season, I feel like it’s going to be new beginnings. So that’s all I’m going to say because in a few weeks we’re going to sit down and start talking about it. But I love the pace of the show the last couple seasons. I love the emotionality of it. I love the humor that we have now, I think, successfully injected into the show. And I just want to keep pushing that drama harder and maybe go into the red. Is that a good thing?

Peter Gordon/NBC

Speaking of new beginnings, because Ripley and Lenox started out casual, and then by the end of the season, you had them in love. Was that always the plan for that? And then Jessy, how is Hannah going to feel about that relationship actually being a relationship? Because yes, there’s the Dean of it, but she can’t forget about her history with Ripley.

Schram: That’s true.

MacDonald: Let me start with the first part because that’s going to take a while. Yes, that was always the plan. All right, go on, Jessy. [Laughs]

Schram: Well, I think it’s been really interesting to play because obviously I, as Jessy, read the scripts and know that they’re in a relationship, but the relationship has been and was supposed to be a secret for most of the season from most of the workers in the hospital. So only recently are we privy to the fact that Hannah knows by her and Doris having an exchange when Lenox is pretty pissy with Ripley in the hospital, and they’re aware of the work drama, and Lovell [Abby Corrigan] comments on it. So I think that there’s room for her to be curious and possibly a little protective or judgmental when it comes to them.

But I’ve really loved that Hannah and Ripley are in this really peaceful place with each other of seeing the growth that both people have had. And I feel like there’s a deep respect and admiration between the two of them. So I feel like there could have been a ping of jealousy, not in the sense of wanting to be with him throughout the season, but that ping of jealousy that she was alone. It was almost like with Archer with Kingston, all it did was reflect to her that she didn’t have anybody and that she felt very alone and that Mabel the baby was her only family and the only real thing that she could count on. So I think it’ll be interesting to see them as an active couple and it’ll be interesting to see whose side Hannah chooses when obviously they have their bumps in the road or their love nest phase. I think it’ll just be really interesting to see that played out. But I think that Hannah’s really proud of Ripley, and I think vice versa.

Chicago Med, Season 12 Premiere, Fall 2026, Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC