There have been quite a few cast changes over the years on Chicago Med, but now, in its 11th season, two OGs are still around: Oliver Platt and S. Epatha Merkerson as Dr. Daniel Charles and Sharon Goodwin. The former gets the spotlight in the Thursday, April 1 episode, “The Book of Charles,” and he’s delivering one of his best performances of the series.
As tends to happen when TV dramas spotlight a character, though, there’s a shocking cliffhanger involving that person. TV Insider spoke with Oliver Platt and showrunner Allen MacDonald about just that. Warning: Spoilers for Chicago Med Season 11 Episode 16 ahead!
It’s a tough episode for Charles after, while working the suicide prevention line, he fails to keep a caller on, and the man’s words repeatedly play in his head throughout his shift. He even turns to Atwater (Chicago P.D.‘s LaRoyce Hawkins) to see if he can track the person down, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. It doesn’t get easier from there. He fights with his daughter, Anna (Hannah Riley), worried about her possible new relationship too soon (in his opinion) after her suicide attempt last finale. One patient refuses to entertain the idea that he was raped, while another, Sage, lashes out at Charles for suggesting that stomach pain could be caused by emotional stress. She accuses him of needing sick people like her to feel whole because fixing them is how he feels important, but she claims he’s not helping anyone. She later swallows drain cleaner to force an operation.
The only bright light? Charles and Ripley’s (Luke Mitchell) moment about how far the latter has come. Charles tells him he’s proud of him — Ripley’s now in therapy — and hugs him.
Meanwhile, Sharon (Merkerson) has received a call for a reference for Charles to fill the position Howie wants him to take over. At first, Charles insists he has no interest and isn’t going anywhere. But after Sage files an official complaint against him for verbal abuse, and Sharon tells him she has to go through the motions of processing the complaint for optics, but assuring him she believes him, he says she’s calling him a liar, and maybe he should take Howie’s offer seriously.
“Epatha and I were so traumatized shooting that scene,” Oliver Platt tells TV Insider. “And yet it was also really fun because we’d never really gone there. … Charles is the one who’s losing it a bit, and very much I think the instigator of this row. It felt very strange to us to do that, to be yelling at each other in character.”
All shift, Charles isn’t doing well, taking moments with his vision blurring and other symptoms that indicate something’s going on. In the final moments, he retreats into his office, only to suddenly find himself in his childhood home, opposite his mother! “You sure it’s not a nightmare?” she asks when he assumes he’s dreaming. In reality, he’s on the floor of his office. MacDonald confirms it’s a stroke but remains vague about how worried we should be about Charles dying. (After all, the One Chicago shows are no strangers to killing off characters!)
“It’s something that we’ve been kind of setting up the whole season,” the showrunner explains. “Oliver and I particularly paid close attention to earlier in the season that Charles was having trouble with his medication, and he went to his doctor and tried to see what was going on.”
Watch the full video interview above for more from Oliver Platt and showrunner Allen MacDonald about this shocking development for Charles.
Chicago Med, Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC
