Chicago Med season 3, episode 5 recap: Mountains and Molehills

The Chicago Med midseason premiere didn’t go well for Will Halstead and he wasn’t the only one. Here’s what happened in Chicago Med season 3, episode 5.

When Chicago Med returned on Tuesday, it was like the show hadn’t left—probably because there were only four episodes in Chicago Med season 3 before the winter hiatus.

But the show came back and got right back to what we expect of it in the midseason premiere, with seriously dramatic cases and a need to replace a couple panes of glass.

“Mountains and Molehills” opens with Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) and Dr. Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) making out in the backseat of her car like a pair of teenagers, because that’s an interesting way to start the work day.

And then there’s Nurse Doris being condescending to Dr. Ethan Choi (Brian Tee) again, while she tries to set Choi’s girlfriend April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta) up with her cousin. Can someone hit Doris upside the head with something heavily?

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Mercifully, our old friend Chout from Chicago Fire interrupts with a seizing patient for Choi and April to treat. And what are those lesions on the patient’s back? Choi wants to test her for HIV, but the woman immediately declines, saying she “can’t have AIDS.” Uh, that’s not how that works.

Choi and Dr. Stanley Stohl (guest star Eddie Jemison) talk to Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson). Stohl wants to pawn the patient off on the hospital that she was originally intended for, not wanting Med to take on the financial burden of a woman who’s going to die anyway.

Goodwin disagrees, and furthermore tells Choi his patient may not have been capable of informed consent, therefore opening the door for them to test her anyway. Sneaky, Ms. Goodwin.

"Goodwin: I’m not ready to accept that we can’t save her."

Meanwhile, Dr. Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell) is still working in the trauma department, and still having problems with his girlfriend Robin (Mekia Cox). At least they set up a dinner date, while a newly arrived Will and Natalie take on a young girl who collapses in the Emergency Department’s waiting room.

Connor reports to work handling both a young man and a woman who were injured in the same car accident. He has to enlist Noah Sexton (guest star Roland Buck III) to help him, which means that Connor has to both treat and teach Noah what to do at the same time. It’s complicated, but the young man, Spencer, seems like he’ll be okay.

Noah reassures him that the woman he hit will be fine so that he doesn’t melt down, but Connor sees a much more grim picture in the OR. And definitely doesn’t need Noah talking to him while he’s trying to operate.

The last people Chicago Med hasn’t accounted for is our psych team. While he finds out that Dr. Sarah Reese (Rachel DiPillo) hasn’t seen a single patient since the last episode, Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt) is enlisted to talk to Choi’s patient, and disagrees with Goodwin’s idea that the lady can’t make her own decisions.

"Charles: You have to convince her. I can’t just rubber-stamp this."

Across the hall, Will and Natalie’s patient takes a turn for the worse. She now seems to be unable to move her legs or her arms, and they’re still no closer to figuring out what she actually has. They call in our favorite neurosurgeon Dr. Sam Abrams (Brennan Brown), who notices that Will seems to be having an issue, too. Is this condition spreading?

Yep, because there’s Will suddenly unable to stand. Now we have an epidemic on our hands.

Connor finishes with his surgery, and tells Spencer that the woman in the car he hit did make it through her procedure. Furthermore, Noah assures Spencer’s family that he’ll personally keep an eye on him, which if you’ve ever seen any TV show, is about as ominous a statement as one can make.

So it’s really not a shock when Spencer collapses two scenes later without a pulse. Luckily, we have Connor there to try and help, but it’s too late. The kid is suddenly dead.

And speaking of cars, Reese finds out that hers has been broken into. First her tires get slashed, then her car gets broken into. The police say it’s the fourth break-in they’ve seen in the month and don’t seem to be super-concerned, but it just fuels Reese’s developing paranoia.

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Connor tries to explain to Noah what just happened, but understandably Noah is shell-shocked and in complete denial. You really can’t blame him, especially since he made the mistake of telling the kid’s family that he’d be fine. He insists on breaking the bad news himself.

(The only silver lining to a grim scene is that Connor mentions talking to the ME about cause of death, which presumably means he’d have to see Nina Shore in Pathology, therefore enabling us to imagine finally having a scene between Colin Donnell and Patti Murin. The dream is still alive!)

While Natalie frets over Will, Choi is confronted by his patient’s angry aunt, who’s figured out that her niece does not have the flu. Choi wants to tell her the truth, but Goodwin warns him about a violation of his patient’s privacy:

"Choi: She wants us to help her niece.Goodwin: Still. It’s not for you to tell her. That’s the rule."

News about Reese’s car has reached Dr. Charles, who is more worried about his protege than her car, but she’d rather get on her insurance claim. And both Connor and Maggie Lockwood (Marlyne Barrett) look on angstily as Noah notifies Spencer’s family of his death.

Naturally, his past words are thrown back into his face as Spencer’s brother throws Noah through a glass door. It’s Connor to the rescue again, wrestling the man off of Noah. Hearing about what happened to him just makes Reese even more paranoid, and now, angry. Okay, maybe the idea of those two dating isn’t off the table after all based on how upset she gets with Maggie:

"Reese: How are we supposed to do our jobs if we don’t feel safe and protected?"

Chicago Med circles back around to Choi’s patient, as Goodwin has decided it’s now time for her to intervene personally. She tells the woman about her own experience treating (and losing) patients with AIDS, and that gets the patient to consent to the HIV test.

Meanwhile, Will and Natalie’s patient miraculously gets better, with Abrams suggesting that she was just infected with some kind of toxin. Yep, she had a tick attached to her (and so does Will), and it’s not the blue superhero kind. It feels like a rushed resolution, but it’s about as good of one as we can expect under the circumstances. After all, you can’t keep a good doctor down for more than one episode!

While Natalie points out that they could fool around in Will’s hospital room, Charles confronts Reese about her snapping at Maggie, and April finally tells Doris—and everyone else—that Choi is her boyfriend.

Things aren’t so good for Connor and Robin, though, because Robin has started acting incredibly shifty before their dinner date. And wait, why is Reese trying to get a gun? At least she only gets her hands on mace. But both of these things could be really terrible, and then we’ll see some real drama!

“Mountains and Molehills” doesn’t drastically change the game for Chicago Med; it feels more like just the next episode up, which makes complete sense considering the season had hardly started before the holiday break. You can really see the effects of NBC’s decision to push the show out to November in some of the episodes so far.

The main plotline has to do with Will and Natalie, and it plays out like you’d expect it would, with Natalie worrying over Will. (Brennan Brown’s glib comment about if the two are dating steals the entire episode.) Chicago Med fans know that Will has to get better, but there’s still enough drama in watching the Manstead angst. It’s one of those cases where you know what you’re getting, but because you care about the characters, it’s still watchable.

We’ve been pretty hard on Noah Sexton in the past, but this is actually a decent episode for him, because he can’t be glib and self-assured. Nor does he make a rookie mistake. He does his best, and he also learns a very hard lesson about not making promises to patients’ families. Aside from the cringe-worthy moment of him interrupting Connor’s surgery, this feels like an episode where he may actually grow and mature, like he needs to do.

S. Epatha Merkerson gets another great moment, too, as we’re reminded that Goodwin was a nurse and can still work with patients, aside from being the hospital administrator. We need more of those, and every time we get one is a huge plus.

Add in some good scenes for Colin Donnell that are something different from Connor’s ongoing battle with Ava Bekker, and this is a watchable Chicago Med episode. It may not have any huge surprises, and in terms of overall canon, the biggest development is April coming clean about her and Choi’s relationship. But it’s still worth watching because it’s the cast that lifts the script; this is a top-notch cast and they’ll always make it worth our time.

Next: Naming the Chicago Med actor of 2017

What did you think of the Chicago Med midseason premiere? Leave your reaction to “Mountains and Molehills” in the comments.

Chicago Med airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

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