Chicago Med season 4 premiere recap: Be My Better Half

Chicago Med’s season premiere featured new arrivals and one important departure. Here’s what happened in Chicago Med season 4, episode 1.

The Chicago Med season premiere purported to answer all of One Chicago fans’ questions from the summer, but it ended up just asking more questions. This isn’t the hospital that we left behind five months ago.

“Be My Better Half” picks up the action just weeks after Chicago Med season 3 left off, and it spends the entire hour bouncing between resolutions (or semi-resolutions) for different pairs, couples or otherwise, throughout the hospital.

Between revealing what happened over those weeks plus trying to leave a few clues about what’s to come, it was a very busy episode!

Because there’s so much to go through, we’re breaking down our Chicago Med premiere recap by pairing so that you can more easily follow each individual story. Read on for the details:

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Will and Natalie

So Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) said yes to Will’s (Nick Gehlfuss) marriage proposal—though it took her a week to accept! Doesn’t matter, though, because they’re engaged now and can start talking about cute wedding things.

Or disagreeing about the wedding. He wanted the whole church wedding; she wanted to just do it at City Hall. Will took her lack of interest as not really wanting to get married, and sarcastically told her he was “overwhelmed with her enthusiasm.”

Natalie eventually came around, though, arranging a food tasting for their wedding reception.

The duo treated a deaf patient, whose fiancee didn’t agree with his decision to get cochlear implants. She was so against it that she left him. The hospital’s audiologist explained that deafness isn’t simply a condition; it’s also a community.

But when the patient got a grim diagnosis—that his deafness was caused by a genetic disease called Usher syndrome, that would lead him to lose some if not all of his sight—the couple were reunited. His implants would allow him to hear for her, while she would be able to be his eyes.

Charles and Reese

The Chicago Med premiere picked up with Charles (Oliver Platt) trying to save Robert Haywood’s (guest star Michel Gill) life.

It then cut to some time later, with Charles and Reese (Rachel DiPillo) gave the police access to Robert’s storage locker so that they could begin building a case against him. Obviously, Robert was still alive—and a very annoyed Reese disappeared, only to return late and say she was going to Baylor because “I can never trust you.”

“I saw it in your eyes,” she added. “You were going to let him die.”

Reese sent Noah Sexton (Roland Buck III) to get her belongings from the hospital. Noah told Charles that Reese referred to him as “the dad she always wanted.”

Charles apologized to med student Terry McNeal (Colby Lewis) for yelling at him earlier, saying that he was dealing with “a loss.” Then he went to visit an incarcerated Robert so the two could trade more barbs about Reese leaving Chicago. When is this going to end?

Is Reese really gone from Chicago Med? Click here to find out.

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Ethan and April

Ethan (Brian Tee) insisted on looking out for his sister Emily (recurring guest star Arden Cho), and it put a chill into his relationship with April (Yaya DaCosta). But Ethan told her that Emily was now clean, gainfully employed, and wanting to make amends.

Emily apologized to April at Connor’s farewell party, but April remained skeptical. And with good reason, as Emily returned to the hospital—pregnant by one of the people in her AA group. Now it was Ethan who was livid, while April insisted that the unborn child was a life they had to protect.

She offered a panicked Emily her support, telling her that she was there for her and that they’d “figure this out.”

Plus, Ethan had to verbally slap the other new med student Elsa Currie (Molly Bernard), who refused to get an IV because “that’s a nurse’s job.” Nuh-uh, that doesn’t fly with Dr. Ethan Choi.

Connor and Ava

Connor (Colin Donnell) accepted the job at the Mayo Clinic, but nobody really wanted him to go. Not the fans, not the hospital, and secretly not Connor himself. He told Ava (Norma Kuhling) that they “could’ve had something,” which seemed weird for two people who slept together once and haven’t done anything since.

Losing a patient on the way from the ED to the surgical floor prompted Connor and Ava to argue that the hospital needed to create a hybrid suite in the ED—that would allow for surgery without having to wait. Goodwin told Connor to write up a proposal, and wanted him to run the program, but the idea was shot down by the board.

So Connor got a farewell party instead; hey, there’s Dr. Isidore Latham (Ato Essandoh)! Ava was a no-show, though, because she was asking Connor’s father Cornelius Rhodes (D.W. Moffett) for the money, thus keeping Connor at Chicago Med. Cornelius wasn’t convinced until Ava agreed to go to dinner with him. We can’t say this enough: Ew.

But it worked, because a big donation suddenly came through and the hospital matched it, which gave Ava and Connor their new suite—on the condition that Connor stayed to run the program. A little way for Cornelius to stick it to his son, again.

At least Connor’s still around, and he and Ava had a witty conversation about how they no longer work together, but it probably won’t last once he finds out how that money got to the hospital…

Goodwin and Gwen

Gwen Garrett (recurring guest star Heather Headley) is now firmly part of the Chicago Med power structure, and she’s already fighting Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson). Gwen rejected Connor’s idea because she didn’t want to spend several million dollars, and the board agreed with her.

An infuriated Gwen, not knowing what Ava had done, accused Goodwin of going behind her back. In retaliation, she told Goodwin that the hospital was not renewing the contract of ED chief Dr. Stanley Stohl (Eddie Jemison). Now, Stohl is not our favorite character in the world, but we didn’t have to get rid of the guy.

Anyway, the battle is clearly on between these two, with the entire hospital stuck in between. “Stay out of my way,” Gwen warned Goodwin.

Next. Is Rachel DiPillo leaving Chicago Med?. dark

For the latest Chicago Med season 4 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Med category at One Chicago Center.

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