Chicago Med season 4, episode 21 takeaways: Forever Hold Your Peace

What can Chicago Med fans learn from Forever Hold Your Peace? Look closer at this week’s episode with our Chicago Med season 4, episode 21 takeaways.

What did One Chicago fans learn from the latest Chicago Med episode? Here’s what we took away from this week’s installment, “Forever Hold Your Peace.”

“Forever Hold Your Peace” featured Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt) going to desperate lengths to keep his ex-wife Caroline (recurring guest star Paula Newsome) in Chicago, while Caroline received news about her cancer treatment. Meanwhile, Dr. Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell) said goodbye to his father.

If you missed any of this week’s episode or just want a refresher on the events that we’re about to discuss, you can catch up with our Chicago Med recap.

Below are our takeaways from this week’s episode:

More from One Chicago Center

• Chicago Med star on 2024 cast changes: ‘Nice to have new faces’
• Here’s the perfect Chicago Fire episode to watch on Thanksgiving
• Ranking the 8 NCIS Thanksgiving episodes from worst to best
• Mark Harmon does NOT have plans to reprise Gibbs on NCIS
• One Chicago stars tease new seasons on IG: ‘Here we come’

1) Was Natalie being hypocritical?

Did anyone else feel like Dr. Natalie Manning’s (Torrey DeVitto) storyline in this episode was kind of odd, when compared to the plot she had last week?

Last week, Natalie wanted to use a psych hold to force medical treatment on a woman she knew did not want it. This week, Natalie was objecting to a man insisting that his wife undergo a surgery she knew the wife didn’t want either.

So what was the difference that made one okay to her, but not the other? If anything, the biggest thing that made the two storylines different didn’t help Natalie—it was that the husband was legally able to make medical decisions on his wife’s behalf.

It ultimately didn’t matter, because the husband changed his mind and called off the surgery, but it feels odd that Natalie would want to respect the wishes of one patient and not another. Of course, this season hasn’t been kind to her.

Watch One Chicago on fuboTV: Watch over 67 live sports and entertainment channels with a 7-day FREE trial!

2) Did Chicago Med retcon Cornelius?

The big development in this Chicago Med episode was that Cornelius Rhodes (recurring guest star D.W. Moffett) died, which had been foreshadowed for a few weeks and prompted his son to think maybe his father wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Wait, what?

“Forever Hold Your Peace” saw Connor realize he’d misremembered one of his favorite childhood memories, and that his mother had never been part of it. Suddenly, he was questioning his whole perception of his father, telling Robin Charles (Mekia Cox) that he had demonized his dad.

It felt like an attempt by the show to retcon the last three and a half seasons of Cornelius being an utter jerk, trying to make the audience feel sad about his death. After all, it probably wouldn’t have as much dramatic impact if people weren’t upset that he was gone. But that doesn’t mean we can magically erase the established precedent.

For one, it was kind of done already. We’ve seen on other shows, and here too, this arc where a difficult parent or relative patches things up somehow. Remember Pat Halstead finally mending fences with Will (Nick Gehlfuss) during his first appearance? Or Benny Severide being revealed to be not quite so difficult after he died on Chicago Fire?

Cornelius has always been written as a jerk; speaking of Robin, remember how much he looked down on her when she got caught shoplifting? And that worked for Chicago Med—it motivated Connor and gave us context for his hero complex. Sometimes, it’s okay for a show to have terrible characters, when they serve some purpose. The fact that we didn’t like him didn’t change that we understood what losing him did to his son.

3) Will Charles and Caroline get remarried?

So Charles wants to remarry Caroline, and while she didn’t explicitly say yes, it certainly seems like they’re having the wedding producers said would happen months ago. However, given what took place the last time Chicago Med was supposed to have a wedding, is anyone nervous?

Obviously, Daniel isn’t going to be whisked off into witness protection, and we certainly hope he’s not going to be shot again. But it wouldn’t be a surprise if the writers decided to spoil this big day, too, as a way of making the season finale dramatic.

And how is this going to work out? Caroline revealed that her cancer has progressed; she may not have long to live. We don’t know exactly how long. It would be the ultimate punch in the gut if the show decided to kill her off—unlikely since that would be a really fast progression, but technically a possibility.

Even if Caroline does tie the knot in good health next episode, will Chicago Med keep up with this storyline in season 5? We’ve seen how the writers drop stories between seasons. And this is one that shouldn’t happen to; some couple on this show deserves to be happy by now!

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.