Chicago Med season 4 character review: Daniel Charles

What it means

Charles is an example of what we mean when we say that a character’s on-screen story can be affected by what happens off-screen. Chicago Med upended his story arc because of the decision the writers made to get rid of Reese; while it’s still not clear if they chose to write her out or Rachel DiPillo wanted to leave, the end result is they decided to take the character dearest to him and send her to another state, to hardly be referenced ever again.

Thus you can’t quite judge Charles’ season by just what you saw on screen. It clearly made a big difference for Reese not to be there; instead of having to have a psychiatry story each week for the two of them to work on, now the writers just used Charles to pop in on other people’s plots where necessary. He went from being featured to an extent, to playing more of a supporting role for other people.

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In that sense he felt kind of extraneous. Oliver Platt is brilliant, but it felt like the writers didn’t have as much use for his character when they weren’t writing specifically for him. They had to fit him into other stories. Bringing back Charles’ ex-wife was interesting, but largely because Paula Newsome was great, not because the storyline was that revelatory. And it would have been nice to see their renewed relationship blossom a bit more, rather than rush them back to the altar.

Even with the considerations because of the writing, give Platt credit for continuing to do his best week in and week out. Another actor wouldn’t make Charles nearly as interesting, and that’s likely why the character continues to matter.