Chicago Med season 5 character preview: Natalie Manning

What should happen

With spoilers about Natalie’s fate already having been revealed by producers, there are all kinds of story ideas for her in Chicago Med season 5.

SPOILER ALERT: The remainder of this slideshow discusses information revealed in the spoilers linked above.

Natalie has a recovery period ahead of her, which could be incredibly interesting depending on how the writers play it. If they allow the storyline to unfold over multiple episodes or even the first half of the season, we can see Natalie truly have to come back from her injuries. We can also see how that affects her job and her relationships.

After all, Phillip will still be around determined to make her his second wife, and Will isn’t going to give up on her. He’s faced competition before, after all. Both of them will want to help her, and she may not want their help (see: what happened with Caroline and Dr. Charles last season).

It would be a lot of fun to see a more vulnerable, humbled Natalie. The major criticism of her has been her ego; she believes she knows best and she’ll do whatever it takes to assert that, whether it’s fighting with other doctors or calling the authorities. So what happens now when she’s wrong? When she’s in the position of weakness? She could grow as a person through this experience.

And it should be about a lot more than her newest love triangle. She deserves to be more fleshed out than that, and not the Natalie making giddy decisions without much thought like we saw last season.