Chicago Med producers explain Connor’s shocking ending

Chicago Med’s premiere included a huge shock for Dr. Connor Rhodes, and producers explained why it happened and what else you may have missed.

The Chicago Med season premiere featured the departure of Dr. Connor Rhodes (Colin Donnell), and it’s not an exit One Chicago fans will forget anytime soon.

SPOILER ALERT: The following interview contains spoilers from tonight’s Chicago Med season premiere.

Connor’s sociopathic ex-girlfriend, Dr. Ava Bekker (Norma Kuhling), tried to pin his father’s death on him. When that failed, she attempted suicide right in front of Connor—and though he did his best to save her, Ava succumbed to her injuries.

Traumatized by that and everything that had happened previously, Dr. Rhodes made the decision to resign immediately, and the premiere ended with him literally walking away from the hospital.

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Chicago Med showrunners Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider sat down with us to discuss why they decided to end Connor’s story so dramatically, if Ava really had to die, and a few other topics from the first episode.

How did you arrive at the decision to kill off Ava? It did seem like the only options were to either have her die or get arrested.

Diane Frolov: That was it. Because she did have this problem, this mental problem, she was headed in this direction and it pays her personality off if she can do this final revenge.

Andrew Schneider: At one point we considered she might survive the suicide attempt, but we thought it gave more finality for Connor’s decision to leave if she died.

The episode confirmed Ava killed Connor’s dad, but didn’t have time to address everything she was suspected of last season (the fake kidnapping, the fake injury, et al). So are Chicago Med fans to imply that she did everything she was accused of?

AS: She did it all.

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The other big development is with Natalie. How much of Chicago Med season 5 will be spent going into her recovery?

DF: We’re skipping ahead about six weeks in episode 2, because she’ll be returning after going through physical therapy and help with her cognitive therapy. But we will see that she’s still struggling, and it becomes a question. Is her injury effecting her ability to be a doctor? So it plays out almost the first half of the season.

AS: And her memory is still not back from the day they were hit [in the accident] so that becomes an ongoing question. Will she get this memory back. If so, when. And what will she do when she does?

Are we right to be suspicious of Phillip, or is that just the aftermath of the Ava storyline talking?

DF: You need to be suspicious.

AS: Crockett is on to him.

What about Maggie’s story? Where is Chicago Med going with that?

AS: We take this beloved character, we give her a very serious illness, and we want to do a realistic story about cancer treatment—to show the ups and downs of it and the positives of it. It’s going to be a major storyline throughout the season.

DF: We started that with the biopsy. That’s a new piece of technology that we showed in the first episode.

For the latest Chicago Med season 5 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Med category at One Chicago Center.