Chicago Med season 5 midseason report: Daniel Charles

What it means

When the show wrote out Dr. Sarah Reese (Rachel DiPillo) last season, it was a real mystery how they were going to keep Charles around. Without a psych team the writers didn’t need to make up a psych storyline every week. But surprisingly, instead of less of Charles we’re seeing a lot more of him.

The bulk of what we’ve seen with him, like many characters in Chicago Med season 5, has been regarding his life outside the hospital. His storylines have been downright weird (in the case of the Bert thing) and cruel (with Caroline’s cancer). Oliver Platt and Paula Newsome are good together, but we’ve never been convinced as to why Caroline would push so eagerly for Sharon and Bert to reconcile when Bert abandoned Sharon in the first place. Especially to do it behind Sharon’s back!

And to bring back Caroline’s cancer honestly felt like choosing the most dramatic option. Fans had already watched her struggle with it last season. To have them remarry, only to kill her off after nine episodes (as presumably she will have passed when the show returns), just feels wrong. Why have them get married again just to kill her off? Having her die last season would have been sad but less cruel than teasing this happy second marriage that the writers just yanked the rug out from under.

So the question becomes again, where does Charles go? He lost his partner, but the Caroline story filled that void. Without that relationship, does he once again become a supporting character? Or are the producers going to continue to make Charles more prominent in the rest of season 5?