Chicago Med season 5 midseason report: Daniel Charles

What’s next

Based on what we learned in the Chicago Med fall finale and the promos for the show’s return, it looks like there’s going to be a time jump in the spring premiere. Presumably, Charles will be back from his “vacation” and Caroline will have passed on, leaving Daniel a widower.

He’s going to need time to deal with his grief. This is a woman he never quite stopped loving; they have a child together and last season he was willing to quit his job for her. He finally gets her back and she’s gone within months. But will the writers allow that to play out in the premiere and past that, or will they include that in the time jump and just say he was mourning off-screen and he’s fine now? Hopefully the former.

After all, Oliver Platt is a fine actor who would crush that kind of material. And you want Caroline’s death to matter by allowing that impact to register not only with Daniel but with the audience; if it happens off-screen, it’s like the show just killed her to add drama in the midseason finale and isn’t really concerned with telling that story.

Beyond that it really is a question of how the Chicago Med producers see Charles now. They’ve pushed him pretty heavily in the first nine episodes, but that was when he was part of this ship they wanted to sail. Now they’ve taken that away from him, meaning he again has no one else that he’s got an established storyline with, personal or professional.

Will he just float around and pop into other people’s cases? Will he fade into the background for a bit? Will this be like when he was shot a few seasons ago and the show just skips over most of it? We’ll find out next month.

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