Chicago Med season 5, episode 13 recap: Pain Is For The Living
Charles, Choi and April
Choi is particularly happy to start this episode, until he walks by Marcel and then he’s snarky. It’s not hard to guess why that is. “I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?” April asks as she watches their exchange.
But Choi is pulled away when parents rush into the ED with two brothers both in clear distress. The father says he “had to” choke out his one son Jamie. That clearly makes it time to call in Charles, who gets the full story: Jamie started beating his brother Dylan after Dylan took his iPad. Now that makes more sense, though that doesn’t make it okay.
Charles goes to see Jamie next, and April tells him that the kid has hand injuries from the attack he administered on his brother. “This is not child abuse,” Charles tells Choi, kind of stating the obvious, while Jamie later sobs to April that he didn’t mean to hurt his brother.
The parents admit that both boys are adopted, and agree to submit Jamie to a five-day psychatric hold just as Dylan gets out of surgery. In the psych unit Charles continues to talk with Jamie, trying to get to the root of his “dark place.” The line of questioning prompts Jamie to attack Charles, who has him sedated and declares he has “multiple” disorders.
Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) appears to recommend that Jamie be admitted to a residential facility and make the necessary arrangements. That’s before she finds out that the family’s insurance won’t pay for that level of treatment. Back to the drawing board; after all, sending the case out would mean Chicago Med would leave us with an unfinished story.
Choi and April are paged by a very unhappy-looking Charles, so they can all break the bad news to the parents. Charles says there’s a legal loophole that would get Jamie in the psychiatric hospital, but it’s an ugly one; they have to literally abandon their son so that Child Protective Services makes him a ward of the state. This might be the most insane thing ever heard on Chicago Med.
But Dad, who’s been a pushover all episode, says “Jamie needs us to do this,” and Mom tearfully agrees with the promise of eventually getting to see her son again. Choi and April look on angstily as Jamie begs his parents to stay. The last we see of them is helping Dylan to his parents’ minivan as they leave without his brother.