Chicago Med season 5 character review: Ethan Choi

What Chicago Med season 5 means for Ethan Choi

With Colin Donnell having been taken off the show, and the demise of Manstead, Choi emerged as Chicago Med‘s male lead this season. That provided a lot more screen time for Brian Tee, who was as reliable a star as he’s always been. Tee won a NAMIC Vision Award for this season, though to be fair, three One Chicago actors were nominated so there are clearly some One Chicago fans in the organization.

But what wasn’t so great was what felt like a drastic shift in Choi’s character. His defining quality has been his ability to be cool under pressure and make level-headed decisions; we’ve seen past seasons where he’s been the one person who has everything under control in the most intense of situations. This season, his emotions got the better of him early and often; it seemed like he was always amped up, whether it was being overly enthusiastic about having kids with April or being angry for the whole end of the season.

Choi went from a calm, responsible doctor to someone who was angry, petulant, and acted irresponsibly on a few occasions. You could even say he overreacted considering that April didn’t have a full-on affair. Sometimes he wasn’t the most pleasant character to watch—and hopefully the writers will correct that next season with the whole Crockett nonsense behind us.

What happened with his character is kind of a microcosm for the whole season; the romance became the most important part, and so there was more drama than anything else. But did Choi learn anything this season? Did he grow as a doctor? There’s a lot more that could have been done with him. More screen time doesn’t always mean more character development.