Chicago Med season 8: Will Colin Connell return as Connor Rhodes?

Remember Dr. Rhodes (Colin Donnell)? The trauma surgeon was a key player for several years on Chicago Med, and it’s easy to recall how much he brought to the show when binging old episodes.

It doesn’t hurt that Rhodes was never far removed from drama. While Gaffney Medical Center has never hurt for storylines, the surgeon brought with him a good number of tense relationships and close medical calls.

What became of Rhodes? Is he going to be coming back in Chicago Med season 8?

When did Rhodes leave Chicago Med?

Well, both the short and long answer is no. The character was written off succinctly in season 3, when he was given a chance to serve at a Mayo clinic, and has rarely been spoken of by the rest of the staff. This is excluding the season 5 episode “Never Going to Go Back to Normal”, in which he’s questioned by the police over the death of a family member.

While things turned out decently for the character, Rhodes decided to leave Chicago at the end of the aforementioned episode, and based on the little we do know about his life post-show, he has never returned.

This makes bringing him back into the fold very unlikely. The benefit of the One Chicago franchise is that it can bind all of its ensemble characters and alternating storylines under the banner of it playing out in one city. We rarely, if ever, venture beyond Chicago, and we certainly wouldn’t do so for a character who’s been gone for several years.

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There’s always a chance that Rhodes could return in a guest role, as he did in season 5, but the fact that he chose to move away at the conclusion of the episode suggests that the writers had a specific narrative goal in mind when they brought him back. With so much time passed, the staff would have to bend over backwards to fit him into a story organically.

That’s alright, though. Donnell has been a busy man since he left the series, starring in a number of film and TV shows. He had starring roles in the Hallmark films Love on Iceland (2020) and To Catch a Spy (2021), and appeared in a 2019 stage adaptation of the classic Almost Famous.

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