It seems a new power struggle might be about to unfold on Chicago Med.
Much to the surprise of fans, Dr. Charles officially returns to work in season 11, episode 18, “Things Left Unsaid,” a return that has thrown many fans off due to the fact that Charles has literally just had brain surgery the prior episode. So how is it that Charles is already back at work so soon after his near-death experience?
As confirmed by Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald, when season 11 picks back up in episode 18, there will have been a slight time jump of two weeks. During these two weeks, Charles focused on his recovery and was sidelined, which resulted in Dr. Theo Rabari stepping up to oversee the department and fill in for Charles while he was out for his recovery.
While the idea of Theo stepping in to fill in for Charles might not raise any immediate concerns, it seems that this taste of power is going to create some new challenges when Charles returns.
“Dr. Charles decides to stay at Gaffney, but now Dr. Theo Rabari has filled in for him while he was recovering for two weeks. And he may find that there are some challenges to overcome with Theo before he can fully embrace his job again,” MacDonald told Give Me My Remote TV.
This background information helps to paint a picture of why there is a sudden conflict between Theo and Charles, a conflict that MacDonald also teased in the immediate fallout of the episode.
"There is a big threat to his job from Dr. Theo Rabari coming up. I won’t go into too many details about that, but that’s been a conflict we’ve been setting up the whole season,” MacDonald revealed at the time.
It seems that the root of the forthcoming conflict between Charles and Theo will stem from Theo having a taste of power while filling in for Charles and effectively running the psychiatry department. This honestly makes sense, and it’s a storyline the show has explored in the past, most notably when Archer took over as interim chief of the ED while Ethan Choi was recovering from being shot.
After getting the chance to steer the ship, it was hard for Archer to hand the reins back over to Ethan when he was ready to return. Ultimately, Ethan would come to make the decision not to return as chief, recognizing it wasn’t what he wanted anymore. This allowed Archer to retain the position and become the official chief of the ED; however, that is not likely to be the case with Charles and Theo.
It’s been made clear that while Charles might have been considering leaving Gaffney to explore the teaching opportunity presented to him by Howie, Charles is fully committed to remaining at Gaffney. With Charles committed to his future at Gaffney, it seems the show is about to explore the struggles that come after a junior member of a team gets the opportunity to run the show for an interim period.
We know that Charles and Theo have very different approaches to medicine, and this likely extended to how Theo approached running the department while Charles was away for his recovery. After getting the chance to run things his way, we imagine Theo is going to struggle with returning to the former ways of operating under Charles’ leadership. This is likely going to lead to the power struggle between the two.
All we can hope is that the show doesn’t turn Theo into a full-blown villainous character, as we’ve truly enjoyed his arc this season and want to see more of the character in season 12.
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