Chicago Med delivered a powerful Archer episode, and it was about time. This is a character with layers, but we only tend to get to see the gruff side of him. While that was certainly part of the case during the new episode, we also saw that he doesn’t necessarily want to be this way.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Chicago Med season 10, episode 17.
Throughout “The Book of Archer,” everything was told from his point of view. He was there in every scene, as he ran the Emergency Department while Lennox took a personal day. That personal day for Lennox was still spent in the hospital though, as it turned out that she needed to sit by the bed of a terminally ill patient with no family.
After the patient dies and another patient attacks people in the ED, Lennox and Archer get a moment to open up to each other. Well, Lennox opens up to Archer, showing us that the two are more alike than anyone would like to admit.
Lennox can see Archer’s gruffness has its benefits in Chicago Med
We finally learn more about Lennox’s family life. Both of her parents are dead, dying just hours apart, and no, it wasn’t some freak accident. Her mom had a rare neurological disease that claimed her life, and then her dad took his own life hours later, leaving Lennox and her brother as orphans.
Archer just listened as he stitched up the wound from the PCP guy in the ED, but afterward he asked why Lennox would open up to him. Well, Archer wouldn’t offer her sympathy. She knew he would just listen, and that’s something she needed. Something that she said stuck with him, “cold dead hearts have to stick together.”
Looking at the two characters, you wouldn’t initially think that they are alike. Lennox is a bit of a sociopath, and she knows it. She doesn’t really know how to connect with people, although it’s clear that sometimes she does if she can see herself in the patient. Meanwhile, Archer chooses to distance himself from people, treating their wounds to give them a future that people he cared about haven’t had the chance to have.
Archer needs to make a decision to change
While Archer doesn’t open up to Lennox about his ex-wife’s death told to us at the start of Chicago Med season 10, episode 16, he does find someone to talk to. Asher joins him on the hospital roof after her surgery, and he finally decides that he has someone he can talk to. While he goes through all the shoulda, woulda, couldas, Asher gets him to stop, and she offers some cold hard truths that he needed in that moment.
It's time for Archer to change. If he doesn’t change, then he’s going to be left alone forever, and is that something that he really wants? Sure, he’s gotten used to it, but how is it working out for him? It seems that hearing Lennox think that they are alike and Asher call him out, he realizes that he does need to change, and he doesn’t have to do it alone.
I know there are a lot of people who want to see Archer and Asher get together romantically, but their platonic relationship right now is everything they both need. They have an intimacy that a romantic relationship would destroy, and sometimes, you just need the best friends in your life.
Archer doesn’t need to be like Lennox if he doesn’t want to be, but is he willing to do the work to change? This episode of Chicago Med offers him that Sliding Doors moment.
Chicago Med airs on Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC.