It seems another familiar face will soon be checking back into Chicago Med.
One Chicago Center can confirm Hannah Alligood will be returning as Anna Charles in an upcoming episode, which will put a special focus on Oliver Platt’s character, Dr. Daniel Charles.
“We are going to explore a lot of Doctor Charles' family dynamics, past and present, and some emotional turmoil that he's going through in this current season. And that will be highlighted in an episode that's coming up called ‘The Book of Charles’, which is designed the way that ‘The Book of Archer’ was last year in that, it's completely based on the POV of Doctor Charles' character and Oliver Platt will be in every scene,” Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald revealed in a recent interview with One Chicago Center. “I can [reveal] that his daughter Anna will be back in that episode.”
Anna last appeared on-screen in the season 10 finale as part of an emotional storyline which saw her rushed to the ER following a car accident. We would later learn that Anna had been quietly battling depression and had tried to take her life by driving her car into a tree. After learning of Anna’s actions, Dr. Charles struggled to balance being there for her as a father and his job as a psychologist, leading him to turn his former colleague, Dr. Reese, for advice.
Following their conversation, Dr. Charles patched things up with Anna and opened up about his own father’s battle with depression and the regrets he carried in not being more proactive in reaching out to his dad. The conversation allowed Anna to open up about how she thought the feelings would go away and how she felt embarrassed and didn’t want to disappoint him, to which Dr. Charles assured her there was nothing she could do to disappoint him as he’s so proud of how brave she is.
The hope was that we’d get to see Dr. Charles support Anna through her recovery following the finale, and it seems this is a storyline we will get to finally revisit when “The Book of Charles” airs later this season.
“The Book of Archer” aired as the seventeenth episode of season 10, and put a unique focus on Steven Weber’s character, Dr. Dean Archer, with Archer appearing in every scene throughout the episode as the central focus the episode resolved around. It was one of the season’s standout episodes and earned rave reviews from fans and critics alike who helped to make the episode one of season 10’s highest-rated episodes on IMDb.
We've seen Dr. Charles reflecting a lot and pondering retirement through the early episodes of the season, particularly through his new dynamic with Theo, who has challenged him in many ways. The winter premiere then indicated Dr. Charles is sick, adding an unexpected layer to the storyline, leaving fans to wonder what the future will hold for the beloved character.
Knowing the internal battle Dr. Charles has been fighting this season and the health scare he's been avoiding facing, it'll be nice to see Anna brought back into the mix to be a part of this next chapter in his story. We don't quite know how large a role she will play in the episode, but we're excited to see more of the father-daughter duo's relationship.
While the future remains unclear, one thing that is certain is that “The Book of Charles” is going to be a standout episode of the season, which fans will not want to miss.