Warning: Spoilers ahead from Chicago Med season 12 episode 1 from this point forward.
After what felt like the longest summer hiatus ever, it's finally time for the highly anticipated returns of the One Chicago shows. Chicago Med season 12 promises some big changes after the season 11 finale, which found Asher and Archer becoming parents, Goodwin facing an uncertain future in her career, Frost saying goodbye to his father, and Lenox and Ripley's romance going strong.
Chicago Med season 12 episode 1 begins three months after the season 11 finale as the new Gaffney administrator Mallory Sloan, who’s taking over for Goodwin, walks into the emergency department as she watches Dr. Wu (An-li Bogan) revive a patient with a precordial thump. Ripley explains the Sloan-Goodwin connection to Wu, who doesn’t even know who Goodwin is as a new doctor in the ED.
Archer cares for a young patient who had a reaction from a squishy toy that exploded, and as Sloan greets him as she walks by, he looks at her with an unwelcoming glance. Doris tells Archer that they’re too busy and need more support. Charles offers his assistance, and he appears to be in a much better place compared to last season.
The budget cuts are impacting the effectiveness of the department since Goodwin stepped down for the investigation, and Charles hasn’t spoken to her. Archer goes straight to Sloan to ask for more staff, but she’s not budging. Goodwin takes a meeting about taking a deal, and she maintains to Miranda that she didn’t leak Theo’s medical records. She accuses Miranda of ageism or racism, but she has limited time to prove her innocence.
Asher drops by the emergency department with Mabel for a visit and to bring coffee and food for Archer. She explains the status of their co-parenting and cohabitation situation, though no one really believes there’s nothing going. Suddenly, the ED receives at least a dozen patients from a mass shooting at a wedding, including the bride.
The bride is pregnant and needs a risky surgery
Archer and Wu work together on Tamar, the bride, and Wu discovers that not only did the bullet go into the uterus, Tamar is pregnant. Naturally, Archer asks for Asher’s assistance. Dr. Tanaka-Reed steps in to help another patient from the shooting as Ripley calls time of death on a bridesmaid that unfortunately bled out and died. Asher confirms that the bride is 23 weeks along and comes up with a plan to save both Tamar and the baby.
Because they’re so slammed, Asher offers to lead Tamar’s surgery. Frost takes on an 8-year-old patient named Dakota whose eyes are covered with bandages and might have a concussion. Dakota can’t see anything, and Frost orders tests to figure out what’s going on. Bruno, the wedding musician who brought Dakota in, is sent to Ripley to check on his neck wound. Dakota makes him promise that he will come back.
Mrs. Sutherland (guest star Gabrielle Carteris), the mother of the groom, worries about her son, Dexter, after the news reported that nine of the victims have died and he’s nowhere to be found. Charles takes control of the situation after she’s curt with the nurse. Tamar suddenly wakes up with confusion, and Asher assures her that her baby’s going to be okay. The bride explains that her ex-boyfriend Henry was the shooter at her wedding.
Archer continues to clash with Sloan
Tamar explains to the police about her relationship with Henry and how he wouldn’t accept their breakup, even after she got engaged to Dexter. Mrs. Sutherland steps into the room with an unfriendly presence and brings Tamar stress. Asher suggests that she steps out so she and Tamar can discuss treatment options, but Mrs. Sutherland coldly asks if that’s what she wants. Tamar agrees that she can stay and reveals her pregnancy.
Mrs. Sutherland is surprised Dexter didn’t tell her, but he didn’t know yet. Asher informs Tamar that she needs to decide whether she wants her to deliver the baby and remove the bullet at the same time, which is the safest course of action to prevent infection. Asher explains the pros and cons, and Tamar decides on delivery despite her mother-in-law’s protests.
Frost and Dr. Abrams perform an eye exam on Dakota, and they deduce her eyes are working normally but she’s functionally blind due to a trauma response. Ripley bonds with Bruno over their shared pasts while treating his wound. Charles enters the elevator for an awkward ride with Goodwin. He wants to talk to her, but she wants space. Before going into surgery, Asher reassures Tamar about Dexter and making the right decision.
Sloan pressures Archer to discharge patients with minor injuries to make room, but he insists that mass shooting victims should be monitored in case sudden injuries present themselves later. He accuses her of being Miranda’s mouthpiece, and she retorts that a closed hospital helps no one. She has to care about the patients and the bottom line to keep the hospital open. As Archer asks Charles about Goodwin, Dexter arrives in the ED looking for Tamar.
Dexter’s mother takes him upstairs to see Tamar with the promise of coming back down to get checked out. When he walks away, both Archer and Charles note that Dexter doesn’t appear to have a single scratch on him. They also wonder where he’s been if he wasn’t injured in the shooting.
Ripley unexpectedly loses a patient
Abrams begins the test on Dakota’s brain, and Frost tells her to stay positive when she expresses her concern about never seeing her mother again. She quickly asks for the test to stop only seconds in, but Bruno helps her bravely decide to keep going. Charles meets with Dexter, who’s uninjured, and asks where he was. He admits that he wasn’t at the wedding. He never actually drove to the church due to cold feet.
Dexter turned his phone off and drove around, only learning about the shooting when he turned the phone back on. His mother was convinced that Tamar was marrying for the wealth his family inherited when his father died. He let that get to him until he heard Tamar might have died and realized how much he loves her. Charles suggests that he talks with Tamar honestly.
Ripley brings Bruno his discharge papers, but he sticks around in the waiting room for Dakota. After shaking hands with Ripley and preparing to sit down, Bruno gets mowed over by a car that suddenly crashes through the emergency department’s glass doors. Tragically, Bruno died on impact and won’t get a chance to say goodbye to Dakota.
The driver emerges from the car, and it’s Henry still talking about wanting to kill Tamar. Ripley grabs him by the shirt and confronts him. Henry goes into shock, and Ripley places him on the floor. Archer joins him and they realize that he broke ribs and his clavicle. As Ripley and Wu work to keep Henry alive, he asks them to let him die. Wu retorts with the joke “Don’t tempt me,” which earns a look from Ripley.
When asked if he took illegal drugs, Henry insists that he didn’t, but Wu believes that he’s lying. Wu begins cutting into him to place the tube before Ripley can administer the ketamine, and he’s furious with her. Ripley rushes out and informs Frost that Henry killed Bruno. He also reveals that Dakota’s mother was killed after being trampled.
While looking at Henry through the glass, Dexter’s mom reveals to him that Tamar is pregnant. Again, she believes Tamar has him “on the hook” as she had warned him, but they will raise the baby “right.” Charles overhears the conversation as Dexter asks his mother to leave. She keeps pushing and insisting that they have to protect the baby.
Ripley confronts Wu about deliberately making Henry suffer by cutting into him before he had pain medication. She pushes back against Ripley every step of the way. He makes her understand that she disobeyed a call that he made, and she defends herself, accusing him of being on a “rampage.” She continues to call him out in a way that’s ultimately unproductive (but he might need to hear).
Lenox makes a surprise appearance from her sabbatical
Finally, some good news. Asher informs Tamar that the surgery went well and her baby is okay. It didn’t go according to plan, but Asher was able to pivot and keep the baby in the womb. Dexter arrives at Tamar’s bedside with reassurance and honesty. She’s immediately hurt when he admits that he had doubts about marrying her. Like clockwork, his mother enters the room. Dexter tells her that visitors are family only, a signal for his mother to leave.
Frost visits Dakota, but before he can deliver the bad news about her mother, Ripley appears with the exciting news that her mother’s actually still alive. There was a mix-up with another patient with the same last name. Unfortunately, while talking to her mom on FaceTime, Frost gets the opportunity to tell Dakota about Bruno. But her mother deduces what happened to Bruno and saves Frost from having to tell Dakota the truth.
On the way out of the hospital with Mabel, Asher tells Archer that she’s going to cut her maternity leave short by a few weeks and return to work. Archer addresses the emergency department staff to thank them for their hard work and share a moment of silence for the 12 patients they lost.
Later that night, Ripley talks to — surprise! — Lenox on a video call. (Sarah Ramos appears despite being confirmed to miss the first five episodes of the season.) She talks him through the complicated feelings he’s having about this case and being alive.
The call reveals that Lenox is on a three-month sabbatical in Zurich for a drug trial for her Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) disease. Ripley essentially tells her he loves her and they both touch their computer screens. Doris drops by Goodwin’s and reveals she leaked Theo’s medical records.
Chicago Med airs new episodes Wednesdays at 8/7c on NBC and next-day on Peacock.
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