No show is perfect. Chicago Med has been on the air for ten seasons, so there is bound to be an episode or two that fails to deliver on the combination of drama and romance that fans have come to expect. And there is bound to be an episode that fans consider to be the "worst."
Well, thanks to IMDb, we know which one it is. The website pulls user ratings from die-hard Chicago Med fans, and it determined that "Nothing to Fear" from season 3 is the most disliked episode in the show's entire history. It has a rating of 6.5, when the average Med episode is 7.6. We thought it'd be useful to look back at it and determine what didn't work, and if the hate is perhaps a little too strong.
"Nothing to Fear" is riddled with obvious writing
For starters, there is a lot going on in "Nothing to Fear." All hands are on deck this episode, and every main character makes capital "B" Big decisions. Dr. Ethan Choi (Brian Tee) tries to secure permission for a risky patient procedure by leveraging his romance with Dr. April Sexton (Yaya DaCosta). Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) is forced to take even more risks when a pregnant woman comes in with an underdeveloped baby.
Manning and Dr. Will Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss) split the ethical and operational dilemma with regard to the latter patient, but the episode doesn't do much when it comes to medical drama. It forces both of the characters to agree, and they approach the case with the same solutions, instead of posing them as opposites who must work together to save the day. It results in a subplot that is somehow boring to watch.
The best Chicago Med episodes are the ones in which conflicts are handled with nuance and some moral ambiguity. The characters who are medically licensed don't always have the right answer, and part of the fun is seeing them fight against their own instincts or experience to come to the right conclusion for their patient. They adapt, but in "Nothing to Fear," it feels like the laziest outcomes prove to be the correct ones, so there's no tension.
The characters lack nuance during the episode
It doesn't help that handling of some of the secondary subplots lack tact as well. We see doctors arrive at the conclusion that a patient suffering from mental illness may be using their condition as a means of avoiding responsibility. It's a bizarrely tone deaf read that the show doesn't treat as tone deaf, and it's a good indicator of the ways in which the show has progressed over the years.
There's plenty of enjoyment and nostalgia to be when revisiting old Chicago Med episodes. For our money, though, the criticisms leveled against "Nothing to Fear" are pretty valid. The fans got it right on this one.