Chicago Med boss teases Ripley/Asher fallout, new docs arrivals, and more

It’s a season of change for Chicago Med, not just in front of the camera with yet another wave of casting shakeups with new faces entering the mix as another beloved favorite departs, but also behind the scenes. 

After nine seasons running the show longtime showrunners Andy Schneider and Diane Frovlov, have handed over the reins to Allen MacDonald who is looking to build upon the strong foundation already in place, while shaking things up to keep things fresh as the show enters its tenth season. 

As part of the shakeups ahead is the looming departure of yet another long-time member of the cast, whose exit comes as the show prepares to welcome a few new faces to the mix as well as part of a new storyline that promises to pave the way for many exciting stories to come. 

Ahead of Chicago Med’s return, One Chicago Center caught up with Chicago Med’s new showrunner, who gave us the scoop on what’s ahead this season including teases of the fallout from the season 9 finale, plans for Crockett’s exit, and how the newest doctors checking in will shake up the dynamics of the show.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: Welcome to the One Chicago family! You’re coming into a very established show as its new showrunner so I’d love to start by asking how has it been for you settling into this new role and how have you approached the passing of the torch, so to speak. 

Well, it's been a lot of fun. Everyone has been very welcoming here.

As far as the passing of the torch, the first thing I had to do was watch 100 and 76 episodes of Chicago Med to get myself nice and caught up, which I did.

And not surprisingly, I fell in love with the characters in the world and I just felt creatively that the show had been built on a really successful, strong, emotional dramatic foundation by Andy [Schneider] and Diane [Frovlov], the previous showrunners. That was just something I just wanted to continue to build on with my own unique brand and style, and those of the people on the writing staff.

I've said this many times but I was a big fan of two medical TV shows on NBC. One was St. Elsewhere in the eighties and one was ER in the nineties and, they both had profound effects on me as a writer in that they were both very dramatic and very emotional, but also at times would have quirky senses of humor. I love that in a medical drama,  the assertion of a little bit of humor.

I don't like joke, joke, joke like in a sitcom, not that there's anything wrong with sitcoms, I love sitcoms. But I like the humor to come from humanity that people recognize it in themselves and so they can relate to it. I believe that builds a stronger bond between the characters in the audience.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: Heading into the new season, there are definitely a lot of questions on the minds of fans as we have a character leaving, new faces set to enter the mix, and a major cliffhanger looming over us from the season 9 finale. Let’s start with the cliffhanger that has kept fans talking during the break, what type of fallout can we expect for Ripley heading into the season after he was accused of attacking Liliana’s brother? 

The cliffhanger was very dramatic and it is definitely something that hangs over the season premiere, especially with Ripley. This question of what was Ripley's involvement, if any, with Pawel Wapniarski’s attack in the season finale.

Of course, it was very dramatic in the last scene when Pawel comes in and his eyes all smashed up for lack of a better description. He immediately points at Ripley and says you did this, you did this.

In the season premiere of episode 10,  we do a time jump of one month and we basically find out that Ripley and Hannah have an iciness between them. What we unpack very quickly is that he's never been transparent and told her what his involvement with the attack on Pawel was if he was involved at all. And she's not cool with that.

So everything is pretty much on hold between them and that is a question that lingers over the entire episode and you do find out what happened by the end of the season opener.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: And speaking of relationships, is there still hope for Daniel and Liliana after all they went through at the end of the previous season? 

You will find that out very quickly in the first five minutes of the season premiere. The teaser I will give is that you, we do see Liliana.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: Of course, I have to ask about the departure of Dominic Rains as Crockett. The pieces were put into place at the end of the season for him to possibly walk away after learning of the death of his patient and his patient’s father. Will we get to see his exit unfold in the premiere? 

Well, you know, my instinct is to tease that you'll just have to watch. But I think it's unfair because Dominic does not return at the top of season 10 and we explain his departure pretty quickly.

The reason I decided to do that was just simply because I felt that Dr. Crockett Marcel had already been written out at the end of last season. It was left in a way that he could come back or if he left it, it was understandable that he had some issues of his own that he needed to work out in terms of his grieving process for the loss of his daughter. I didn't really feel there was a need to bring him back to write him out because I felt that had been done.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: I feel like that’s the nice thing about the show and the franchise, in general, is that it’s kind of always a revolving food of people coming and going. On Chicago Med in particular, we’ve seen a lot of departures over the years, but we’ve also seen a lot of returns as well. Would you say that the door is left open for Crockett to return, just maybe not immediately? 

Yeah, I would say that's completely accurate. That’s a very good question because it kind of touches on one of the things I love about this One Chicago world, which is that it is this big world of three shows, and people come in and out of it. Specifically to Chicago Med, people come in and out of it because it is a world inhabited by characters and there are some from the past that have gone and we have new ones. I'm very interested, and there are no solid plans at the moment for this, but I'm very interested in bringing back characters from the past and seeing how they react to the characters they knew in the past and with the new characters that we've added because I would love to see that and I think the audience would too.

ONE CHICAGO CENTER: As one doctor leaves, two more are set to enter the mix as this season will be introducing fans to Sarah Ramos as Dr. Caitlin Lenox and Darren Barnet as Dr. John Frost. What can you tell us about Med’s two newest additions? 

I'll start with Doctor Caitlin Lennox who's phenomenally played by Sarah Ramos, who the audience may recognize from The Bear and Parenthood. She just is nailing this role of Lennox. You'll find in the season premiere that a nearby hospital is closing down due to a lack of money and that Goodwin tells the Gaffney staff that we will be absorbing all that work and all those patients and things are gonna get a lot more tense.

So Goodwin has hired Lennox to come in and help out in the ED because she feels we need the help. Lennox is former military, has a very disciplined personality because she was in the military and she very much is about efficiency. She is not so much about personal relationships. She feels like getting too chummy with your coworkers or people in general just gets in the way of that efficiency.

It's not that she doesn't care about her patients, it's just, she feels like she's doing a disservice to her patients in general if she spends too much time with each one, she wants to help as many people as possible.

One of the main reasons that I created Lennox and brought her on the show is because I wanted a foil for Doctor Archer. I wanna see Doctor Archer get really grouchy because I enjoy that and I think the audience does too.

She is someone who does not say things nicely and she gets under underneath everyone's skin to some degree. Now we will see little bits and pieces of her background and why she's the way that she is, but for a large part of the season, she'll be a mystery.

With Dr. John Frost played by Darren Barnett, who's a phenomenal actor that I enjoyed on Never Have I Ever very much, he is coming in as a pediatrician.

He is on staff for the hospital that's closing and in the first episode, he brings a patient into the ED from that hospital because she's not getting the proper care at the other hospital because they're in the process of closing.

He cares very much about Children. He's a big defender of Children, and he feels as his operating principles as a pediatrician that you should always be honest with children about what's going on with their bodies. If they're sick that they should be involved in conversations about how to treat whatever issue they have medically, and parents don't always agree with that. They want to protect children.

So you'll see him clash, especially in episode two, with parents about how honest to be with children with their child.

The reason that he is like that, not surprisingly like so many of us is, you know, issues with his own parents growing up who he's completely cut ties with. And the reason he's such a protector of children is because he thought that his parents did not protect him.