For Chicago Med, the pulse of the new season kicked into high gear when a family of three was brought in from a house fire with tragic consequences, and the floor collapsed at a rave party where several people died or were injured and brought into Gaffney Chicago Medical Center.
“Our big picture, our theme for this season is: Time is running out,” Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald tells The Hollywood Reporter of the new 11th season that premiered last week. “That applies in different ways to our different characters, some in more literal ways than others. To underscore that thematic premise, the premiere is designed by these two sudden accidents that happen to the people who come into the hospital. A family brought in from a house fire where the father and the mother are very badly burned, but ass the hour progresses, we find out that the dynamics of those three characters are a lot more complicated than we initially think.”
As for the second storyline, MacDonald says the rave tragedy was to “underline that theme” by having the party in “an old, condemned warehouse building outside Chicago,” where the floor collapsed beneath the ravegoers. “A lot of people died suddenly, and a lot of people were injured who are still alive, are brought to Gaffney. That was the way I was trying to encapsulate that theme in the premiere.”
Keeping with the team of time, viewers learn fairly quickly in the season premiere that Dr. Dean Archer (Steven Weber) is indeed the father of friend Dr. Hannah Asher’s (Jessy Schram) baby to be, and not the other potential father, Dr. Mitch Ripley (Luke Mitchell). This dynamic is interesting for the show’s 11th season, as Archer dealt with the loss of his ex-wife last season (Leanne Archer played by Paula Marshall). Now he must navigate what his role will be with his new unborn child as he and his adult son Sean (Luigi Sottile) became closer after that impactful death for both of them, Weber tells THR about his character.
“I don’t think he has managed to find an equilibrium” Weber says. “Even the death of his ex was very affecting, which helped him get close to his once estranged son. They actually have a good relationship now. And it is heightening his awareness that, as Alan said, time is not running out, it’s just precious. Life is just precious, so there is the possibility he could be involved with this new life that is coming into the world through, I guess I want to say, his beloved friend Hannah.”
It’s an ongoing adventure, he says, for Archer, “who has just tried all his life to figure out who he is and why he is, and why he did the things he did. And why certain things were done to him. He tried to find answers in war; he tried to find them in medicine. Mow he’s further challenged by the possibility he’s going to be involved in his new book and see if he can bring some of his hard-won wisdom to this situation.”
MacDonald adds that the key points to watch for on Chicago Med this season are in the build up to the show’s 200th episode.
“We’re really excited about the 200th episode; we feel like that is a huge landmark for the show,” he explains. “The audience is going to have a lot of excitement and surprises in these early episodes. The whole season is going to be full of surprises and excitement, but we really hit the ground running this year. In the 200th episode, we have some returning OG characters.”
Those characters include Doctor Will Halstead, played by Nick Gehlfuss, who will “bring with him Natalie’s (Torrey DeVitto) son, Owen, who we had a different actor playing him playing him before, but the character is returning,” he says. “As a writer, especially of a long-time medical show, I really enjoy bringing past characters back and watching them catch up with the characters they used to know, and then mix with the characters they don’t know who were introduced on the show since their departure.”
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Chicago Med season 11 airs new episodes Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC, streaming next day on Peacock.