[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Chicago Med Season 10 finale “…Don’t You Cry.”]

Wait, who’s the father of Hannah’s (Jessy Schram) baby?! Sadly, we still don’t know at the end of Chicago Med‘s Season 10 finale, though it’s not as clear as we may have thought.

While we thought the father has to be Ripley (Luke Mitchell), despite their breakup, it’s Archer (Steven Weber) that Hannah goes to see at the end of the episode … and tells him they need to talk. Ripley, meanwhile, also has someone at his door: Sadie, whom he’d rescued, along with her daughter, from a well earlier in the season. Elsewhere in the finale, with the hospital having to make some cuts, Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) is forced into a tough conversation with her boyfriend, Washington (John Earl Jelks), which ends with her admitting she’s still hurt he hadn’t told his daughter about them, a breakup, and his resignation.

Plus, Charles (Oliver Platt) is forced to confront some truths about his daughter Anna (Hannah Alligood) after she’s brought into the hospital following her car crashing into a tree — and it wasn’t an accident — and Lenox (Sarah Ramos) finds out she’s tested positive for prion disease but keeps it to herself.

Below, showrunner Allen MacDonald unpacks the finale, teases what’s ahead in Season 11, and reveals who’s coming back!

Hannah goes to Archer and says they need to talk. Is he her baby’s father?

Allen MacDonald: I’m not going to comment on that. I will say that I think Hannah needs to process this in one way or another. Archer is someone who she feels very safe speaking with. I think when Hannah feels destabilized that Archer is a stabilizing force for her and vice versa.

Would you say Hannah and Ripley could still have a future despite where the season leaves both, or are you kind of closing that door at least most of the way for now?

I never say for sure if doors are going to be opened or closed, but I definitely think that this is a possible conundrum for Hannah because that relationship is over and it ended very, very naturally.

Everything with Charles and his daughter was heartbreaking. How much is that going to change how he goes about being both a father and a doctor going forward?

I think the thing with Charles this season is that he is a bit lonely, and the reason for that is he hasn’t dealt with his personal issues. He doesn’t practice what he preaches to his patients. He’s a very talented shrink/psychiatrist, but I think he’s buried a lot like most people do. And I think that it was important this season that he confronts or be forced to confront, actually, issues from his past. One of those is Dr. Sarah Reese [Rachel DiPillo] and the falling out that they had. And another one of those was that Jackie [Natalie Zea], the nurse, was interested in having a romantic relationship with him and there was a push and pull there. And at the end of the day, he kind of retreated because he doesn’t feel he’s worthy of happiness. On some level, he doesn’t feel like he deserves that.

And so when we bring back at the end of the season — Oliver Platt and I discussed this, we called this the Charles trilogy in the last three episodes because his mom comes back, she passes away shockingly and suddenly, and then the funeral brings back the daughters, and then he’s forced to confront things he didn’t know about his kids because he felt he was letting them live their lives, but in actuality, he lost track of them a little bit. And with Anna, I think that especially is the moment of truth for him when she says to him, “You’re the last person that I would ever want to talk to about these things.” And he’s completely shocked and blown away. He’s like, I am, we are? And he realizes that he needs to be a more active father and that his daughters still need him, and Anna still needs him.

And I think it’s such a beautiful scene where he uses the story of his father’s suicide to help get her to confront and admit that she attempted suicide herself and to let her know that it’s not her fault and that this is a family legacy. This is something that is genetic, that they’ve carried, and that they’ve all had to deal with. And I think when she breaks down, that finally opens up the connection. And that was a very wordy way to say that. Yes, you’re absolutely right. This is Charles realizing that he needs to be more connected to his children and probably a better father. And I hope to continue that storyline in the fall.

Why put Goodwin through that with Washington? How is she feeling about losing him both as a significant other and then also as a doctor?

Yeah, it’s complicated because I think that there has just been this unspoken trauma going on in her head of having been stabbed in Episode 8 and almost dying in surgery in Episode 9; she is very practical, she’s very logical, and she compartmentalized that and just went on with her life, which for the audience feels a bit like a TV trope where something horrible happens and then everyone goes on like it didn’t affect anybody in the next episode, and myself and the writers very much kind of wanted it to seem like she wasn’t dealing with it. And then I think when she discovers that Washington didn’t tell his daughter about the relationship or even who she was, that really, really hurt her. And I think that she buried it just like she was burying the trauma of having been stabbed.

When she goes to visit Cassidy because Cassidy requested that, the conversation reopens that wound and it really makes her confront again what she went through and that she’s been kind of sleepwalking since then and letting things go that she typically wouldn’t. And I think if not for going to see Cassidy, she might’ve continued with Dr. Washington, but she realized that she needs to make some changes in her life and she bravely does. And I think that that means that her life is going to go in a different direction next season that she wasn’t expecting, which I think is very exciting for me and for Epatha.

But at the end of the episode, she needs to regroup and process it, and she goes to the person that most feels like home to her, which is her ex-husband Bert [Gregory Alan Williams]. And that is, to me, the most touching moment of the season because we haven’t seen him in a long time, so it’s going to be a surprise. It’s the first and only time we see him in Season 10. He was such a big part of Season 9, and obviously his Alzheimer’s has gotten much worse, but she still loves him. They have a rocky history themselves, but they were married for decades and they share children.

Speaking of bringing back characters, there was Reese, there was Robin (Mekia Cox). Can you see if you’re planning on bringing back any other past doctors next season?

Yes, and they just texted me. I have said before that I’m very much a believer because I am a TV fan — when I was a teenager and I watched the medical show St. Elsewhere, I used to just get so excited when they brought somebody back they hadn’t seen in a long time. And I think there’s a fear in storytelling, television specifically, that if you bring back old characters that you’re kind of going back into the past and not being in the present. But I think life is both. And I think we were successful in telling stories of the present, but I think that in the One Chicago world, it’s completely legitimate to check in on people, characters that we love and we miss, and what fun to see them interact with the new doctors that the audience knows, but they don’t. And so yes, I intend to at least bring back one if not two or more original cast members [from the series premiere] in the next season.

I can’t wait to see that. I have a feeling you can’t say anything more than that, right?

You would be correct. The name is right here. I can see it. [Laughs]

I had a feeling that Lenox had tested positive just by her reaction, but how much of her not saying anything was about her not wanting to put that on her brother and just not wanting to reveal that in front of her coworker, Archer?

It was both. I think that it came from the same place. I don’t think even if she were alone with Kip or she were alone with Archer, I don’t think she would’ve said a word to either of them. And I think that’s part of Caitlin Lenox’s MO, is that she doesn’t want to show weakness, she doesn’t want people to pity her. And one of my favorite scenes of the season was in the Episode 17, when she tells Archer of all people how her mom died of this disease and her father committed suicide a few hours later because he was so devastated. And then when Archer leaves the room, he says, why did you tell me all this? And she says, because you wouldn’t pity me. And I think this news, her positive result for prion disease, is so devastating to her that I don’t even think she wants to tell Archer because she does not want anyone to pity her, to look at her as a victim. And I think it’s her go-to to keep everything the same, to just, even though her world has been shattered, when she goes to work and walks through the world, that everything is the same. But I will say that in Season 11, this news is going to have a profound effect on how she chooses to live her life.

George Burns Jr / NBC

Will everyone from the main cast, all the series regulars be series regulars again next season?

I’m not going to answer that.

What else can you tease about what’s coming up in Season 11?

I don’t want to tease too much because it’s not 100% clear yet. And I’m afraid I’ll say things that we decide not to do because I have all these ideas in my head that I’ve been discussing with the other writers, but when we start the writers’ room in a few weeks, what often happens is I think I have this brilliant idea and I find that I have a very smart, high-level, experienced staff that have better ideas and then I will go with that immediately, so things aren’t clear. I can say that yes, we’re going to hopefully have some original cast members come back. I can say that I want to continue exploring the relationship between Anna and Charles. I can say Lenox is going to go down a different path next season that will be surprising and possibly even cathartic for her and the audience. And I can say that when it is finally revealed who the father of Hannah’s baby is, those two are going to have to really work it out how they’re going to move forward.

Are there two characters you especially want to see interacting more next season?

The writers and all our friends at Wolf Entertainment, we all love seeing Ripley and Frost [Darren Barnet] together. We think that we got a real, true, genuine bromance going on there. And we also love those scenes because they tease each other, they respect each other, they’re honest with each other, but they also make each other laugh and smile. And Ripley had a really rough season up through Episode 15, and we really made a concerted effort to see him smile more, literally see him smile. I think being in that well and stuck in that tunnel, he thought he was going to die. It’s not dissimilar from what Lenox is going to be going through. But he realized — as Goodwin has, it’s like a theme — that he has life ahead of him that he almost didn’t have. And so the rest of Season 10, he was really just grateful, I think is the word. And he lost Hannah, maybe just for now. But he learned a hard lesson with Hannah, which is he was being a pretty bad boyfriend. And I think he really had to look in the mirror and confront that and realize, Okay, I’ve made some mistakes. I have time that I didn’t necessarily think I was going to happen at one point, and I’m going to make some changes in my life, which a lot of our characters are doing.

And one of those changes might be a new relationship because at the end of the season…

That’s possible, but also there might be a wrench thrown in all that. So we’ll see what happens.

Chicago Med, Season 11, Fall 2025, Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC