Showrunners Andy Schneider and Diane Frolov break down Wednesday's makeshift finale and look ahead to season six.
Warning: Do not proceed if you have not watched Wednesday's season finale of Chicago Med. You are entering spoiler territory.
With Chicago Med shutting down earlier than expected due to coronavirus, original plans for the remaining episodes of the season were scrapped. But Wednesday's episode, which served as the de facto season five finale, ended up leaving enough questions for the upcoming season to answer.
The episode, titled "A Needle in the Heart," shed light in a surprising way on Crockett's (Dominic Rains) past that added an intriguing layer to his already complicated persona: Years ago, he lost a baby, Harper, to leukemia -- a secret he requested Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) keep, out of fear he'll be treated differently. Then, there was Ethan's (Brian Tee) terrifying hostage situation, which only compounded the issues he and April (Yaya DaCosta) have been facing, even before she came clean about her kiss with Crockett. And there was the concerning reality that Hannah's (Jessy Schram) recovery from addiction may not be going as smoothly as Will (Nick Gehlfuss) may have hoped.
With the season cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, ET sent off our biggest finale questions to showrunners Diane Frolov and Andy Schneider over email to get answers on where Chicago Med goes from here, what their original plans were with the season's unproduced episodes and if a certain someone could be returning in the near future.
ET: With production on Chicago Med wrapped earlier than expected, how much did you have to tweak to ensure that Wednesday’s episode felt like a natural finale?
Diane Frolov and Andy Schneider: The episode finished shooting the day production stopped, so there was no tweaking. Still, it's a very powerful and surprising episode, so we feel it satisfies as a season ender.
What were the early plans for the remaining episodes you weren’t able to produce?
The scripts for the remaining episodes had all been written, and aside from our usual medical mysteries and ethical dilemmas, we continue to progress and pay off all the major personal relationships we'd developed this season.
Could those storylines be incorporated into the next season? What are you looking to move forward with and what are you potentially tweaking as a result of this long hiatus?
As much as possible, we'd like to incorporate these storylines. We'd want to move forward with the personal stories as well as explore how life in the hospital and ER will be when we come out on the other side of the current situation. It will certainly be a new world.
Looking to the episode, it was an illuminating hour that dropped important morsels of information for the characters that we previously didn’t know, such as Crockett’s tragic past. What were you trying to accomplish with this episode?
We wanted to reveal more about Crockett and platform a new relationship between him and Natalie. We also wanted to keep developing Charles' relationship with his daughter, Anna, and Ethan's relationship with April.
A cold case from seven years ago comes back to haunt Crockett when he’s a prime suspect in a murder, but more importantly, through the process it’s revealed he lost a baby, Harper, to leukemia. Why introduce this piece of information now?
We always wanted Crockett to have a tragedy in his past. We'd been holding off all season on revealing Crockett's past, but we thought it was time to give the audience more insight into his character.
Crockett asks Natalie to keep this a secret. Why doesn’t he want it to come out? What is he afraid of if it does?
He doesn't want others to view him through the lens of his tragedy. He doesn't want it to be the thing that defines him.
Ethan found himself at the center of an intense hostage standoff. How has that experience changed his perspective on his life and his strained relationship with April? Is there still hope for Ethan and April to rekindle their relationship?
The danger that he experienced made him realize how deeply he still cares for April. So, yes, there is still hope for their relationship.
There seemed to be doubts about Hannah’s sobriety, but in the end, Will chose to give Hannah the benefit of the doubt. Should he be more suspicious about Hannah’s road to recovery and are they headed for disaster?
Hannah's addiction will always be a source of worry for Will. As much as he wants to trust her, he'll continue to struggle with doubt.
Since the show will be sticking around for three more seasons, have you toyed with the idea of bringing back familiar faces, like Connor (Colin Donnell), during that time?
Yes!
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