Chicago Med Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Malignant
Elizabeth Harlow
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Crossover events should happen more often.
At the very least, the show runners could throw us a bone and incorporate the continuity that we saw on Chicago Med Season 1 Episode 5 more regularly.
I'm sure you all already checked out the review of Chicago Fire Season 4 Episode 10 – if you haven't yet, stop and read it already! One of the things that I enjoyed about this crossover event (even if it made it slightly less crossover-y) was that each show still had it's own storyline.
Going into it, I was really expecting for certain events to be dragged out until the end of PD, and quite frankly, wasn't sure how Med was going to be incorporated beyond Hermann's treatment. I was (pleasantly) surprised when the writers instead gave us an organic progression of events.
This is how I had always hoped the franchise would work, albeit with the guest appearances of amped up as if on steroids. I want the docs on Med to make mention of patients brought in from Fire and PD. With the way characters are related and date across the shows, having everybody on the same time frame is important.
There was only one storyline that felt off in that regard. I'm going to go ahead and blame Melissa George for that, whose real life pregnancy (mazel tov!) bumped up the premiere of Med by a few months.
Kelly Severide: At least he's got a big sister to turn to when he needs someone to show him how it's done.
April Sexton: Yeah, he does.
Kelly Severide: Someone responsible. Conscientious.
April Sexton: Learned it from the Girl Scouts.
If you follow Chicago Fire, you'll know that the arson story arc from the fall had him dating a cold hearted lawyer. So I'm sure you were just as surprised as I was by that impromptu make-out session with April in the the elevator. We haven't seen those two interact at all since Med's backdoor pilot last spring.
I can only assume that there will be some kind of retcon in upcoming episodes of both Med and Fire. still, Kelly could use somebody like April in his life. She's not crazy or a bitch, which makes me wonder at his attraction to her, but maybe it's a sign of growth on his part.
I'm excited for the relationship mostly because it may actually manage to make April interesting. I've found her to be a little lackluster so far, but have been trying to give her time to grow. She and Maggie have both mainly appeared as supporting characters to Natalie.
They're really going to let Noah become a doctor? Does he know an ass from an elbow yet? 'Cause I swear I saw him flailing around back there.
Kelly Severide
But with her relationship with Severide and the appearance of her little brother on the scene, April may be able to find new depths. I found it really interesting that in the midst of a conversation about how traditional her family was about gender roles, she was also strong enough to tell Kelly to back off and let her handle things.
Noah's introduction was awkwardly timed with so much else happening in "Malignant," and his male entitlement/whiny millennial attitude is not going to make him easy to like. I'm not rooting for him to crash and burn (yet) but I am looking forward to April giving him a set down and Sarah telling him off more.
If nothing else, he's going to be a great catalyst for growth in other characters. And at least he's not uber creepy like lab tech Joey.
Sharon Goodwin: Have you been binging on "Mannix" again?
Dr. Charles David: You don't like it, stop sending me box sets for Christmas.
Sharon Goodwin: All right. Okay. Next year, it'll be "Sanford and Sons."
At least we can always depend on Dr. Charles to fill the role of non-terrible man on this show. His involvement with the cancer case was a little tenuous, but I'd already suspended quite a lot of belief when it came to three non-cancer patients coming in with chemo overdoses on the same day to the same hospital.
Still, he does a great job of pulling together the big picture for the audience and for the rest of the docs. And his relationship with S. Epatha Merkerson's Sharon Goodwin is a highlight of Med.
Especially since not everyone on staff is getting along so well.
Kelly Severide: You sure about this?
Dr. Connor Rhodes: Back off!
Will once again showed his true feelings about Connor – and after Connor gave him that tie! Guess that bromance is off.
Not only were his comments to Jay ill advised from the standpoint of dissing a colleague, they were just plain petty. Would Will (a former plastic surgeon) be the person to ask anyway? And would he have really taken Hermann to angio or was it that he will always find a way to disagree with Connor?
Connor didn't react very professionally to the betrayal of course, and their bickering over poor patient Dani didn't do her any favors. From a writing standpoint, she was always doomed, but I would hope that two doctors could behave better than that in a real situation.
Dani's death proved to be the final puzzle piece for Charles and Sharon though. With the revelation that someone is misdiagnosing women with cancer and poisoning the with chemo, it's time to hand the case off. Chicago PD Season 3 Episode 10 will air January 6th at 10 pm.
Watch Chicago Med online with us if you missed the live broadcast – of course, you'll need to check out Chicago Fire and Chicago PD to get the full story this time!
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the Med aspects of the cross over, so join us in the comments section to break down everything that happened!
Elizabeth Harlow was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She left the organization in October 2018.
