Natalie suggests calling Child Protective Services so often that some viewers might make a drinking game out of it.

There was no need to involve CPS with her strange patient on Chicago Med Season 5 Episode 15, and it was a good thing Charles vetoed that.

That was far from the only insensitive and annoying thing Natalie did, but sheesh.

It certainly was a strange case.

Charles: He wouldn't break character for me either.
Nat: Break character? This isn't a play.
Charles: I've been doing this for 30 years, and this is a new one for me.

• Permalink: I've been doing this for 30 years, and this is a new one for me.

Derek refused to admit he was playing a role or take any active interest in his own care. He wouldn't tell her his real medical history or what poison he took and seemed willing to die rather than give up the role he was playing.

Soi t's understandable that Natalie was a little frustrated.

But calling him "nuts" and arguing with Dr. Charles every time he tried to resolve the situation was going too far.

Not to mention that she was ready to try to have Harper removed from her mother's care for no reason at all.

At best, Natalie was incredibly insensitive to a patient who probably had serious mental health issues.  

To her credit, she realized this was a situation that required Charles' help.

But she wanted to do everything her way rather than working with the patient's weird behavior to try to resolve the situation, and it was annoying.

I didn't understand why she couldn't order a tox screen to find out what poison Derek had ingested. It turned out it was cyanide, which is a common enough poison that she should have been able to recognize the symptoms without browbeating her patient.

Anyway, it all worked out, mostly because Charles understood how to get into the patient's world and refused to back down when Natalie consistently demanded he stop.

Way to rely on the expert you're consulting with, Natalie!

Choi: He was brought to this trauma center because his wounds were severe. But we can't treat him if you don't tell us what happened.
Garvey: He's been on death row for 10 years. Killed a family of five during a home invasion. He was supposed to be executed today but it didn't work.
Choi: You mean you gave this man a lethal injection?
Garvey: Yeah, except it wasn't.

• Permalink: Yeah, except it wasn't.

Meanwhile, Choi and Marcel's dilemma seemed to have helped the two bond.

The writing is on the wall with this: April's secret kiss with Marcel is going to come out soon.

As soap opera fans know, it's a trope for someone to become best friends with the person who did something with his partner behind his back.

It adds to the drama when the truth comes out.

And Ethan already tried to push April to have drinks with him and Marcel, only to back off when she didn't want to, so that's a clear sign we're headed that way.

Anyway, their ethical dilemma was more interesting than this love triangle stuff.

Walter was tormented by the botched execution, but Chicago Med wisely steered away from that being the main issue.

Stories about the inhumanity of the death penalty are so common that many viewers are desensitized to them, and hot button topics like this can alienate fans who are on the other side of the issue.

Walter: Just let me die.
Marcel: We can't do that.
Walter: I could feel it, my body on fire. I know I deserve to die, but not like that.

• Permalink: I could feel it, my body on fire. I know I deserve to die, but not like that.

Instead, Marcel and Choi were left with the question of whether there was a point to saving someone who was due to be sent back to jail to be executed.

The guards' reaction after all was said and done underscored that question, too. They were angry that the patient died in the hospital because it meant they couldn't bring him back to Indiana and kill him themselves.

That seemed silly, yet realistic. There have been real-life stories in which prison guards stopped death row inmates from committing suicide so that they could execute them, after all.

It was obvious that Marcel created that bleed on purpose. 

Choi was uncomfortable with it, so it was surprising that he went along with this. But maybe when he saw the way the guards reacted, he realized too much was at stake to stand on principle.

I'm curious as to whether he'll tell April anything about what happened and how she will react if he does.

April and Noah had a strange case of their own, too.

They tried in a number of innovative ways to speed up Larry's heart before he collapsed and they inserted a wire and restarted his heart. It made all the stuff they did before seem pointless -- they could have just let him collapse and do the same lifesaving techniques they ended up doing.

They probably wanted to avoid a collapse, but the guy's anxiety was getting in their way, so his passing out worked in their favor.

And April got to encourage Noah, too. She's often critical of him, so this was a nice change.

Finally, Will wins the award for Biggest Idiot.

He hasn't handled this whole situation with Dr. Asher well at all, and this particular misadventure was as predictable as it was tragic.

Somewhere along the way, Will seems to have forgotten that he got involved with the safe injection site to save lives after his other patient died of opioid abuse.

Instead, he has become single-mindedly focused on saving Hannah Asher and he is going about it all wrong.

He becomes judgmental around her, accuses her constantly of lying, and now called the cops about her narcotics use.

All that after sleeping with her based on her promise to stop using and turn herself in to Sharon.

None of this is going to help her, and it certainly didn't help her patient.

Will could have shared his suspicions that Asher was getting high with Sharon without compromising the safe injection site. Instead, he kept quiet and put more lives at risk and for what?

Asher relapsed and he ended up calling hospital security on her anyway.

Could he have screwed this up any worse than he did?

What did you think, Chicago Med fanatics?

Hit SHOW COMMENTS and let us know.

Want to see the episode again? You can watch Chicago Med online right here on TV Fanatic.

Chicago Med continues to air on NBC on Wednesdays at 8 PM EST/PST.

Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on X.