Chicago Med is finally back, and it didn't waste any time before jumping into some heavy issues.

Chicago Med Season 7 Episode 10 asked hard questions about truth, lies, and right and wrong.

There was a lot to unpack, and it was amazing.

Marcel's situation was probably the most straightforward of everybody's.

Blake thought that it didn't matter whether Luke was comfortable with the procedures or not because they were saving his father's life, and he needed his father as a caregiver.

But no matter what anyone thought of her ethics (and how she got the board to agree with this is a huge mystery!), the fact was that Luke couldn't tolerate getting his blood drawn and probably wouldn't be able to do the rest of the procedure either.

Using him as a donor wasn't an option. Period.

Blake's response to Marcel's concerns showed a ton of ignorance and ableism, though.

She dismissed Luke's agitation as "anxiety" that he could manage. But Luke wasn't just having an anxiety attack. His behavior was related to his Autism, and he might not have fully understood what was going on nor been able to control himself.

And even though the board validated Blake's initial belief that Luke had the mental capacity to consent to the procedure, his behavior demonstrated that he didn't.

Blake's desire to sedate him so that they could get the procedure underway was cringeworthy. In addition to the question of whether he truly understood what he was consenting to, Luke withdrew his consent. He screamed that he didn't want a shot and tried to run out of the room.

Sedating a patient who no longer consented to a procedure to get it done anyway has to break a million rules, and the hospital doesn't need any more problems.

Okay. So we're on safe ground legally. What about morally?

Marcel

• Permalink: Okay. So we're on safe ground legally. What about morally?

Besides, how is that any different than Archer's former habit of rendering patients unconscious so that the hospital could claim power of attorney and perform procedures without their consent?

Speaking of Archer, he was surprisingly supportive of Marcel this time around.

I didn't blame Marcel for assuming Archer was being sarcastic about the decision to use Luke in the first place. Archer tends to be bitter and nasty toward those he dislikes and can't control.

Of course, Archer also told a lie to get his brain-dead patients' organs, in part because that would give Marcel's patient the kidney he needed.

That seemed like a less bad lie than the other lies Archer has told. Usually, Archer does this sort of thing to get around patients' objections to what he thinks he should do for them. But this time, there was some compassion mixed in, too.

Keith's family didn't need to know that Keith's last words were a confession that he killed a man and believed dying was his karma for it. They were already upset enough that he had died in surgery before they could get there, and that particular truth would have done no one any good.

It's not ethical to turn someone into an organ donor who didn't consent to it -- Archer should have left that up to the family -- but at least he was coming from a better place than he usually does with this one!

Meanwhile, Will and Stevie's case brought up some interesting questions.

Stevie seems to be where Will was three or four years ago: believing she knows better than patients and can impose her morals on them. She also seems to think she has a right to know everything WIll is up to, too, and generally comes across as sanctimonious and annoying.

Still, though, her case brought up a true ethical dilemma and threw in some issues related to cultural differences on top of it.

There were no easy answers to this one.

Stevie and Will had a point about Alzheimer's being a progressive disease. In addition, if clinical trials or new interventions become available, it would be difficult to give them to this patient if he doesn't even know what his diagnosis is!

Plus, that put Fabian in an awkward position where she was marrying a man while keeping a secret from him about his health.

Yet Immanuel and Fabian also had a point about what it would do to his mental state to know he had a terminal disease when he'd finally gotten everything he wanted in life. And it wasn't like there was a treatment available right now that the family couldn't avail themselves of because of Immanuel's decision.

Stevie saw the whole thing as Immanuel taking control and making decisions for other people. Yet Stevie is the one who is guilty of that sort of thing.

She decided her nomadic mother needed to live in a house. She decided that Will needed to tell her about the VAS-COM. She was ready to decide that this patient needed to tell his father the truth about his diagnosis.

And she didn't understand how anyone could see the situation differently than she did, either.

Her rigidity and lack of self-awareness make her incredibly irritating. I hope she and Will aren't headed for a hook-up. He deserves so much better than her!

Elsewhere, Vanessa made the right call about a girl who seemed to have been abandoned by her mother, but was her decision influenced by her own experience with drugs?

Undoubtedly that played a role, but they didn't mention it.

The most interesting storyline, of course, wasn't medical at all -- it was the political fallout for Sharon from having reported Cooper and Jessa to the FBI.

Sharon wasn't sure she'd done the right thing, but I was with Dr. Charles: she absolutely had.

Cooper's actions cost people their lives, and his guilt almost led him to lose his own, too, thanks to that drug overdose.

And now his father-in-law wants to cover it up and is busy throwing his weight around and causing trouble because he doesn't like that his son-in-law got in trouble.

Well-connected people get away with too much in real life. I'm glad that at least on Chicago Med, they don't.

It promises to be an explosive arc for Sharon, too, and I wonder if she and Daniel may go beyond friendship as a result of him supporting her through it.

Your turn, Chicago Med fanatics! Hit that big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know what you thought of the midseason premiere!

Miss the episode? No problem. Just watch Chicago Med online right here on TV Fanatic.

Chicago Med is part of NBC's One Chicago Wednesday. It airs 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.