The ice storm wasn't the only source of cold.

The slick roads and dangerous conditions threw the hospital back into the supply crisis it had dealt with before Dayton's arrival, but there was an efficiency expert on hand this time.

On Chicago Med Season 8 Episode 13, Grace tried to make decisions devoid of human emotion, only to succumb to her empathy for a little boy. But her new attitude didn't last long, leaving me to wonder what kind of doctor she was.

Storm-related crises have become standard on medical dramas. Typically, doctors are stuck in a storm or have to treat people in the middle of harsh conditions.

We had some of those tired old tropes (yes, I'm looking at you, Hannah!), but they were kept to a minimum. For the most part, the storm caused problems within the hospital, and we even had room for Archer to have a non-storm-related conflict with his newly freed son.

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Will's conflict with Grace demonstrated the limitations of machine-assisted decision-making. Will was right to be disgusted by Grace using an algorithm to decide who would most likely benefit from a limited blood supply.

She claims to be a doctor specializing in efficiency, but she sounded more like an insurance agent.

Insurance companies often do a cold, hard risk-benefit analysis to decide whether procedures should be covered; that's one of the issues with an insurance-based rather than a single-payer health care system.

A computer algorithm can only do so much to predict the chances of survival. Factors such as the doctor's skill level and determination, the patient's general attitude and demeanor, and whether they've survived similar challenging situations also play a part.

And reducing medical decision-making to percentages of survival seemed so cold and callous.

Grace: I ran an algorithmic simulation and this patient's odds of survival are only 7%.
Will: So what do you suggest we do?
Grace: Nothing. I say we send her to ICU and keep her comfortable. During a storm like this, we have to prioritize patients who have the best chances of survival.
Will: That little boy lost both his parents in a car accident. His aunt is all he has left.
Grace: I feel you. But that isn't actually relevant.

• Permalink: I feel you. But that isn't actually relevant.

I was relieved when Grace realized that Will had a point and annoyed when she decided the random angry surgeon (have we ever seen him before?) was right to be pissed that they "wasted" blood on one patient that he could have used on several.

That's the thing about allowing yourself to feel human emotions: they lead to messy situations, and you might anger other people by making decisions they disagree with.

It's not like this is the first time there's ever been a supply crisis. Chicago Med was dealing with one for MONTHS before Dayton came along. Sharon was always settling arguments over contrast dye and other medical supplies.

And since the storm didn't make it impossible to drive, Sean could have made himself even more useful and gone to get blood from a different hospital if Dr. Snobby needed more than was available. No need to blame Will or Grace for a situation that no one could control.

Doctors are supposed to do their best to fight for every patient's health, not decide that some patients are less worth saving because a computer says their chances are poor. Nor is "saving the most people by prioritizing those with better chances of a positive outcome" the proper standard.

Will had a patient in front of him who it was possible to save. That's what he was supposed to try to do. Period. Grace and that other idiot can miss him with their self-righteous speeches about how it would have been better to let her die or that saving her was a waste of blood.

Conversely, the OR 2.0 technology might have averted disaster for Felix.

We'll never know whether the tech was too cautious in its estimation that Marcel couldn't safely operate. Marcel often uses his experience as a trauma and transplant surgeon to override its opinions, but Dayton had a point about Marcel underestimating his fatigue level.

He'd been going on fumes for a while; Maggie even suggested coffee wouldn't be enough, and she was busy underestimating her own fatigue!

Charles' insistence that she get some rest didn't sound much different than what OR 2.0 had to say, except that Charles was a human being rather than a robotic voice.

Marcel probably would have argued with a human supervisor who insisted he was too tired to operate safely. The only difference was that he didn't have a choice here because OR 2.0 wouldn't assist until another surgeon was assigned to the task.

Of course, that brings up an interesting question: what would have happened if Marcel had assigned a different surgeon and then continued operating himself while having that person interact with 2.0 to get needed images and so forth?

Fortunately, we didn't have to find out. But that's a possible loophole someone could exploit in a future story.

The low point of the hour was the stabbing story -- not the subplot about Marcel vs. OR 2.0, but the "mystery" of who stabbed Felix.

Maggie felt guilty, yet she quickly let that woman into the hospital. I couldn't have been the only one who thought she was ignoring Sharon's directions to pay extra attention to her surroundings!

I thought Maggie would either get attacked on the spot or prop open a door while she tended to the lady so that an unwelcome guest would sneak into the hospital.

Did we need this story at all? I don't think so. Charles' discussion about the stabber being mentally ill and not likely to get good care in prison was full of important points, but this wasn't a fleshed-out enough story for that to have an impact.

Instead, Maggie rescued a woman who tried to stab a resident, got subdued, and was carted away while Charles lamented the lack of mental health treatment in prison wards.

We already had a seemingly gratuitous car explosion.

I wasn't sure why Asher was riding around with a military officer during an ice storm, to begin with. If she had to do that, could the trouble she got into at least have been related to the storm?

She got stranded with two seriously injured people and had to Macgyver a lung patch, none of which would have happened without that explosion. This was full of all my least favorite tropes, but at least Sean came to the rescue.

With all the noise Archer made about Sean's friend being high, I half expected Sean or his friend to have something to do with Felix's stabbing. Thank goodness I was wrong.

Sean doing a good deed helped his father see him in a different light. I can get behind that, even if it did require an annoying story to get them there.

What did you think, Chicago Med fanatics? Hit the big, blue SHOW COMMENTS button and let us know! And don't forget you can watch Chicago Med online here on TV Fanatic.

Chicago Med 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.