Twas the holiday in the air at Chicago Med, and all the doctors and nurses were doing their best to bring in the holiday cheer. Okay, I'm not Charles Dicksens, but give me a little credit for coming up with that passage for this week's episode of Chicago Med.
With Christmas just around the corner, the doctors and nurses at Chicago Med face challenges that will define their professional and personal values. Let's start with Dr. Charles as he gets news about Kellogg, the man who shot him, was found dead in prison. The new Goodwin thinks that Charles should take a couple of days off to clear the air but instead takes on a patient who comes in pretty loony. But when Dr. Choi learns that the patient killed a priest, it doesn't settle with Charles as the patient freaks out and shocks him with the electric pedals. Of course, Charles tries to treat the patient the way he wanted to try with Kellogg, but after a check-up from Reese, who feels very bad about Kellogg's death, Charles takes Goodwin's offer to take a break.
April and Noah butted heads while taking care of a patient that has a sister who's a bit bossy. April tries to help Noah with the orders, but Noah sees she doesn't think he knows it. Seeing that the patient has the same symptoms as other patients in Chicago, it turned out with the help from Robyn that the Christmas tree that the patient got inflected with back bacteria from lousy soil. Weird, right? But in the end, April and Noah do forgive one another and have a nice moment looking at the brother and sister that they helped.
Manning and Halstead were faced with the challenge when it came to informing a health risk and Manning treating a pregnant woman for a check-up and coming to find out that it was Braxton hicks contractions. Meanwhile, Halstead meets with the pregnant woman's husband, who looks pale as a zombie and gets a workup with the results showing that he has the Zika virus. The husband admitted to Halstead about being away with another woman and demanded not to tell his wife about it because the husband is a lawyer. Halstead tells Manning about it, and Manning tries to talk to the wife as they leave, but Halstead comes in with the last-second save as he calls the CDC to handle it.
Meanwhile, while it's Robyn's first day back, she works with April and Noah on the outbreak case. She seemed to hear noises in her office, thinking that her mental state wasn't well again. But after running a test with Reese, it showed nothing wrong. It turned out to be nothing, and I learned that the noises from her office were the air events getting fixed.
While Robyn was working and worrying, Rhodes took on a patient who fell off the ladder and had his organs move in places where fecal matter was in the patient's lungs. But he and Bekker team up to fix the patient, and as one of the nurses says, they like Jordan and Pippen. I second that with their perfect chemistry, even though there still seems to be some bad blood there.
Not to mention, Goodwin faced the challenges of the hospital's broken system once again when Santa, who was waiting in the waiting room, died, and his family got a $1600 bill. Goodwin takes it with the Troll and feels they should pay for it. Goodwin took it to the board and got the bill taken off. But the Board didn't like the way Goodwin did that and might be thinking of removing her from her job.
"Naughty or Nice" was an exciting, intense (at times) and joyful hour of television. There was excellent character growth and a perfect continued storyline of Charles and even Reese with the Kellogg story. I thought that this was Dr. Charles's best episode. Even though I love the #Manstead story, I like the chemistry between Rhodes and Bekker. I can't wait to see where these two, along with Robyn, will go. The writing was so good, and the performance from Platt was excellent. Overall, I give this episode an 8.5/10.
You can catch Chicago Med when it returns Tuesday, Jan. 2nd at 10/9c on NBC.
