We’ve finally arrived at the Chicago Fire introduction to Chicago Med, the next potential spin-off from creator Dick Wolf. It’s been a steady introduction of Chicago Med characters, from Halstead’s brother to Severide’s old classmate. Now it’s time to meet the rest of the team: Dr. Hannah Tramble, Dr. Sharon Goodwin, and Dr. Charles.
Will Halstead’s “first and last day” at Chicago Med, as he describes it, becomes a whole lot busier than he originally intended. The Chicago Fire team responds to a gas leak with dozens more patients than they can put into one ambulance, so the department transports as many of the injured as they can in their trucks to the hospital. While the ER is trying to juggle the incoming victims and an already full ER of flu patients, a man stands up and announces he is incubating a virus worse than ebola. Spouting the episode’s name before blowing up the ER, the fire department realizes they have enforce a lockdown or potentially risk contamination of the entire city. Since Severide was the one to literally jump into the path of the grenade, he gets the some of the worst of the damage. It is Mills who is the one to step up and save Severide when he needs him.
On the outside, Boden is doing his best to try to contain the few people who ran out of the ER, and he gets some assistance from the head of psychiatry, Dr. Charles. Dr. Goodwin, played by the legendary S. Epatha Merkerson in her return to the NBC fold, stands tall with Chief Boden on the outside as she waits for word on her people on the other side of the hospital doors. Jay and Ruzek are also on the outside trying to relay information that they don’t have. They catch a break when the parents of the boy who caused the explosion show up, and they reveal that their son was working on infectious diseases. An infectious disease is one thing, but a biological weapon is a whole other demon.
While Severide is in surgery, the rest of the department trapped inside juggles helping with injured patients and putting out fires with a limited amount of extinguishers. The situation gets worse when Casey realizes that an electrical fire is about to turn the ER into an inferno. So the team on the outside risks contamination to come into the ER to contain the fire, trapping most of the house inside. As if they didn’t have enough to deal with, a contentious patient decides he’s tired of being told what to do and challenges Casey to get out of his way. April ends up being the one to rescue Casey with a sneak attack of a sedative for Mr. Belligerent. Finally, things seem to be settling down, if not for the fact that everyone is still under the threat of being exposed to a biological weapon. Luckily, Diane Clayton, an expert in infectious diseases and hazmat, is able to determine conclusively that the bioweapon didn’t have enough time to incubate in its host body in order to infect anyone else.
The firehouse’s strong rescue squad leader is still not out of the woods though. Brett and Mills assist Tramble on Severide’s surgery as he has dreams of Shay. I think she would be the first person to kick his butt if he even thought of joining her in the afterlife. Of course, Severide pulls through, and we see how the events of the day have affected members of Chicago FD, PD, and Med. Will and Hannah, who started out the day strong and confident, end up sitting on the floor of the hospital quietly taking stock by the end of the ordeal. Something tells me Will may not be as eager to run back to New York as he was that morning. April is there when Severide wakes up, reminding us of Shay as she chastises Severide for scaring her. In perhaps the night’s biggest “I saw that coming a mile away” moment, Dawson and Casey hook up again, though, for now, simply chalk it up to the stress of the day. Yeah, who’s really buying that? Finally, at a celebration at Molly’s, as Boden raises a glass to the doctors of Chicago Med, Dr. Goodwin promises that the hospital and its team will always be there for Chicago’s finest.
So does this backdoor pilot have the makings of the next Dick Wolf masterpiece?
[Photo via NBC]
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