ONE CHICAGO Women: CHICAGO MED “Trust Your Gut” (3×03) & CHICAGO P.D. “Monster” (5×09) recap

Between Sharon facing pressure from the board to keep costs down on CHICAGO MED and then the daughter of a prominent judge overdosing as well as Ruzek continuing to face pressure from Woods on the CHICAGO P.D. fall finale, politics played a big part in the ONE CHICAGO world this week. Hot off the press from the final episode of P.D. for 2017, read on to find out what went down with the ONE CHICAGO women this week…

Pictured: S. Epatha Merkerson as Sharon Goodwin — (Photo by: Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)

Sharon Goodwin

During a board meeting, Goodwin is told that they need to make improvements to their budget or risk the ED closing like other hospitals in the area. She’s not exactly impressed with the idea of compromising patient care for money but is also aware that they could be in a worse off position if they don’t comply. To try and combat the budget issues, Dr Stohl implements guidelines on using supplies, which involves logging them in and keeping detailed charts. Throughout the day Goodwin looks through the charts and can see that doctors such as Halstead are a bit exasperated with Stohl’s methods. Dr Charles makes his feelings about the whole protocol quite clear, complaining that the bottom line shouldn’t be about money, to which Goodwin warns her friend that he shouldn’t be talking at her because his department is the one hemorrhaging money.

Maggie Lockwood

We finally get to see the head nurse outside of the ED – it’s been awhile! Granted at first it’s just outside the building at the coffee cart but it’s a start and we do get to see more of Maggie’s life outside the hospital later. In fact, we were raising our eyebrows when a paramedic started flirting with her – imagine our surprise when we later find out that the pair have a history and he’s actually her ex and cheated on her! The sass and directness of Maggie towards her ex is on point – “this flirting, what is it?”, “I always have been [a catch]. You should have thought of that before you cheated.” Boom!  We get a great scene between Maggie and Goodwin, who witnessed the flirting and questions Maggie whether this is round two. Maggie says there’s too much baggage there to which Goodwin advises that she should make him work for it. Ha! Maggie does show up to Molly’s at the end of the episode though, where her ex buys her a drink – dirty martini, extra olives. Hmm… Also in this episode, we see Maggie once again championing “Manstead” (aren’t we all at this point though?) When Halstead reveals he’s going to shave before his and Nat’s big date that night because Nat asked him to, Maggie makes a comment about the things we do for love. Yep, doc is smitten.

Pictured: (l-r) Nick Gehlfuss as Will Halstead, Torey DeVitto as Natalie Manning — (Photo by: Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)

Dr Natalie Manning

With the babysitter taking care of her son Owen for the night, Manning is looking forward to a night with Halstead. She does request that he shaves though, as she’s not a fan of how scratchy the scruff is. Although it looks like their big date changes to a more intimate night in, with Nat passed out on the couch in the doctor’s lounge at the end of the day. Halstead comes in and joins her and she sleepily remarks that he makes a nice pillow. The pair end slipping on the couch and looking all kinds of adorable, even Maggie and Dr Choi smile at them when they enter the room and spot them. Something tells us that the new lovebirds aren’t too torn up about this as an alternative to their hot date. On the professional side of things, this week Nat is working alongside Dr Choi to treat a woman who is unconscious but nothing is showing up on the scans on her brain, leaving the doctors quite puzzled about her condition. The parents of the young woman arrive and are convinced that their black sheep son has given their golden child daughter drugs or something. When the daughter takes a turn for the worst and is declared brain dead, the parents are distraught and lash out at the son. They then reveal that their daughter would have wanted to be an organ donor and so her liver is taken away to help someone else’s life. Eventually the doctors realize what was wrong – it was a rare case of muscle eating itself and proteins then being released into the blood, and rush to stop the transplant as it may affect the new body. Thankfully they make it in time but this was quite an interesting case this week!

April Sexton

This week we get a bit of Sexton siblings time with April concerned about her brother Noah, who is exhausted from doing a 90-hour week at the hospital when you’re meant to be doing 80, but the newly minted doctor was cohered into “volunteering” to do extra hours. Big sis tells little brother that he needs to take better care of himself, including eating properly and if he doesn’t have time to cook he should look into meal plans – he’s got a real job now and can afford to do so. Somehow April is swayed into arranging them for him as Dr Choi watches on. Her secret beau tells her that she has a soft spot for family and it’s often at her own expense and thinks that she should let Noah fend for himself. In the end though, due to the case he was working on where he connected with the black sheep son, Dr Choi admits that he now sees the difference between a crutch and a helping hand. April teases him that she’s not the only one with a soft spot.

Pictured: (l-r) Oliver Platt as Daniel Charles, Rachel DiPillo as Sarah Reese — (Photo by: Elizabeth Sisson/NBC)

Dr Sarah Reese

Following the drama with the insulin patient last week, Dr Reese is still on edge this week and even jumpy when Maggie taps her on the shoulder to say hi while in line for the coffee cart. The young psychiatry resident reveals that she thinks she saw the patient across the street from her apartment, not to mention she’s still convinced the woman slashed her tires. These patient concerns are probably not helped this week by the latest psych patient. When Dr Halstead is treating a patient who cut himself open because he believes something is living inside of him, Dr Charles and Dr Reese are called in for a consult. Reese has her theories yet just like last week, Dr Charles shoots them down and is convinced that once again there is something more to this story than the schizophrenia that Reese suspects. Before they can dispute this more, they are interrupted by the patient who has managed to tear himself open again and has stuck his hands inside himself and trying to pull out his intestines! Sarah is quite shaken by the experience. Interestingly when Dr Charles and Reese pay a visit to Reese’s ex Joey in the labs, Joey has discovered something that was taken out of the patient – it was either a tumor or a twin in utero! Dr Charles marvels at how the patient knew something was inside of him and also Reese that in their job they can either see the threat or the opportunity, leaving her something to mull over given the experiences she has had lately.

CHICAGO P.D. — “Monster” Episode 509 — Pictured: (l-r) Jon Seda as Antonio Dawson, Marina Squerciati as Kim Burgess — (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

Kim Burgess

Over on P.D. it looks like this week’s episode picks up the following day of last week’s with Ruzek greeting Burgess at work with a coffee as she arrives and asks her how it went with her boyfriend. From the sound of her response, it’s not looking good as to whether the new couple can come back from the dramas of last week. There’s no time to wallow though and Burgess is in fine form this week. To help gather information for their latest case, she poses as Dianna, a tennis club member looking for some fun if you know what we mean. One minute she’s all sweet and flirty and then the next minute she goes all badass and grabs the suspect’s arm to arrest him. Love it! I really appreciate how fierce Burgess has become – she’s definitely come a long way from when we first met her. Badass Burgess doesn’t end there though. Later on when a suspect, who had just shot his cousin, jumps on a bus, Burgess gets on after him but plays it cool in order to protect the civilians on the bus, which happens to include a number of children. Voight boards the bus a few stops later and when the suspect realizes the jig is up, he reaches for his gun in his pocket as Voight approaches him. Burgess, who was sitting behind him, suddenly leans forward and pulls a gun on him before he can make a move – like I said, badass!

Trudy Platt

As I say every week, we need more Platt on the show. At least this week we actually see her and get to see her classic Platt form when she gets a bit snarky with Ruzek as she hands him a file. Ha!

Pictured: (l-r) Tracy Spiridakos as Hailey Upton, Jesse Lee Soffer as Jay Halstead — (Photo by: Matt Dinerstein/NBC)

Hailey Upton

It’s actually Upton who leads Intelligence to their latest case. The episode opens up with Upton playing a new neighbor and soccer mom/spectator in the suburbs. It turns out there is some sort of opioids ring happening in the suburbs and Upton calls on Halstead to back her up as she gets closer to one of the mother leaders. However,  when Upton’s mark ends up overdosing and it’s revealed that she’s actually the daughter of a prominent judge, the case becomes more complex than she initially thought, especially when the cartel is ruled out as being responsible and they discover that a seemingly harmless doctor is involved.

Anna Valdez

Chicago Justice may be no more but it’s nice to see that the characters still exist in the ONE CHICAGO world. For the second time this season, the Assistant State Attorney pops up in P.D. for a scene this week. It could have been longer had her client not have been shot in the head that night.

CHICAGO MED airs Tuesday at 10/9c. While CHICAGO P.D. returns Wednesday January 3 at 10/9c and  CHICAGO FIRE  returns Thursday January 4 at 10/9c. All three shows air on NBC.

RELATED LINKS:

ONE CHICAGO Women: CHICAGO MED “Nothing to Fear” (3×02) & CHICAGO P.D. “Politics” (5×08) recap
CHICAGO MED: Marlyne Barrett talks Season 3, real life connections and more
ONE CHICAGO Women: CHICAGO P.D. “Care Under Fire” (5×07) & CHICAGO MED “Speak Your Truth” (3×01) recap
CHICAGO MED: Season 3 Cast Photos