‘Chicago Med’: How Did Will Return to the ED in the Season 7 Premiere? (RECAP)

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Chicago Med Season 7 premiere “You Can’t Always Trust What You See.”]

Surprise — Chicago Med actually officially says goodbye to one of the original cast members we thought left at the end of last spring’s finale in the opening scene of the Season 7 premiere. The episode also reveals just how Will (Nick Gehlfuss) will be rejoining the hospital staff, and he’s not entirely comfortable with it.

First, Will helps Natalie (Torrey DeVitto) pack up her car and sees her and her son off as they move away. It seems he takes her advice that he needs to return to the hospital because he calls Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson).

Lucky for him, this comes as she’s questioning another doctor’s (Michael Rady‘s Cooper) usage of a cardiac output monitor. It’s a pricy machine, and other monitors are just as good, Will tells Sharon. She worries they’re looking at fraud and a nonessential invasive procedure that puts people at risk if Cooper is using it unnecessarily, billing Medicare, and getting kickbacks from the monitor’s company. Since Will knows Cooper after dating his cousin in the past, Sharon wants him to get her something solid (like an admission of wrong-doing), preferably on tape, since she’ll need something to bring before the board. (Cooper’s father-in-law is on it.) Will is hesitant, but Sharon makes it clear that he must do this if he wants his job back.

So Will does take the first steps in reconnecting with Cooper, engaging in small talk and suggesting they get a drink to catch up. And the other doctor finds Will as one of his patients is in surgery and suggests the monitor as a possible treatment. But in the end, Will goes to Sharon and tells her he can’t do this for her and if his staying is dependent on it, he’d rather work somewhere else. However, she then shows him the patient file of a 23-year-old man who lost his leg after developing an infection after receiving the monitor. If it was an unnecessary procedure, it’s a tragedy that never should have happened. It seems Will is on board after hearing that.

George Burns Jr/NBC

Also in the premiere:

• While Ethan (Brian Tee) is in rehab after being shot by a patient, Dean Archer (Steven Weber) is filling in as interim chief of the ED and still ruffling feathers. Right off the bat, he suggests Dr. Charles (Oliver Platt) might feel guilty since he didn’t put the patient on a psych hold. Charles counters with the fact that Dean’s the one who took out his appendix against his will and the patient was aiming at him. Charles – 1, Dean – 0.
• Will has a history with one of the new doctors, Stevie Hammer (Kristen Hager) — they went to med school together, and she never let him forget she was first in their class — and yes, we fully expect these two to hook up with Natalie gone.
• Maggie’s (Marlyne Barrett) trying to respect her daughter Vanessa’s (Asjha Cooper) wishes and keep her distance at work, but after the latter must call a time of death, she can’t help but offer a bit of comfort and support.

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• Dean and Charles treat twins who insist on being identical in every way (“We’re one person,” they say), to the point that if one needs to have her ovary removed for medical reasons, the other insists on the same procedure being done on her. The doctors refuse, and the twins seem to agree … until Charles realizes just in time that they’ve switched places and stops Dean from operating on the wrong twin.
• Both Stevie and fellow new doctor Dylan Scott (Guy Lockard) use their past experiences to help with patients. Stevie recognizes the signs a woman has been sleeping in her car because her mother’s homeless (and ran out of her pills, we learn). Meanwhile, Dylan uses his time as a cop to recognize that a 10-year-old kid was bitten by a snake as part of a gang initiation (based on the colors of his shoelaces).

Chicago Med, Wednesdays, 8/7c, NBC