SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Med Season 11, Episode 3. It also contains discussion of pregnancy loss.

The annual Chicago Med Halloween episode isn’t really much of one at all. There are some spooky elements to “What’s Hiding in the Dark,” but what stands out are some of the flaws that the NBC show already has. It amounts to a pretty unremarkable hour, despite the amusement that comes with seeing Dr. Mitch Ripley dressed up in a Tigger costume.

In fairness to this show, a ton of TV series do holiday episodes, and for the most part, they don’t work. The Halloween element in this one isn’t great either. Chicago Med uses the same nurse who thought Dr. John Frost was on drugs to tell Dr. Dean Archer that a treatment room is haunted. She’s still not funny, and the “ghost haunting someplace” bit is the easiest, most cliche of Halloween concepts. The script has more success when it stretches the theme a little further, in another story of a young child who is literally seeing people as monsters. That sounds over the top, but it becomes very emotional and it provides character development for the beloved Dr. Daniel Charles.

Charles is the foundation of Chicago Med at this point. It’s impossible to imagine the show without Oliver Platt; he is to this series what David Eigenberg is to Chicago Fire. Viewers just always expect them to be around, and they’re always good. “What’s Hiding in the Dark” brings up the idea of Charles’ potential retirement when his friends arrive to celebrate his 65th birthday and present him with custom golf clubs, suggesting that he might want to take a break. When Charles ends the episode in part by literally throwing the golf clubs into his office closet, it’s a cheer-worthy moment. The story of how he helps Lucas not only with his medical condition but to hopefully stay with his foster family is a classic Charles story. The fact that it also involves Ripley—whom Charles helped in the past—is just icing on the cake.

Read the rest of this review at Fangirlish.

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