Season 11 of Chicago Med has had its ups and downs, but Episode 9 gets back to what makes the NBC show great. It has several genuine emotional moments that get the audience to care not only about the main characters, but about their patients. The only thing that keeps it from being amazing is that it stops some of those moments short.

First and foremost, it’s time to subtitle this the Hannah Asher and Dean Archer show. For the second week in a row, Hannah and Dean have the best part of the episode—and both Jessy Schram and Steven Weber are fantastic. No one who’s watched this series expected that Hannah and Dean meeting her father would go well; family material is almost always difficult on Chicago Med. But both Dean and Hannah get chances to assert themselves with Mark, and both those moments land. Hannah has her confidence back, and Dean does what everyone hopes a best friend and future co-parent would do. Although when Mark leaves by telling his daughter that Dean is “head over heels in love with you,” the shippers will obviously be cheering.

At this point, it’s hard to argue with them. It would be interesting to see Chicago Med depict a co-parenting relationship just because it is so atypical, but these two characters have the most genuine dynamic on the entire show at this point. The pregnancy twist felt forced at the time, but that’s necessitated an even further look into how these characters work together, and that’s taken a pairing that worked and made it even more honest. So many romantic relationships on TV feel forced (and more on that later), but if this were to happen now—and seriously happen, not just have them hook up again for dramatic effect—it would feel like a natural progression of their arc.

Read the rest of this review at Fangirlish.

Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Photo Credit: Courtesy of NBC.

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