SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Chicago Med Season 11, Episode 16.

Allen MacDonald floored Chicago Med viewers with “The Book of Charles,” which pushed fan-favorite Dr. Daniel Charles to breaking point. The episode followed Oliver Platt’s character through a harrowing day in which he was under constant pressure—until he suffered a stroke. Now NBC viewers are on pins and needles, waiting to find out if Charles survives.

In part two of our conversation, Allen spoke to TVBrittanyF.com about which of the several emotional scenes in “The Book of Charles” was the most difficult to film. He also talked about the choices he made in writing the episode, and how much the Chicago Med cast brings to the show. Read part one of our interview to learn even more about the making of this episode.

Brittany Frederick: There are a lot of big moments in “The Book of Charles,” but the hardest to watch by a mile is the fight between Charles and Sharon Goodwin. Was it also a difficult scene for you to write?

Allen MacDonald: It might not have been the hardest scene to write; it was the hardest scene to shoot. I would say it was more dramatic to shoot that than it was to shoot [Charles] on the suicide hotline with Gio, because these are two friends. These characters are two friends that have this beautiful friendship with each other, and it very rarely goes to a dark place. And it was one of the final straws to break the camel’s back, basically.

The question was, what happens if Charles is off his game, if Charles’s emotions just kind of explode to the surface? And what do a lot of people do in that situation? They attack the ones that they love the most, the ones they feel safest with, and that’s what happens here.

I said it was the hardest to shoot, because I can tell you that it was very emotional for Oliver and Epatha [Merkerson] to shoot that scene. They know it’s not real. They know these are fictional characters. But they’ve done tons of scenes together and never gone at each other this way. Even though it’s not real, they were both shaken up by it—moreso Epatha because, as Oliver would tell you, [Charles] is the aggressor in that scene, and he feels aggrieved and justified in his actions. Goodwin, who’s on the receiving end of this, is taken aback. She’s shocked. She’s horrified.

Epatha, between scenes when they were adjusting the lighting and stuff on the set, you can walk out of Goodwin’s office and go into a hallway there. And I briefly spoke to her out there, and her eyes were damp. She had tears in her eyes. She said to me, this is a little upsetting—and I think it was.

Now from a writing standpoint, I’ve been watching the last two seasons as a writer on the show, and having seen the seasons before it, Goodwin and Charles have had so many scenes together where they are just so supportive of each other and so encouraging of each other, and there’s this love between them. It’s not a romantic love, but it is love. And as a writer, I basically just wanted to fuck that up. I wanted to have an episode where they went at each other, or in this case, he went at her.

Was it an intentional choice for that to be the last argument Charles has before his stroke? Because the others, like the one he has with Sage, may be more vehement but this one hurts the most.

It was very much intentional, and that was exactly the idea. [It’s] the person in his workplace that is closest to him, and it was also purposeful that his daughter and Goodwin both get lashed out at and experience these terrible fights.

On a happier note, “The Book of Charles” is a phenomenal showcase for Oliver Platt, and fans see how Chicago Med really needs him. How is it just to collaborate with the actors to create big episodes like this?

The two characters that that I created when I got here were Lenox and Frost… I created the characters and Sarah [Ramos] and Darren [Barnet] started to play them, and when Sarah and Darren started to play them, that cross-pollinates everything, because they bring their unique energy to it. And then suddenly the character starts to change.

It’s still the big picture character that I envision, but the details of it and the depth of it comes from the actor. And then now I’m reacting and the rest of the writing staff is reacting to the way that they’re playing the character. And so you can create a character, but then the character kind of becomes its own thing… All the writers on the staff write those characters, but nobody knows them better than the actors.

That also includes the guest cast, too, such as Mark Linn-Baker playing Charles’ old friend Howie.

I get no end of enjoyment out of having actors on the show like Mark—who ironically, I’ve not met. I go to Chicago a lot, but I’ve never been in Chicago when he was. But he has been phenomenal on the show. I loved him on Perfect Strangers, but aside from Chicago Med, my favorite thing he ever has done is he did a scene in an episode of The Leftovers on HBO, and he played himself, and it was just genius.

I should also point out that the actress who plays Sage, Narci Regina, she had a prominent part on the last show that I was a showrunner on, called Harlan Coben’s Shelter on Amazon. And she’s just phenomenal. I’ve been trying to get her on the show the last two seasons, and this was the right role.

Obviously everyone will be worried about Dr. Charles, but is there anything else about this episode that you want fans to know? Or anything you can say about what’s coming for other characters?

These two episodes are focusing on Dr. Charles, but I’m thankful for this entire cast and the on-screen family that they create together. One of the couple of north stars for me coming on to the show was to make the cast feel like more of a family. And also to ensure that in every episode, people both laughed and cried multiple times—and if they laughed and cried at the same time, then that would be the sweet spot. I feel like this cast is very special. It’s my favorite Chicago Med cast.

I would also say that going into Season 12, which we now know is a certainty. I will be probably doing not one but two “Book of” episodes next season… We will be delving into some of the other characters, the same way we have Archer and Charles.

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

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.