Chicago Med Review: When Your Heart Rules Your Head (Season 6 Episode 5)
Having only aired a few episodes, Chicago Med Season 6 Episode 5, “When Your Heart Rules Your Head,” introduces several shake-ups to the ER, including developments and departures that mostly fall flat.
However, not all hope is lost for a good season (in Med terms) as this seems likely a launching point for some interesting plotlines that the introductory episodes of this season have set-up.
“When Your Heart Rules Your Head” almost seems like a redundant title for an episode of Chicago Med, in an ER filled completely with doctors who let their hearts rule their head.
And even the more practical minds are easily convinced, as Choi decides his connection with April and Noah rule over the more sensible Chief of Emergency Medicine Ethan Choi he’s appeared to become.
Chicago Med Season 6 now has dug its pole into the ground. Will it clear the height?
This episode is bookmarked with Natalie and Marcel’s new relationship drama, which despite using unsurprising tropes, is a helluva lot more fun than her previous relationship with Will (I’m sorry Manstead fans!)
The two wake up after their steamy affair, and Natalie is able to run out before the surgeon wakes up. The remainder of the episode is filled with Natalie’s habit of overthinking personal situations, and again leads to her own demise when she finds an ex dropping off some stuff when she shows up unannounced at his apartment (but not before an entire confession about wanting to pursue a relationship with him).
Why do they always show up unannounced?
Regardless of the tumultuous miscommunications they’re bound to have, as procedural couples do, there’s really something about the way these two look at each other. DeVitto and Raines have dynamic chemistry.
Even before Manning started overcompensating and pushing Marcel away, before she even landed at the hospital, she took a stare much too long at him. Combined with his noticeable heart eyes and open body language, it’s impossible not to believe that these two aren’t going to be a thing. At least for a while. At least it isn’t Will. (Not sorry this time.)
Will, however, isn’t doing much. He’s acting pretty sensible for the most part by at least breaking smaller rules rather than big ones this time around. His role lies more as a vessel for April’s exploration of her true aspirations. Really, that’s April’s thing. Finding causes or people and drifting away from them.
With Choi ripping her from the COVID ward, which is a thing in and of itself, she attaches herself to Will and to his trial by extension. It’s heartbreaking to watch, especially as April’s lost many of her support systems and people close to her, besides maybe her nursing family.
And it’s rare in a Dick Wolf property that the relationships are more annoying when they’re not together. Many shows’ relationships lose their appeal after the big PG-14 consummation, but April and Ethan take the cake here. They go through an endless cycle of antagonization and forgiveness in the short time since their break-up, but doesn’t feel like forever ago?
Even as the events of “When Your Heart Rules Your Head” play out, resignation continues to build between the two, and it’ll be a miracle if they can’t work together at all by the end of the season. Or sleeping together. One of the two.
Even if these soap-opera-esque scenarios play out, Chicago Med is shockingly graceful at interweaving poignant commentary between character beats. Even if the April and Will scenes of “When Your Heart Rules Your Head” are very consequential in the long run, or even the short run, April makes very clear points to Will about racism with healthcare, and despite breaking the rules because of April’s teaching, he listens.
Chicago Med also continues to make points about other important subjects in this natural manner such as assisted suicide, the American adoption process, and more if we look at more episodes. Despite being a drama, Chicago Med does its duty in also trying to educate.
However, the main attraction of the episode was the send-off to Roland Buck III as Noah Sexton at least on a temporary basis (Noah very enthusiastically says he will come back).
This move doesn’t make much narrative sense — April is a top-billed character and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, this move isolates the character even more.
Even with an unclear reason for his exit, he did go out with a bang, “accidentally” leaving a syringe filled with lidocaine in reach of his patient who happened to be a doctor about to get charged for helping his ailing wife pass away.
While it’s understandable that Sexton followed his moral compass, there’s also a point to the horrible situation that Choi was put in due to his actions that were negligent at the least.
Noah was a fun character, but it’s hard to say it’s sad to see him go because it’s not easy to even remember him unless he was in an episode. But with his already rocky screentime now completely cut, maybe some of these plots on Chicago Med could expand and add some much-needed nuance.
With an episode jam-packed with changes and shake-ups, Chicago Med provides change that affects all of the ED, whether it due to family, relationships, COVID, or sickness. Still, despite all the chaos, Chicago Med never fails to rise to the challenge, whether that be bad results to a DNA test or an unexpected pregnancy.
Despite this, we only tallied four rules broken this week, which isn’t bad considering.
What did you think of this episode of Chicago Med? How many rules do you think the Med ED will break next week? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on NBC.
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Amanda Reimer
In addition to working as a freelance writer, Amanda also works with animals and stage manages various live performances. She has an invested interest in the perspective and experience of fandoms as well as anything in the science-fiction genre. She also loves spoiling her cats, Drummer and Kiki.