Chicago Med will soon air its final new episode of 2021, and all signs point toward the winter finale delivering some must-see twists before the end of the hour. The show has been building some storylines up to the point that something is going to have to give, and based on comments from showrunners Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov, there are going to be some “shocking revelations” and big developments in some of the most suspenseful storylines, including Will’s fraud investigation and Crockett’s work with Dr. Blake.
The show is wrapping 2021 with a holiday-themed episode, but that doesn’t mean that it will be a merry hour from start to finish. Called “Secret Santa Has A Gift For You,” the winter finale will have a lot going on just based on the episode description. When I spoke to showrunners Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov ahead of the episode, they previewed what’s on the way with the holiday-themed winter finale. When asked just how merry everybody at Med can really get at this point in Season 7, Frolov revealed that “they try” and are “doing a lot of this for the kids there,” and Schneider elaborated:
Yeah, they provide a Christmas party for the pediatric patients. But there are gonna be some shocking revelations in the episode.
Would it really be a One Chicago finale if there weren’t some shocks in store? Still, the promise of revelations is a lot to be excited about. Even if the episode ends on a cliffhanger, as One Chicago finales are known to do, then at least fans are going to be getting some big reveals to tide them over until the winter premiere in 2022. And based on what the showrunners had to say about Will’s storyline, some of the biggest events of the episode will likely center on his storyline.
Considering that the seven seasons so far have proven that Will Halstead isn’t exactly inclined to let things go when he feels strongly about them, it seemed unlikely that Goodwin trying to call off the fraud investigation would stick, and Diane Frolov confirmed that the winter finale will deliver on that front:
No, no. Everything comes to a head, in fact, in this episode.
She didn’t say whether everything coming to a head will be for better or for worse for Will, but at least he’s not the one who committed fraud … unless lying to Cooper counts. Andrew Schneider shed a little bit more light on the development for Will’s storyline:
A culmination of the fraud story. Well, not a culmination, but a climax of sorts occurs in this episode.
The previous episode revealed that even though Will was seemingly not ready to drop the fraud investigation, he also wasn’t afraid to mix business with pleasure, as he agreed to a night out with Jessa. She is of course mixed up in the whole VasCom mess, although it appears not quite to the extent of Cooper with his very dirty hands. According to Frolov, she has a part to play in the upcoming episode:
Well, you'll definitely see her in the finale. She's definitely in the finale, in a big way. A big way.
Neither of the Chicago Med bosses confirmed whether or not Jessa will appear in the second half of Season 7 in the new year, so whether or not Will has a future with her may depend one whatever happens with the “climax” of the fraud storyline. And as big as this story has been, it’s definitely not the only one in “Secret Santa Has A Gift For You” on December 8. Crockett’s complicated dynamic with Sarah Rafferty’s Dr. Blake will get another twist. Diane Frolov previewed what’s on the way when I asked if Blake will be sticking around for a while:
She will, and she and Crockett have a big moment in the finale.
Crockett has been toying with the idea of pursuing a transplant surgery fellowship working with Dr. Blake, and it appears that her expectation that he drop everything whenever she calls him for a surgery didn’t fully turn him off after the previous episode. If he does go for that fellowship, it would mark a big change for the character who lost the woman he loved not so long ago. Diane Frolov shared when the plan started for this to be Crockett’s path in Season 7:
We started that idea at the end of last season, in our minds. We were thinking 'Well, how has this affected him going forward?' And you know, his relationship with Natalie gave him the possibility that he really could see that he could have a future in a relationship, and in a way it settles him down, grounded him to then look around for possibilities to evaluate himself and evaluate his life because he's always been the kind of person who would just move from one hospital to the next hospital and never did really establish himself. That was part of his MO in the past and now he is reevaluating himself.
Crockett growing to see a future at Med at least means that something good came out of his heartbreak of losing Natalie (and not being part of Torrey DeVitto’s surprise final scene in the Season 7 premiere). The potential bad news is that the sparks that are flying for him are with Blake’s daughter. Frolov acknowledged that “that complicates things,” and Schneider chimed in to say “yes, yes” about whether that storyline will continue. As for what fans can expect in the winter finale beyond Will and Crockett, Frolov shed some light:
Also in the finale we're going to see a different aspect to Dr. Archer in his relationship with Dr. Charles. We're really exploring that in the episode. So there's a surprise there. That of course will color how we see Archer going forward. There's a surprise in the Maggie/Vanessa story that we'll deal with.
All things considered, Chicago Med has a winter finale in store that fans do not want to miss. The final episode of Med in 2021 airs on Wednesday, December 8 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC to kick off a full night of One Chicago winter finale action. Chicago Fire showrunner Derek Haas has already shared that fans should start worrying about what’s in store with one particular storyline, and Chicago P.D. has spent the ninth season building to what could be the point of no return for three key characters.
Be sure to tune in to NBC on December 8, and check out our 2022 winter and spring premiere schedule for when One Chicago and more shows will be back after the winter hiatus.
