‘Chicago Med’: Major Character Arrested, and Fans Are Annoyed

Chicago Med is not letting one of their own get away with bad behavior this time. The NBC medical drama saw the direct aftermath of Natalie Manning (Torrey DeVitto) locking herself in an exam room with a patient, leading to serious consequences for the doctor. The development comes as Natalie continues to recover from her serious head injury in the Season 5 premiere.

Spoilers ahead for Chicago Med Season 5 Episode 6: “It’s All In the Family”

The episode kicked off immediately where last week’s left off, with Natalie locking herself in the exam room to give medicine to a child after his parents refused treatment. The new episode saw as Natalie met with Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) and COO Gwen Garrett (Heather Headley) as they followed the little boy’s progress following her giving him the medicine.

Gwen says there is no excuse for Natalie’s reckless behavior, as Natalie justified she was trying to save the boy’s life. Sharon says Natalie not waiting for a court order before administering the antibiotics left the hospital open for major lawsuits. Gwen orders Sharon to get the boy discharged as soon as possible.

When Natalie heads toward the door, Sharon stops her and tells her that she needs to remove herself from the case if she is in any way compromised. Natalie is convinced of er diagnosis, and Sharon says she better be for the sake of her job.

Outside the office, Will (Nick Gehlfuss) offers his help but Natalie lashes out at him once again.

Later in the episode, Natalie’s “fiancé” Philip (Ian Harding) returns to the hospital to surprise her for their six-month anniversary, but not only did she forget but she tells him there’s no time for her to deal with him because of the stress of her patient. One of the nurses comes to Natalie with the boy’s latest labs, confirming she was wrong about him having pneumonia.

Maggie (Marlyne Barrett) notices Natalie silently freaking out about her latest case. The doctor apologizes for not noticing her friend’s cancer, but Maggie tells her she tried her hardest to keep her condition a secret. Natalie worries that she might have been wrong about her diagnosis and just wanted to prove Will wrong.

As they wait for more tests, Lucas starts to crash and coughs up blood. The parents start to panic and say they are taking him away. Because of the court order, security takes the parents out of the room as they tell her to leave him alone. Natalie orders the nurse to prep for a procedure, as Maggie tells her she does not have much time to figure out what’s going on.

Natalie then finds that the boy’s airways are covered in blood, meaning he never had a sinus infection as his parents suspected. She sends the samples to the lab as Gwen and the police arrive ready to place her under arrest. She advocates for the boy as the police start to take her away, as Gwen tells Sharon the hospital will not be helping the doctor get out of her legal hurdle.

At the end of the episode, Natalie walks off jail after the charges are dropped. Turns out the boy had a rare autoimmune disease that would have killed him if not for her insistence. Despite the good outcome, some fans thought Natalie should have faced harsher consequences given her actions.

Natalie did make things right at the end of the episode, when she met Philip for dinner only to break up with him. The breakup scene took an awkward turn when Will reveals the truth about the fake engagement to Philip. She says it doesn’t matter and walks away from both of them, telling Will to get out of her life.

Will Natalie and Will recover? Chicago Med airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.