Warning: this article contains spoilers for the premiere of Season 8, Episode 1 How Do You Begin to Count the Losses
The season premiere of Chicago Med shocked fans with a few casting shakeups! Both Guy Lockard who plays Dr. Dylan Scott and Sarah Rafferty, who portrayed Dr. Pamela Blake, are leaving NBC’s Chicago Med. The loss of the two characters brings the return of one! Yaya DaCosta, who exited the show in 2021 after six seasons, has returned as April Sexton.
Leaving last season’s finale with a fire, fans shouldn’t have been surprised to see the friendly face of Chicago Fire’s Herrmann (David Eigenberg) helping to evacuate Dr. Will Halstead’s (Nick Gehlfuss) building after the brief shootout that occurred, mortally injuring the undercover cop Jo (Riley Voelkel.)
While the building was being evacuated, Scott found Jo bleeding outside in the alley and he quickly found transport for her to get to the hospital. Unfortunately, she didn’t survive and Scott made a huge display in front of everyone, which prompted an impromptu session with Dr. Daniel Charles (Oliver Platt).
Back at the hospital, Chicago P.D. fans were delighted by a quick scene with Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) explaining that the fire at Halstead’s apartment building was most definitely arson and they found excellorant in the hallways and stairs.
Crockett Marcel (Dominic Rains) is still having difficulty resolving the consequences of his decision not to help his love interest, Blake when she had a critical operation and left him as her power of attorney. Crockett attempts to remove himself from working in transplants completely, but Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson) lets him know he’s too far gone in his training for him to exit the program, explaining that they simply don’t have the resources to start from scratch with another candidate and refuses his request.
Marcel finds some confidence in himself after a “win” in the ER, and visits Blake in her room to thank her for everything he has learned from her. She wasn’t exactly pleased to see him and explains that she is sidelined by her injury, but fully intends to come back and has absolutely no intention of ever working with him again. It’s safe to assume that while she is “sidelined,” we won’t be seeing Rafferty returning to the series.
Dr. Charles deals with a juvenile who might be suffering from schizoaffective disorder and Ethan Choi (Brian Tee) deals with Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram), who is suffering from interstitial disease, from of her years as a heroin addict which was triggered as a result of the smoke inhalation from the fire in Halstead’s building. Scott goes to Goodwin to tell her that he’s leaving Med after the trauma he’s endured over the loss of Jo. He explains that being at Med will continue to traumatize him with memories of her and the guilt he feels over her death.
As Goodwin, Halstead, and Peter Kalmick (Marc Grapey) are walking up the steps to the courthouse, Burgess makes another appearance to arrest Jessa Rinaldi (Angela Wong Carbone) for arson and attempted murder for starting the fire at Halstead’s apartment building.
In the last minutes of the episode, Choi bumps into Sexton at his father’s grave. She explains that she saw the obituary and that she would have come back sooner for the service but didn’t want it to be awkward. She says that she is back in Chicago, she finished the NP program and she’s working with a medical group in Chicago. The two briefly catch up with each other and she confirmed that neither one of them had been married while they were apart.
Halstead finds Scott before he leaves Chicago altogether to let him know who started the fire in the chance that his decision to leave was because of the fire and Halstead implores Scott to give it a few days, but unfortunately we now all know that after joining the series in Season 7, Lockard has officially exited the series.
Lockhard Tweeted out to his fans, thanking them for their support:
Costar Marlyne Barrett, who plays Maggie Lockwood bid her farewell on Twitter:
Co-showrunners Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov also confirmed his exit with Variety.
“Right now, we’ve finished that arc of his story, so he is leaving right now, but we have people leave and we have them come back. We’re leaving that door open,” Frolov told Variety. Schneider added, “We love Guy. He did a great job and was wonderful to work with. But what was sort of the cornerstone of his character was a doctor who had been a cop, and couldn’t escape his past — it becomes very evident in the premiere episode. So having really resolved that, we felt we had really covered his story arc, but Guy is so good and was such a wonderful character that we would welcome bringing him back in the future.”
The showrunners also confirmed that neither fans nor Marcel will see Rafferty any time soon either and explained to Variety, “He will hear about her. There will be references to her. We won’t see her, but we will be dealing with the emotional aftermath from his point of view,” Frolov said, with Schneider noting that she’ll be in rehab to get her motor skills back. “If the character’s alive, the character can and very often will come back.”
Frolov and Schneider also mentioned DaCosta’s return, “We were talking about what we want it to do story-wise, particularly with Ethan and resolving that relationship. We never really got to finish it. We really wanted to, so we reached out to see if she would come back for this,” Frolov said, noting that DaCosta will be in a few episodes this season. “They’re not sure where the other one stands, so they’re gonna tread softly on that.”
Schneider added that DaCosta was “very excited” to return: “She wanted to honor that character, and to give a resolution to April’s relationship with Ethan.”
DaCosta had exited the show in 2021 when she was cast as the lead in Fox’s Our Kind of People, unfortunately for them, but fortunate for Chicago Med fans, the drama was canceled after one season.
Chicago Med airs on Wednesdays, at 7 PM CST on NBC and streaming on Peacock on Thursdays.
Chicago Med is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment. Filmed at Cinespace Chicago Film Studio.
