SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major plot points from NBC‘s Chicago Med Season 11 premiere.
It’s official! Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessie Schram) is six weeks pregnant with her first child, and the news regarding the wee one’s parentage has been confirmed. Dr. Dean Archer (Steven Weber), you ARE the father!
I know that this isn’t news many fans wanted to be true, but they both seem to be handling it well and have agreed to co-parent this baby as friends. The pair were challenged in tonight’s Season 11 premiere, with misunderstandings, secrets, and confusion taking over Gaffney Chicago Medical Center’s ED, with Asher’s uterus at the center of it all.
Much of the drama stems from Asher choosing not to share her pregnancy news with her colleagues. These are people she sees every day, many of whom have taken notice, naturally, that something is different about her. When rumors are spread without confirmation, it leads to miscommunication. That’s how the word got to Ripley (Luke Mitchell) that his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, and further, the incorrect information that he was going to be a father. He was excited at the prospect and everything, before Asher opened up about her time with Archer, after she and Ripley had already broken up.
Please don’t feel too bad for Ripley, however, because he has reconnected with Sadie (Holly Curran), whom he saved from a well in Season 10. After confirming he wasn’t going to become a father, he convinced Sadie to let him spend some time with her and her daughter, who was also saved from the well, so they could all get to know each other better.
Back to Asher and Archer—has anyone come up with a portmanteau for them yet?—Weber told Deadline in a recent interview that his character is freaking out about becoming a dad for a second time at the age of 64.
“Given his history and where he is now, having finally attained a kind of balanced equilibrium, the fact that he’s going to be a father is freaking him out,” Weber shared with a laugh.
“He’s seriously worried; not that he isn’t able, but he’s starting to clock his own physical decline. I mean, he’s a guy who’s had a major operation, after having had his kidney removed. It’ll be an interesting thing for the audience, who’s already a bit freaked out by the age difference and the shock value of it all. But I think it will remind people that having children isn’t a walk in the park. Even in situations like this, they’re not casual about it, and they demand a kind of effort on the part of people who may be frightened,” he added.
Series showrunner Allen MacDonald said they knew all of Season 10 where they were going with the Asher and Archer storyline into Season 11. The turning point, he confirms, goes back to last season in the 17th episode “The Book of Archer,” when the soon-to-be-parents give in to their attraction.
“They sleep together, and they don’t regret it. They had a good time in this moment of connection, but I imagine the next morning or the next day, they had a conversation about what it all means. Can this happen, or are we better as friends? And they decided that they were better as friends,” MacDonald said.
“I think that from that point forward, they clicked back into their previous dynamic, until Hannah shows up at Archer’s door [in the Season 10 finale]. So, going into Season 11, we now have this dynamic where there is nothing more intimate than having a child together. What does that mean for them? What does that mean for the feelings that they have for each other? And how those feelings will shift and change as the season goes on. Where it ends, I’m definitely not going to say, but there’s that push and the pull and the tension of the season,” he continued.
That moment of miscommunication between Asher and Archer in the premiere leads to an honest conversation. Archer is upset that Asher hasn’t told their colleagues at work about her pregnancy, thinking she’s ashamed that he is the father. Meanwhile, that wasn’t part of Asher’s dilemma with sharing the news. She was merely dealing with insecurities and doubts of her own.
If they continue to handle the dilemmas they will face with such openness, caring, and understanding, whether lovers or friends, they’re going to be alright.
“I think that emotionally, there’s a connection between Archer and Hannah, and that is definitely something we’re gonna explore as the season goes on. There are moments where feelings are going to surge, on one side or another. The question is, are they ever going to surge at the exact same moment? So we’ll have to see,” MacDonald teased.
Although MacDonald declined to share whether the Asher/Archer baby would be a boy or a girl, he did respond to my question about whether the bundle of joy would arrive in Season 11.
“I think I can say yes,” he confirmed.
The post ‘Chicago Med’s Steven Weber Talks Baby Daddy Drama As Show Boss Reveals If Asher Will Welcome Baby In Season 11 appeared first on Deadline.
