Eight Spoilers for the 'Chicago Med' Season 9 Premiere

It’s been eight months since we last checked in with the doctors and nurses at Gaffney Chicago Medical Center, so to reflect that onscreen, showrunners Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider instituted a six-month time jump for the premiere of Chicago Med’s ninth season on Wednesday.

“We didn’t feel it was realistic to happen right after the finale given the long hiatus we’ve had, so, yes, six months have passed,” Schneider tells Parade in this exclusive interview.

“We decided to use that to our advantage,” Frolov adds. “A lot has been happening off screen.”

The time jump also made it easier for the transition of losing Dr. Halstead (Nick Gehlfuss), who left Gaffney in the season 8 finale and moved to Seattle to reunite with Natalie (Torrey DeVitto), who made a guest appearance to help the audience with closure.

“The time jump allowed for everybody in the world of Med to have processed it, so we don’t have to look back on it,” Frolov says. “We’ve gone past it.”

“It’s not an open wound anymore,” Schneider says of Gehlfuss' departure. “He will be referenced, but it is six months after the fact.”

Related: After a Major Cast Shakeup, What's in Store for Chicago Med Season 9?

In the first episode back, the E.D. is flooded with patients from a crash and the entire team is pulled in to help for the mass casualty event, so it’s pretty much all hands-on deck.

“We’re going to have multiple stories, every story relates to that accident, every patient does,” Frolov says.

“And people are operating outside of their specialties because there’s so many patients coming in,” Schneider shares.

So, that’s what’s happening in the premiere episode, but we got the two showrunners to give us some spoilers for the upcoming season. Here’s a breakdown by character.

1. Dr. Dean Archer (Steven Weber): In the series finale, Archer’s son Sean (Luigi Sottile) lost his sobriety because he thought his father was romantically involved with Dr. Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram), which sent him spiraling because he had hoped to date Hannah himself. That meant that he was no longer eligible to donate his kidney to his father.

“Archer’s been in dialysis, and it’s been hard on him,” Frolov says. “Sean has been sober for six months. When we’re coming into the premiere episode, we will find out that that transplant is on the books, it’s going to happen imminently. What Archer is struggling with right now is he doesn’t want his son to do this. He feels guilty, he feels unworthy. Archer is struggling with that. Hannah is trying to push for it.”

Schneider adds, “It’s very important to Sean to do this, to give this to his father, to put their relationship on a new footing. Hannah becomes instrumental in this struggle.”

Despite his ill health, Archer is still in charge of the E.D.

“At one point Hannah cautions him because his health isn’t that good, to take it kind of easy,” Frolov says. “Of course, he doesn’t.”

Related: 'Chicago Med's Steven Weber Teases the Dean Archer Storyline for the Season 8 Finale

2. Hannah Asher: Hannah had been clueless as to Sean’s feelings for her when he fell off the wagon. She had been focusing on her career and her own sobriety, but now with the time jump, she can be open to new things and there may be a new romance in the cards for her.

“That element of a triangle will not be there,” Schneider says. “Sean is now six months sober. He’s accepted the fact that he’s not going to have a relationship with Hannah.”

“Hannah’s dating and it’s not going well. She has some bad dates,” Frolov says, and Schneider adds, “But there’s more romantic possibilities, for her down the line.” [See No. 5]

3. Jack Dayton (Sasha Roiz): Despite the fact that—or because of it—Dr. Crockett Marcel (Dominic Rains) was able to save Jack’s life without the use of OR 2.0, Dayton is ungrateful. He had been all in on offering expensive surgeries to his rich friends, making the hospital a cash cow, so he feels his time there was a failure since OR 2.0 has some kinks that need to be worked out, and he decided to sell the hospital.

“That has been resolved,” Frolov says. “The hospital was sold. It’s been sold to a consortium of businesspeople. It’s a business group that owns several hospitals. It’s more stable right now as we come back in, it’s not in crisis as we left it.”

That said, all is not 100 percent as Schneider points out, “The new owners are expecting this to be a profitable business.”

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4. Maggie Lockwood (Marlyne Barrett): Maggie had been unhappy with the direction that the hospital was taking under Dayton’s for-profit directives, so she had started interviewing for a new job.

“Maggie stayed on, but she is having problems in her marriage,” Frolov shares.

It’s a continuation of the problems that Maggie and Ben (Charles Malik Whitfield) were having when she failed to tell Ben that she was seeing her ex and then he found out when she was in a car crash with her ex.

“They’ve never been able to really reconcile those issues,” Schneider says, and Frolov adds, “Yeah, it’s eating at the marriage.”

5. Mitch Ripley (Luke Mitchell): The loss of Dr. Halstead meant that a new doctor had to be added to the ED and he’s a potential romantic partner for Hannah.

“He’s a really smart, very confident doctor,” Schneider shares. “We’ll find out quickly that he has a difficult old relationship with Dr. Charles (Oliver Platt) going back to when Ripley was an adolescent, a rough kid in Chicago. He carries resentment towards Dr. Charles. From Charles’ side, it makes him do some soul searching and reflect on how he treated people as a psychiatrist in the past."

6. Crockett Marcel: Dr. Marcel was not happy with Dayton’s decision to ditch Gaffney and OR 2.0. Despite the fact that the surgical AI had some issues, Crockett felt that it was salvageable. It just needed some additional work. However, the departure of Dr. Grace Song (T.V. Carpio), who was responsible for its programming, slowed things down.

“He’s been working on it and when we return in the premiere episode, he’s put in a situation with a patient where he really needs to use it,” Frolov says. “But nobody knows if it’s going to perform, if it’s going to hallucinate. So, his reputation, again, is riding on it and maybe his career.”

7. Daniel Charles: Dr. Charles’ romance with Liliana Wapniarski (Alet Taylor) had hit a rough patch at the end of season 8. When Liliana was having financial difficulties —as a result of her brother Pawel (Kristof Konrad), Dr. Charles asked her to move in with him, but she was insulted. Why did he only ask at that point? Did he feel sorry for her?

“They have moved in together,” Frolov reveals. “They are living together. It’s a bright spot in Charles’ life but her brother is going to come and be a problem. But that whole financial inequality will play a part in their relationship in terms of Pawel.”

8. Sharon Goodwin (S. Epatha Merkerson): Sharon will be dealing with the new owners of Gaffney Chicago Medical Center but there’s a surprise romance in store for her as well and it’s not with George Thomas (Stan Shaw), the board member who was her ally under Dayton's reign.

“It’s a new character, a doctor in the hospital,” Schneider teases. “But it will challenge her professionally because of her role as the chief administrator having a relationship with someone who literally works under her.”

As this has not previously been announced, that’s all Schneider will reveal except that we find out more in early episodes of the season. It won’t be a long wait.

Chicago Med returns for its ninth season on Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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