Tonight at 8p on NBC’s Chicago Med, Oliver Platt gives an Emmy-Worthy performance as Dr. Charles. It is the first of two episodes that are centered on him.
The episode starts off with him working at a suicide hotline and taking a call from a man who wants to end his life. After the call is over, he is left frazzled by the conversation. And that is just the beginning of his bad week.
Next up, he gets into a fight with his youngest daughter, Anna (Hannah Riley), and they both say things they don’t mean. The fight starts over something he learned about her personal life, and he won’t let it go. How far will he go to find out more about what she is hiding from him?
Maybe work will be easier for him? Not at all. There is a male patient who might have been raped, but won’t admit it. A woman comes demanding invasive surgery to find out what is causing her extreme stomach pain, even though there seems to be nothing showing up on any of the tests. Finally, there is a little girl who is acting like a cat and won’t act like herself.
It is a bad, bad, bad day. And when you have a day like that, it is enough to make even a psychiatrist go mad. Is that what happens to him? We will find out next week in the conclusion of The Book of Charles.
Platt is my favorite part of the medical drama because I am a long-time fan of his work. So maybe I am biased, but the performance he gives in this two-part storyline had me the most emotionally invested in the series’ run, and I have seen every episode. It is just that well-written, directed, and acted (Is this a word?)!
