Charles might not have died but his job at Gaffney will be threatened as Chicago Med season 11 ends

Chicago Med has put Dr. Charles through the wringer the last few episodes. After what turned into an incredibly difficult day for Charles, he treated patients who each pushed him in their own unique way. Things culminated with one patient harming herself by drinking drain cleaner after Charles had given her a diagnosis that her ailments were not physical but part of a psychophysical disorder.

Following a trying day in the ED, Charles suffered a stroke with his life hanging in the balance in episode 17 as the Gaffney team worked to save his life. Thankfully, Charles survived his brush with death, and this near-death experience is going to make it crystal clear to him that he wants to remain at Gaffney rather than pursuing the teaching position Howie put him up for.

While the show made it seem like Charles was actually considering retirement from the hospital, it turns out the story has never been about him retiring but more about whether he’d leave Gaffney and begin a new chapter elsewhere.

“Dr. Charles is not someone who’s that interested in retirement. So the question was never was he going to retire; it was what is he going to do with whatever amount of time he has left? Is he going to stay at Gaffney and continue doing the good work he does here, or is there like a new beginning to him teaching at a medical school?” Allen MacDonald teased when speaking with TVLine.

Now that we know Charles is not looking to leave Gaffney, we should be safe to breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case.

Following his near-death experience, Charles will look to remain at Gaffney, but it seems the dynamic between Charles and Theo might be about to change for the worse. As MacDonald teased, Theo is going to become a big threat to Charles’ job in the final episodes of the season, and it sounds like we’re going to see the pair in direct conflict.

“I think he was not at peace before this health crisis, and then, like it is for so many people, it kind of clarifies and elucidates everything. What he decides very quickly is he wants to stay at Gaffney, and there is a big threat to his job from Dr. Theo Rabari coming up. I won’t go into too many details about that, but that’s been a conflict we’ve been setting up the whole season,” MacDonald revealed.

The tease is particularly unexpected, to be honest, and we’re going to be eager to see how things play out. While there was indeed some tension between Charles and Theo when they first began working together over their unique approaches to patient care, the pair had really hit a rhythm when working together in recent episodes. It felt like we reached a turning point where they realized they were stronger together as a team.

It’s going to be a shame if the show undoes this progress by having Theo evolve into a more villainous character who tries to come for Charles’ job. Our hope is that perhaps Theo takes over for Charles during his recovery and perhaps the conflict will come from the higher-ups looking to push Charles out in favor of Theo, rather than from Theo looking to undercut Charles to move up the career ladder.

We really have grown to love the pairing of Charles and Theo and would much rather see the pair working alongside one another than become adversaries in a battle that results in one of them leaving the show.