‘Chicago Med’ season 2 premiere review: To Will Halstead, Sarah Reese, and new beginnings

The season 2 premiere of “Chicago Med” aired on NBC on Thursday night, and odds are that if you loved season 1, you were thrilled with this. With that being said, this installment may also have produced a tornado of emotions for many of you out there.

One thing we do know for certain is that this was a premiere not necessarily for the faint of heart. If watching medical procedures gross you out, this is one that had you covering your eyes. The sequences themselves were intense, and it is a reminder that this show is trying to make the procedures themselves the calling card even more so than they do over on “Grey’s Anatomy.”

In addition to intense, there were also a few moments in this episode that were harrowing and sad to watch. This remains a show where happy endings can come, but they are not altogether assured. It’s a hospital, and people can die. The series throws us in the hospital world effectively.

So where is the good news in the midst of all the chaos and the difficulty? Well, Dr. Reese is taking her clinical knowledge into the world of psychiatry, and she is excited about that after Dr. Charles started to push her in that direction. Exploring this particular area of medicine is a further opportunity for her, and the show, to stand out. Think of this as a new beginning, but not one that also moves away from her history.

Dr. Halstead was front and center for the other “beginning” of the show, at least in that he figured out a way to continue practicing at Chicago Med courtesy of new malpractice insurance. His challenge from here is going to be finding a way to keep his practice on the straight and narrow so that he can afford to keep this job moving forward.

As a whole, “Chicago Med” remains heartfelt. and a story effectively about family. Just remember, family doesn’t always have to mean blood. It didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it did offer up a taste of the familiar. Grade: B.