‘Chicago Med’ finale spoilers: ‘Chicago Fire’ alum to return — but as med student

How about this for an innovative change-up in the “Chicago Fire” universe?

According to a new report from TVLine, Jeff Hephner is going to appear in the upcoming season 1 finale of “Chicago Med” in the role of Jeff Clarke, but there’s a major twist entering the mix here: He is no longer a firefighter. At the end of the character’s run on “Fire” he was transferred to another firehouse, but he will be entering the world of “Chicago Med” as a fourth-year med student. The report mentions that the character decided to go back to school, which means that he probably had a couple of years under his belt before his “Chicago Fire” days. It’s a good thing, since otherwise he would have to be a prodigy or a time-traveler for this to make a whole lot of sense logically.

To go along with this, there is some other good news for people who want to see this character around in the long-term; Hephner will also recur on “Chicago Med” season 2. There’s no word on if he could become a regular, but kudos to NBC for thinking up a smart way to bring back a character who did have his fans. Jeff Clarke didn’t really have a whole lot going on at the time he was written out of his original show, so in some ways you can think of this as a rebirth.

The “Chicago” franchise as a whole is on hiatus this week, but rest assured there is plenty more coming up over the course of the rest of the spring