After-Take: CHICAGO PD “Now I’m Good”
Name of the Episode: Now I’m Good
Beware – the follow contains spoilers!!!
Viewers are drawn back in when the intelligence team tries to figure out why a doctor would be misdiagnosing and overmedicating these women. Dr. Manning sees another woman come into Chicago Med and offers the team the woman’s purse for evidence. Antonio is able to find her insurance card and hopes to find out who her doctor is. The latest victim, Leah, has the other women in her phone as contacts. None of the victims seemed to know one another, until now. Things take a turn when Antonio gets the name of the doctor, Dr. Dean Rible. The name rings a bell to both Voight and Lindsay, but before anything can be explained, Voight leaves the room.
Lindsay and Al already know Voight’s story; his wife Camille died six years ago from what he thought was a cancer diagnosis. Knowing this doctor could have intentionally killed her sends Voight over the edge. Lindsay and Jay go to see the doctor to hopefully extract information for a conviction. Dr. Rible admits to treating all the women, but will not let their files go without a state issued warrant. Back at the precinct, Burgess and Roman are questioned once again by the detective running the case on their shootout of Richie. But with no gun found from the scene the detective is suspicious of the events.
A legal counselor is called in and suggests finding every piece of paper trail that shows the doctor saw risks for the patients but acted anyways. Once the team has their warrant, they go to his office and begin to search the premises. One secretary is found shredding patient files. Dr. Rible maintains his innocence, but has hired legal action in his defense. But when the doctor keeps speaking of Camille, Voight has him arrested on the grounds of obstruction of justice. He is shortly released and the team interviews every cancer patient that Dr. Rible treated. They all have similar stories, the chemo treatments were difficult and they couldn’t resume any daily activities. They all had severe medical side effects and are devastated when they hear it was all for nothing. 42 of 57 women that were misdiagnosed are willing to testify against their former doctor. The counselor suggests they go in for a case of fraud so his medical license will be pulled immediately. But Lindsay wants the doctor to be convicted of murder; she wants to see justice for Hank and for the other women who didn’t have a voice. Unfortunately, the counselor seeks a deal that results in no jail time, but medical suspension for one year. Voight wants murder charges brought to him, but cannot do so until the team finds new evidence.
Voight instead goes to Chicago Med and finds Dr. Charles. Dr. Charles suspects the practicing doctor may be a psychopath who has a savior complex and holds onto his victims by assuring them he’ll be there to help. The first victim, Jessica Pope, didn’t come out of her coma and passes away.
Burgess continues to seek evidence to clear Roman’s name; she wonders if Richie’s brother, Denny hid the gun that night to make Roman look guilty of shooting an innocent man. She doesn’t get the answer she wants, but isn’t giving up just yet. Across town, Dr. Charles chats up Dr. Rible to more thoroughly assess his behavior. Before Dr. Charles can talk about what he saw in their meeting; the counselor comes by the office with an idea. Lindsay and Voight search through paper work and find Dr. Rible ordered 3-7 times the normal amount of chemo for the four women after they confronted him about his methods. He scheduled them for appointments after his shipments came into the office. And without clearing the amounts through the insurance, he could now face murder charges if put in front of a jury. Voight takes the opportunity to publically arrest Dr. Rible at an awards banquet. The counselor faces an uphill battle with the judge, and cannot use the victims in the fraud case to testify in the murder case. She suggests Lindsay take the stand, but Voight wants to testify.
Burgess goes to Trudy to confide about her thoughts concerning the missing gun. They decide to go back to Denny with a plan to make him talk. Trudy convinces him that if he makes a statement and it helps lead to the evidence; they could write a check and he could give it to his sister in law Callie, to help with her expenses.
The intelligence team goes into court to see the trial of Dr. Rible, where Dr. Charles and others take the stand. Dr. Charles states his diagnosis of Dr. Rible is that of a functioning psychopath who lacks empathy and compassion. However, with the friendship of Dr. Charles to the intelligence team, the statement he’s given seems too biased. It seems the only way the prosecution can win, is to find a witness who will testify to Dr. Rible deliberately overdosing them with chemo. Until then, Voight asks to be put on the stand to testify about the paper trail and chemo doses. He ends his testimony with saying he watched Dr. Rible dose his wife Camille six years ago, he stands to be a witness.
Voight sacrificed his feelings to speak about Camille’s struggle to fight ovarian cancer, which lead to speaking about the 42 other victims in the case. The counselor was able to pull admittance of these crimes from his fraud case and enter them into evidence. Dr. Rible was found guilty of murder and attempted murder of his patients.
Dr. Rible insists to Hank he never harmed Camille and that he was helping the other women. Didn’t matter anyway, he was taken into custody until his sentencing hearing was announced. The episode ended with Voight watching a Christmas home video of Camille and Justin. A heartbreaking episode and excellent end to the series crossover.
On next week’s episode, the preview teases, “No one is safe”. Stay here for more After Takes coming soon.