Chicago Med's Archer Vs. Lenox Conflict Reaches Breaking Point: 'Things Occur That Will Shock The ChiHards,' Steven Weber Teases
The tension between Dr. Dean Archer and Dr. Caitlin Lenox hits an all-time high during this Wednesday's Chicago Med (NBC, 8/7c).
The co-heads of the Emergency Department got off on the wrong foot from the moment Sarah Ramos' character entered the hospital in the Season 10 premiere. But their disagreement in last week's episode about how to treat a patient, who ultimately died, appears to be the final straw for the docs, who can't seem to get on the same page despite both coming from military backgrounds.
As the conflict between Archer and Lenox escalates and the show heads into its fall finale (airing Nov. 20), "the audience is going to be taken for a real ride. Certainly, things occur that will — and I'm not being hyperbolic here — shock the ChiHards," star Steven Weber, who plays Archer, tells TVLine. "Our new writers have taken the show and kind of given it a jab in the heart... It gets really intense."
In the promo for this week's installment, Goodwin declares that Archer and Lenox can no longer co-exist in the ED, implying that the solution might be to let one of the doctors go. So how worried is Archer for his job?
"He certainly was more worried than I was, although I was a little worried when I read this. I thought, 'Oh, no, here it comes. I'm leaving,'" Weber says. "He is worried. He's very confident of his abilities. He's confident of his record at Gaffney, but he is kind of a messed-up guy. He's very territorial, and Lenox is extremely, he finds, aggressive, and she does not suffer his kind of toxicity, and that's threatening to him. I mean, he's a man. So it kind of rattles him a bit. It's hard. So he is nervous about it."
Perhaps Archer can get some advice on how to handle the Lenox situation from his friend/colleague Dr. Hannah Asher?
"I wish that was the case, but she's busy with her stuff," Weber shares. "She's found herself in kind of a tangle, as well, and without giving anything away, she also finds herself in a very personal situation that has taken her away from me, more or less. Everybody's kind of got their stuff to deal with this season, almost more than ever."
Despite that, Weber assures us that Archer and Asher "absolutely do interact and cross paths" as they deal with their individual crises.
"I think she is one of my main allies. So she believes in me. But she's absolutely distracted by her own issues," Weber adds.
The introduction of Dr. Lenox as a foil for Archer has given Weber plenty of conflict to play this season and brought back his character's more prickly side from his early days on the medical drama.
"I think one of the intentions of the writers was to reactivate his fractured persona to a point where he overcomes the kind of soft, likeable Archer that we've come to know and, not quite love, but at least tolerate," Weber says. "One of the things that is very noticeable is that Sarah's character of Lenox, her introduction was very similar to Dean's. I was, initially, not very well liked. I was operating, going rogue and doing really antisocial things, and he was not likeable at all."
But as Archer began to settle in at Gaffney and develop relationships with his coworkers, his rough edges started to soften.
"Over time, through this kind of exposure to other people who care, the more vulnerable he became, he was able to kind of calm that stuff down. So I think it's brilliant that they brought [Lenox] in and reenergized Archer," Weber shares, adding that Lenox is "a strong, complicated doctor who we'll find out has a very interesting past herself, and that will bring some sort of understanding and another layer in how people perceive Lenox in this environment."