Spoilers ahead for the Season 11 premiere of Chicago Med, called “We All Fall Down” and available streaming now with a Peacock subscription.
NBC brought the three shows of One Chicago back in the fall 2025 TV schedule with a big Chicago Med cliffhanger to resolve: who was the father of Hannah’s baby? The Season 10 finale ended in such a way that Ripley – a.k.a. Hannah’s partner for most of the season – could be the father, but his wasn’t the door she was knocking on in the last moments back in May.
The options were clear: it was either Ripley or Archer, the latter of whom was always a friend with no hard evidence of spending a night together… but she knocked on his door to say they needed to talk. The premiere wasted no time in resolving the cliffhanger, and I loved hearing star Steven Weber and showrunner Allen MacDonald’s takes on the twist. But first things first!
Why I Was On The Fence
I won’t lie – I went back and forth on who I wanted it to be throughout the months of summer hiatus. I even wrote about it as recently as mid-September, when showrunner Allen MacDonald previewed how quickly fans would get the answer.
Should it be Ripley, the man who she’d been in a relationship with and was actually around her own age? Or Archer, her much older friend who’d never been an on-screen love interest? Emotionally, Ripley didn’t seem at all ready to be a parent, while Archer was a parent already… to a now-adult son who is presumably around Hannah and Ripley’s age.
I’ve always loved Hannah and Archer’s platonic relationship, to the point that I asked Jessy Schram about it more than two years ago. But did that mean her pregnancy should trace back to a night together that we didn’t see, or should it be with the man she was explicitly in a relationship with?
Really, kudos to the Med team for delivering a cliffhanger that absolutely worked on me. Yes, I was about as much of a mess as Ripley when it came to going back and forth, so the pressure was on the Chicago Med premiere to make the reveal in a way that settled me 100% on the father.
Who The Father Is (And Why I’m Convinced)
As the showrunner promised, the Season 11 premiere quickly settled the answer: Archer is the father of Hannah’s baby. Fortunately for me, this didn’t result in declarations of love or any kind of romantic overtures that hadn’t really been earned. They’re two friends, having a baby, and Archer immediately informed her that he intended to be a father to the child. There are still blanks that haven’t been filled in, but everything seemed okay.
Then we get a time jump far enough ahead that Archer thought she should be telling people, but not so far ahead that she’s showing yet. That didn’t stop the secret from coming out, with Trini hearing the duo discussing her pregnancy and dropping the news on Ripley, who she’d assumed was the father.
I wasn’t exactly mourning at that point that Med had made Archer the father over Ripley, but Luke Mitchell absolutely sold me on his devastation at learning that his hours of thinking he was going to be a dad came to nothing. He’s presumably not going to be a major player in Hannah’s pregnancy storyline, but his reaction in the elevator quickly had me hoping that he gets a big plot in Season 11.
Then, an upset Hannah and Archer had a conversation, and I was back on edge that it might into a melodramatic argument that left both of them upset and failing at communication. Instead, they talked things out, and even addressed issues like what people will think of Hannah and Archer’s age. Plus, he came to what I also think is the funniest conclusion: they tell nobody and watch all of their coworkers try to figure it out once she starts showing.
So, we have 1) the Hannah/Archer friendship intact instead of immediately shifting into a romance, 2) Ripley free to work on himself rather than also deal with impending fatherhood, and 3) everybody communicating with Archer immediately stepping up. I was sufficiently convinced!
What The Showrunner And Steven Weber Said
Fortunately, CinemaBlend and other outlets were able to speak with Chicago Med showrunner Allen MacDonald and star Steven Weber during NBC’s One Chicago junket, and I had to note that I loved the episode revisiting the Crunch Berries comment that I was such a big fan of in a Season 10 episode, called “The Book of Archer.” When I mentioned the line, MacDonald said:
I appreciate that! That was the one line I knew had to go in, because I wanted everybody who was wondering at the ‘Book of Archer’ what happened after we cut to black, I wanted to confirm that, yes, that was the night it happened.
Ultimately, it didn’t entirely matter that we hadn’t seen anything explicit back in “The Book of Archer,” because Med did set up a night for it to happen. We’d seen the lead up to it; we just didn’t know that what happened after the cut to black in that episode was more than just toasting with bowls of cereal. The EP and star went on to joke:
- Steven Weber: “You know, back in the day, back in the early ’90s, if you mentioned a Porsche or a Rolex watch or something like that, then the company would send you one of those things. But we’re really looking forward to being inundated with boxes of Crunch Berries. Thanks, Allen.”
- Allen MacDonald: “He’s just saying that. He’s gonna log off, go over to his pantry, open it, and there’s wall to wall boxes.”
- Steven. Weber: “That’s gonna be my that’s gonna be my celebrity cause. I’m a pro Crunch Berry-ist.”
So, whether you were Team Hannah/Archer, Team Hannah/Ripley, or (like me) Team I Didn’t Know What I Wanted To Happen All Summer, we now have our answer ahead of the 200th episode that will bring Nick Gehlfuss back as Will Halstead: the pregnancy plotline goes to Archer and Hannah.
What About Ripley?
Ripley having his hopes of fatherhood dashed in the Season 11 premiere doesn’t mean that Med doesn’t have anything in the works for him, as he ended the episode by visiting Sadie, after they’d had the most One Chicago kind of disastrous meet cute possible in Season 10. I’m not sure whether or not Ripley throwing himself into romance and gently nudging Sadie to bring him into the house to (re)meet Emelia is tied to the news about Hannah and Archer, but according to Allen MacDonald, we’re going to see more of this story. He said:
Yes, you will be seeing Sadie moving forward into fall. The season finale was definitely a teaser. What I was trying to do in that moment was just to say, ‘Oh, maybe Hannah and Ripley are going to get back together.’ And then when they each open their doors, what we find out is there are different people there than we thought, and that perhaps maybe their lives are going in separate directions. And so for Ripley, that likely means a relationship with Sadie.
Will Ripley have more luck in the romance department with Sadie than when his relationship with Hannah imploded? Keep tuning in to NBC live on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET for the newest episodes of Chicago Med, with the milestone 200th episode airing with Nick Gehlfuss on October 8.
If you can’t watch live, you can always record to watch on demand with a YouTube TV subscription, and stream next day via Peacock. As always, Med is followed by Chicago Fire at 9 p.m. ET and Chicago P.D. at 10 p.m. ET, all on NBC.