‘The Resident’ Boss on [Spoiler]’s Death, Dr. Cain & the ‘Serious Threat’ to Kit
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Season 3 Premiere of The Resident, “From the Ashes.”]
People do come back after flatlining, but sadly, that was not the case on The Resident.
The third season premiere didn’t waste much time in revealing to the audience that Nic (Emily VanCamp) lost her sister Jessie (Julianna Guill), and now it’s a matter of what comes next. But at least she has Conrad (Matt Czuchry) to lean on for support, as the couple starts off the new season in a pretty good place. That doesn’t mean that fans should relax too much.
“Our theory here at The Resident is don’t let the audience get too comfortable for too long,” executive producer Todd Harthan told TV Insider. “Don’t give them what they want for too terribly long. We like to mix things up and keep things up and keep people on the edge of their seats. We’ve got some surprises planned for sure.”
Here, Harthan breaks down the decision to kill off Jessie, what comes next for Nic and Kyle (Corbin Bernsen), and which doctor could be leaving Chastain in the near future.
When did you decide that Jessie’s story wasn’t going to have a happy ending?
Todd Harthan: That takes me back to the great debate we had pretty much midseason last year where we were trying to figure out whether or not she was going to survive. We’ve had such a great run with Julianna Guill and her chemistry with Emily VanCamp and Corbin Bernsen was pretty fantastic. We struggled with the idea of letting her go.
Ultimately the thing that changed it all for us was we started to fall in love with the idea of what does Nic’s world look like if you take her sister out of the already complicated relationship she has with her dad. Jessie was serving as this buffer between the two of them. For all of Jessie’s problems and issues, she was really, really good at bridging that relationship gap, and in her passing, what it gave us in this season is just how complicated the road ahead is going to be for Nic and Kyle.
(Eliza Morse/FOX)
How are Nic and Kyle going to be coping with their loss moving forward? They both mentioned a reason the other could feel responsible. Or is it more that they feel guilty themselves?
It’s all of the above. We all have different way of coping after tragedy, and we’re going to quickly realize that Nic has her way of coping and moving forward and Kyle has his. Because those are two different paths they’re taking, it sparks up new wounds, old wounds, a family history that is littered with all kinds of landmines that they’re going to step on over the course of the first 10 or 11 episodes.
It gives us the opportunity to show just how different these two human beings are in every conceivable way. Is there a relationship to be had, or are these two people, even though they’re father and daughter, better served going their separate ways?
![Is [Spoiler] in Danger After the '9-1-1' Season 3 Premiere? (POLL)](https://www.tvinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/911-S2_EP211-Scn3_MB0066-234x155.jpg)
Speaking of their family history, what about what Kyle wanted to tell Nic before the surgery?
We have a few seeds like that that we planted in the previous season and one of the things we always debate is when do we want to reveal certain answers to certain questions. That’s one that we’re actually waiting until middle to later in the season. … We don’t want it to feel like the expected, trope-y reveal that the audience can guess. Our plan is to go a little bit outside the box.
Is Kyle right to be looking into Jessie’s death? Look what happened during his surgery. Things can go wrong.
Yes, things can certainly go wrong. This is a man that is always looking for a “get rich quick” scheme, and then you pair that up with how he’s coping with the loss of his daughter and for the most part, he is barking up the wrong tree. But it’s how long will he bark and how loud will he bark and whose attention will he get? And will that bring certain scrutiny on his daughter who has to work in this hospital?
(Guy D’Alema/FOX)
Nic and Conrad had a rocky season last year. Are we going to see them happy together this year? And could Kyle asking for Conrad’s help cause tension?
They did have a rocky season last year, and what you’ll see in these early episodes is there’s a lot of other things that are going to challenge them that have nothing to do with their relationship. We’re going to see them living as a couple and going through trials and tribulations, not caused by their relationship but how they are there for each other during tough times from outside sources. It’ll be certain things that happen in Conrad’s personal and professional life. Nic suffered a tragedy.
We want to show the audience what these two people look like when they’re in that pocket of a healthy chapter in their relationship.
How much of the person we saw in the premiere is the real Dr. Cain? Will we see a softer side to him as the season progresses?
Absolutely. We are capitalizing on Morris Chestnut‘s versatility and his ability to blend tones and give you a lot of different flavors. What you see in the very first episode is going to be quite different from what you see in the trio of episodes that follow and even after that.
When we established the Raptor, he was a bit of an enigma, a mystery. We’re trying to play a similar thing with Morris where the audience is going to be toggling between, “Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Is he somewhere in between? Is he more like a Bell or is he more like a Conrad?”
(Eliza Morse/FOX)
Kit said she’s going to start interviewing elsewhere. Are her days at Chastain numbered?
My entire staff will tell you that Jane Leeves is somebody that, once you have her in your orbit, you don’t let her go. She’s amazing on and off the screen. She’s really come into her own in this role. She is under serious threat, and she is not a woman who does not speak her mind and she is very comfortable speaking truth to power.
That is going to be a very tough thing for Bell to manage, and it is going to get to a place where it is highly likely she is going to be shown the door. With that said, we love her so much that we’re like, “Is there ever a world where we can see her go?” It is something we talk about often.
The Resident, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox
