‘The Resident’ Season 4 Will Cover ‘Early Days’ of Coronavirus Pandemic
Add The Resident to the list of shows with concrete plans to include the ongoing real-world pandemic in its fictional hospital.
The Fox medical drama will kick off its new season with “the early days of the outbreak, focusing on the effect on our hero doctors and nurses as they risk their lives daily,” cocreator Amy Holden Jones revealed to Us Weekly. And it will continue to follow the pandemic, even after there’s a vaccine. “Long-term, sadly, the after-effects of COVID-19 will go on,” she added.
The writing staff also already includes a doctor and nurse “who have lived it firsthand,” she continued. Dr. Daniela Lamas (who wrote the premiere with M.D. Eric Lu) works in an ICU, while a nurse on the set is a volunteer in New York City and Texas. “Their stories are moving, deep and tragic and continue to accumulate to this day. We hope soon to share all we have learned,” Jones said.
The Resident ended its third season early with Episode 20, crafting a makeshift finale by pulling up footage they’d already shot. It left Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) with a decision to make about a potential future as the next face of Red Rock, which could allow him to bring down the conglomerate from the inside. We’ll have to see what comes of that while the drama tackles the pandemic; the doctors and nurses could be even more determined to take down their enemy as they care for their patients in this situation. After all, we saw how Red Rock handled the superbug at the end of Season 3; even their golden boy Dr. Barrett Cain (Morris Chestnut) disagreed with how it dealt with the situation he caused.
(Guy D’Alema/FOX)
Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Krista Vernoff also revealed plans to address the pandemic in the upcoming (17th) season this week. “There’s no way to be a long-running medical show and not do the medical story of our lifetimes,” she said, adding that they’re figuring out “how do we keep alive humor and romance while we tell these really painful stories.”
The Resident, Season 4, 2021, Fox
