‘The Resident’: Conrad’s Choice & More Burning Questions for Season 6
The Resident ended its fifth season with a celebration and a cliffhanger: Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves) and Dr. Randolph Bell’s (Bruce Greenwood) engagement party and Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) ready to move on… but with whom?
Meanwhile, the finale also saw a couple get back together (Manish Dayal’s Dr. Devon Pravesh and Anuja Joshi’s Dr. Leela Devi), as well as happy news about Padma’s (Aneesha Joshi) journey to motherhood (with Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s Dr. AJ Austin the father, via sperm donation). And there are changes coming to Chastain, one more immediate (Andrew McCarthy’s Dr. Ian Sullivan, who was looking to make a move) and one at some point in the future (Bell planning for when he can no longer operate).
Below, we take a look at the burning questions we need to see answered in Season 6.
The Resident, Season 6 Premiere, Tuesday, September 20, 8/7c, Fox
Did Conrad choose Billie or Cade?
It’s not that Conrad has been resistant entirely to moving forward following his wife Nic’s (Emily VanCamp) death (which was three years ago, due to a time jump mid-season). But he hasn’t truly been ready … until now. Following flashbacks to one of their date nights, which ended with the two agreeing to move on if they lost the other, Conrad seemingly made a choice between Dr. Billie Sutton (Jessica Lucas) and Dr. Cade Sullivan (Kaley Ronayne), but they were sitting together at the bar when he walked over and we’ll have to wait until Season 6 to find out his decision.
“That decision will be surprising, and we have a really interesting way to unfold it and the story that follows,” showrunner and executive producer Andrew Chapman told TV Insider after the finale. Might that mean we won’t know until partway through the season premiere?
How might a love triangle play out in Season 6?
There is always the question of whether or not Conrad’s choice will stick throughout the season. After all, no matter who he chooses, there are still the feelings — on both sides — of the woman he didn’t and they’re all working in the same hospital. A love triangle of some sort seems inevitable, though hopefully it won’t be done in a way that is too cliché. (Plus, this might also depend on how much longer the series is going to go and who will be with it until the end.)
What will Kit and Bell's wedding be like?
Kit and Bell ended the season engaged, though it looked like a finale wedding was possible for a moment there. So will we see the wedding in Season 6? “We haven’t 100 percent figured that out. We probably will see it in Episode 1,” Chapman said. But what will their wedding be like? A planned ceremony in a backyard, with just close friends and family? A quick trip to City Hall for some reason? Thrown together somewhere in Chastain? Just because they said it would be one thing doesn’t mean that life won’t get in the way.
How much longer will Bell operate?
In the finale, Bell told Kit that he saw Leela as the one to follow in his footsteps. “I get to teach her everything I know, and she can take my patients when the time comes,” he said. “If the time comes,” Kit insisted. That has been part of the series since Bell’s MS diagnosis, with him more reluctant to step foot in an OR and her encouraging him it’s not yet time for him to give that up.
And, as Chapman pointed out, Bell is also planning this move away from surgery “because he’s been this doctor for a long time and Season 6 will be about him, in a way, passing the torch to other surgeons to become great and to teach them. It’s also just who he is and his age.” So could Season 6 feature Bell’s last surgery (which would have to be treated like the momentous occasion it is)?
Will Devon and Leela stay together?
Things were rough for Devon and Leela, who split since he wants kids and she doesn’t. But by the finale, they did get back together and at least one new problem was off the table: him potentially moving for a new (impressive) job. But just because they love each other doesn’t mean the issues between them will just magically disappear.
“We want them to be a stable, loving relationship at the heart of the show,” Chapman said, adding, “but they each have their ambitions and we’re a doctor-centric show, not a patient-centric show, so we always are looking to see what the problems are for the doctors. One is Leela’s desire to have kids or not have kids. The other is Devon’s a superstar now, getting courted by all these people. How does that impact their relationship? They’re gonna have a loving relationship, but it’s not gonna be without its bumps.”
How will AJ handle impending fatherhood?
When AJ agreed to be Padma’s sperm donor, he insisted on being part of the child’s life. And in the finale, she had good news for him: She was pregnant — with twins! They’d already started disagreeing about how to raise a child but have started to compromise. Still, they are two very different people and more conflicts are sure to come up. Plus, given that they’re not together (after a casual relationship prior to Padma deciding to move forward with her desire to have kids), any new love interests can make things even more complicated.
“He has to figure out how to be a father and yet not too overbearing. He’s an overbearing character. He’s just bigger than life,” Chapman pointed out. “We love the idea that they’re in a relationship that’s father and mother, but not a couple. That’s such a juicy, complicated, interesting thing, especially when you pair it with Devon and Leela, who are a couple but don’t have kids and Devon wants kids and Leela doesn’t.”
What will Ian bring to Chastain full-time?
Cade’s father flew in when she was shot and needed blood but has a rare type — and he used the opportunity to talk Kit into offering him a job. When McCarthy signed on, it was to recur at the end of Season 5 and continue as a series regular in Season 6, and Chapman confirmed that remained the plan when discussing the finale. But will Ian change by being at Chastain, as we’ve seen happen with doctors over the seasons?
“We love the soap between him and Cade, father and daughter working in the same hospital. We think that’s really fun and interesting. He plays the sort of narcissistic ambitious surgeon so well [and] we have little hints of character flaws,” the EP noted. “He’s had a disease, but he also has an issue with painkillers. There’s all kinds of juicy stuff that we can play going forward. Is this a guy who has addiction issues and will he be the superstar doctor moving forward?”
