Finale season has arrived for television’s biggest shows, and The Resident is ending Season 5 with the must-see return of Emily VanCamp as Nic for a flashback reunion with Matt Czuchry’s Conrad. Her return promises to bring some closure to the death that rocked the series and changed everything, but does that mean that the Season 5 finale was planned in a way that would tie off all the loose ends, before even being renewed for Season 6? Co-showrunner Andrew Chapman explained to CinemaBlend.
The Resident was officially renewed for Season 6 on May 16, just one day before the finale that will end the current fifth season. Season 5 was a time of massive change, and not every show can necessarily pick up and keep going after killing off a major character. When I spoke to co-showrunner Andrew Chapman before the renewal, he explained the approach to the finale and whether the episode would feel like a series finale or leave some unanswered questions for a sixth season:
Things will be left open. We're expecting to be picked up for Season 6. This is really about closure in certain relationships, but then moving on in other relationships. We always plan to have it be a season ender and not a series ender.
Even though The Resident (along with 9-1-1) didn’t get renewed until after many of Fox’s other big hits – including 9-1-1: Lone Star – the team behind the scenes planned the finale looking ahead to a sixth season, so fans shouldn’t go into the May 17 episode expecting to see every loose end tied off. Closure is on the way, but the kind of closure that opens new doors even as it shuts others.
Nic’s return is to bring some closure to Conrad, who openly admitted to Billie (who has become a candidate for his next love interest) that it was his lingering feelings for Nic that held him back from moving on. She gave him as much of a pep talk as she could while Cade was potentially on death’s door without her father on hand to donate blood, which set the stage for Emily VanCamp’s return to nudge Conrad along the path of moving on. (You can rewatch that episode with a Hulu subscription.)
Whether or not Conrad comes to a realization that he wants to pursue a relationship with Billie, a post-recovery Cade, or anybody else by the end of the Season 5 finale remains to be seen, but the episode was planned with the expectation that the storyline will be picked up again in Season 6, which is now officially guaranteed. Of course, Conrad isn’t the only whose relationships have been complicated in the episodes leading into the end of the season.
Devon and Leela broke up when they couldn’t compromise over whether they would have children, and Devon is seemingly on the verge of leaving Chastain for a new life and new job away from Leela in Baltimore. Kit and Bell are on solid ground, but his health struggles have the potential to complicate things. Even A.J. and Padma’s status with her potentially having his child is in question.
The safest thing to say at this point is that fans absolutely should not miss the Season 5 finale of The Resident on Tuesday, May 17 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox, especially in light of the long-awaited renewal. For more important dates for TV as the 2021-2022 season winds down, be sure to check out our spring TV finale schedule
