Spoilers ahead for The Resident Season 4 finale, “Past, Present, Future.”
The Season 4 finale of Fox’s medical drama The Resident was full of emotions and even teased Chastain Park Memorial’s newest financial worry. New dad Conrad was eager to get a patient into a sickle cell trial. However, it did not end in the way he had hoped and foreshadowed what it could mean for Chastain moving forward. Co-showrunner Peter Elkoff is hyping up the recently renewed fifth season and what fans can expect.
The Resident is not like your typical medical drama. While it still follows the medical aspects that a drama would do, it also focuses on the financial parts. Now the series’ Chastain Park Memorial Hospital is in the world of Big Pharma, which may or may not have sinister results following the sickle cell anemia cure.
Co-showrunner Peter Elkoff shared with TVLine that the plot will be a big one. Adding on to the fact that the show will go back to its normal episode count, as Season 4 had to be shortened due to the production delays. Elkoff also explained that, much like Dr. Bell in the early seasons and Logan Kim from Red Rock, Chastain will get yet another surprise next season:
The ramifications of that [Big Pharma plot] will be evident in the season, and we will do — because we have 23 episodes, it’s going to be a ginormous season — we will do one of those underside-of-the-medical-industrial-complex arcs in this season. I won’t be specific as to whether it’ll tie into the Big Pharma story or something else, but yes, we will return again to a villain in our next season.
The Season 4 finale was a lot for fans to take in. On top of Conrad and Nic officially becoming parents, Cain and Billie performed a successful surgery on AJ’s mother and Devon and Leela got pretty close. While Peter Elkoff didn’t specify what will happen in Season 5, he did tease that changes are a-coming:
Well, here’s all I will say, because I can’t give away any more: When our audience — our loyal and beloved audience — tunes in for the first episode of Season 5, by the time it’s over, they will be shocked at certain changes that are taking place at the hospital. That’s all I’m going to say. [Laughs]
Even though the Season 5 renewal was just announced Monday, it seems the season has been planned for a while now. And unlike this season, Season 5 is set to premiere in the fall on Fox, going back to its normal schedule, pre-COVID. There is no telling what will happen in the fifth season and how the Big Pharma plot will affect Chastain, but there is a question of who exactly Conrad, Nic, Devon and everyone else will go up against this time. All four seasons of The Resident are streaming on Hulu.
