Spoilers ahead for Episode 3 of The Resident Season 6, called “One Bullet.”
The Resident had the doctors of Chastain juggling two high-stakes cases in “One Bullet,” with an anonymous shooting victim’s injuries needing a disproportionate amount of the hospital’s dwindling supplies while Padma’s planned c-section was delayed until her life (and those of her twins) were in jeopardy. In the background, however, the doctors and nurses all had to take drug tests, and that showed the first major cracks in Conrad and Cade’s relationship after he made his choice.
Cade quickly connected the dots when she learned that the hospital was requiring its employees to take drug tests for the first time in three years, shortly after confiding to Conrad that her father had a history of substance abuse. While Conrad was sympathetic last week, he also was firm that the possibility of Ian (played by new series regular Andrew McCarthy) operating while under the influence was something that could not happen at Chastain.
When she confronted him in “One Bullet,” he immediately confirmed her suspicion that she’d tipped off Kit that drug testing would be a good idea. Although he told her that he didn’t specifically say that he suspected her father would test positive, Cade clearly saw it as a breach of her confidence. After all, she’d opened up about her father turning to prescription pills after she and Conrad spent a night together, not as a colleague within the halls of the hospital.
Of course, her father ultimately testing positive proved that Conrad was right to make his suggestion to Kit, even though Ian came up with a reasonable explanation for the results. (Viewers know that he had to deliberately taint his own sample with a different kind of medication to pass it off as a false positive, but Kit was fooled and Cade can only suspect.)
While Cade wanted to be alone at the end, she took some comfort from a hug with Conrad after he asked if they were "good." She also declined his offer to come home with him, and said that she needed to be alone to "do some thinking." There's still the promise of tomorrow, but they seemed more solid when they were treating a gunshot wound than saying goodnight.
I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Ian had indeed found a way to beat the test and get negative results, rather than results that he could explain away. If there had been no evidence that anything was at least fishy, I can imagine that it might have been a point of no-return for their relationship.
And that leads me to wonder if Conrad’s willingness to put the greater good ahead of what she confides in him could be the downfall of their relationship. Cade is a complicated character and brings a lot of baggage with her relationship with her father, but as Conrad pointed out, he won’t just give Ian the benefit of the doubt if it puts the lives of children at risk in surgery. Conrad objectively wasn’t wrong for tipping off Kit, but Cade was entitled to feeling betrayed. That’s just not a good status quo for a relatively new relationship.
It’s also not the end of the world for an adult relationship between two people who care deeply for each other, and The Resident didn’t focus on Billie’s feelings for him to play up the love triangle, which is expected to become more complicated. I’m guessing that their relationship is safe for now, but this was the first sign of rough waters for a romance that seemed to be sailing strong for the first two episodes of the season (which you can find streaming with a Hulu subscription). Whether this is a fatal flaw and crack in the foundation remains to be seen.
See what happens next with new episodes of The Resident on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox in the 2022 TV schedule. “One Bullet” seemed to wrap up the pregnancy storyline for Padma, but the show can probably get plenty of mileage out of the infant twins. It should also be interesting to see if the shortages in medical supplies recur throughout Season 6, as it’s an issue that Chicago Med is also addressing over on NBC.
