[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Resident Season 5 Episode 22 “The Proof Is in the Pudding.”]
The fates of multiple characters are left up in the air by the end of the penultimate episode of The Resident Season 5.
Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) is the one to witness the truth about Dr. Kincaid “Cade” Sullivan’s (Kaley Ronayne) relationship with her father, Dr. Ian Sullivan (Andrew McCarthy), but he’s not just in town to visit his daughter, as she knows. Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood) and Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves) begin to plan their wedding, but is he doing too much, considering his MS diagnosis? And what’s this about Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal) leaving Chastain?! Plus, the episode sets up some complications in Conrad’s love life. Read on to find out where it left everyone.
Cade’s Painful Family Reunion
“He’s very charming, and he turns it on effortlessly, maybe a little too effortlessly,” Kit says, “but those hands would save a lot of young lives.” That’s Ian summed up in one sentence, as we see in this episode. He charms his way through the halls on his way to his daughter’s hospital room as she recovers from her gunshot wound — though he fails to score a prescription for a muscle relaxer for what he says is a pulled muscle after playing pickleball — where we see just what he’s like as a father. She’ll “beat” her PTSD as she worries about leaving the room, even though the man who tried to kill her has been caught. He offers to go with her on a walk as part of her recovery, but he brings her banana pudding … and she’s allergic and almost died when she was four. As Cade explains to Conrad when Ian leaves, “he’s a mixed blessing. He’s a God to his patients and himself.” He’s the one who loves banana pudding.
When Ian returns, he offers her benzos, to help with the PTSD and anxiety, but she refuses them; he’s not her prescribing doctor, so it’s illegal. Rather than join her on her walk, he chases after Kit to introduce himself, and unbeknownst to Ian, Cade falls when she tries to get up on her own. So while she’s on the floor, bleeding, Ian’s basically talking his way into a job offer from Kit: Cade’s injury has made him rearrange his priorities and he’s thinking of relocating, and hey, the CEO looking for a pediatric surgeon, but he insists it’s not his intention to turn their conversation into a job interview.
Cade’s not surprised her dad “got a better offer,” she tells Conrad when he finds her and patches her up. “Not everyone can be the kind of father you are,” she tells him. “Gigi’s a lucky girl.” She expects Ian to leave soon, but Conrad makes sure to confront him about leaving his daughter. Ian’s response? He may help save a life since he was asked to scrub in on a life-threatening surgery. (He does prove vital in the O.R.) The only thing? Kit asked him to scrub in after he’d already left Cade in her hospital room. Ian accuses Conrad of wanting Cade all to himself, and the other doctor reminds him he’s her doctor at the moment so yes, her father is currently in his way. “I’m her father,” Ian protests. “Start acting like it,” Conrad advises.
But then Ian takes one of those benzos that Cade refused, and she calls him out on pocketing the pills — and his attempt to claim that nothing should take precedence over her. She can sense he has an agenda and when she finds out about Kit’s job offer, wonders if he was fired from Seattle Children’s. Is he having issues with pills again? No, it’s just a pain in his back, he insists. Sure, there’s a bit of an agenda with the new job — he left his latest wife — but “I really did drop everything to come save you, and in return, you rip my heart out,” he says before leaving. Then, at the end of the episode, he collapses in his hotel room.
Conrad’s Love Life
The moment we knew was coming sooner rather than later after Dr. Billie Sutton’s (Jessica Lucas) conversation with Conrad about Cade happens in this episode. Billie admits to Dr. AJ Austin (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) she’s disappointed in herself lately. “I’m afraid to … take a big risk,” she shares. She hasn’t been in a significant relationship in a long time, partly due to her past, “but now I’ve gone and fallen for someone, who I won’t identify, and there are huge potential complications. … I’m as afraid he’ll say yes as I am he’ll say no,” she confesses. AJ understands, but “Conrad and Gigi would be lucky to have you.” It’s not obvious to Conrad, he says, encouraging her to “go tell the man how you feel.” But then she sees Conrad and Gigi in Cade’s room, cheering her up, and walks away. Poor Billie!
Bell’s Crazy Day
What will Bell and Kit’s wedding look like? Well, he wonders if they even need a ceremony with four marriages between them already. Why not just elope and have a wild honeymoon at the destination of her choice? But after his crazy busy day — a podcast interview, deposition, and a surgery — he’s not doing too well and she insists he go home to rest.
Things are still bad later, and Kit suggests that they put aside their wedding for now and instead have a big engagement party with their friends on the planned date. But there’s a more immediate concern: Bell can’t see. She helps him lie down then calls his doctor, assuming it’s a MS flair-up because he pushed himself too hard.
Devon’s Job Offer
Devon’s being celebrated for his clinical trial successes — and that means the big research hospitals are courting him. Kit promises to match any offer, but it’s not about money for him. Instead, it’s tough being around Dr. Leela Devi (Anuja Joshi). Kit and Bell are rooting for them.
Conrad also has heard about the offers. Devon recalls Conrad telling him when he started at Chastain, “this job isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would be a doctor because it is the best job in the world, despite everything, because of everything.” Then Conrad gets “selfish,” telling him, “don’t break up the team.” Devon doesn’t want to. But then he heads to Baltimore for an interview and finds out that they’re offering him the position of director of the program. He has a week to make his decision.
When Devon returns to Chastain, Leela’s waiting in his office to hear about the interview. Is he taking the offer? He wants to know if she thinks he should. She can’t make that decision for him. “Is there anything left of us?” he asks. “That’s on you. You’re the one who made it clear not having kids was a dealbreaker,” Leela argues, but as Devon sees it, “I think the dealbreaker is you didn’t even discuss my feelings about it. you just laid out your rules. Your job. Your body. Your eggs. Your future. Mine didn’t even factor in. That’s not what our relationship is supposed to be. It was supposed to be a partnership.”
According to Leela, “you’ve already made up your mind. And now you’re just justifying your decision by blaming me for the fact you’re leaving your friends and the hospital that made you. I can’t believe you’d do that.” Is Devon really about to leave Chastain?
The Resident, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox