When it comes to incredible, heartfelt performances, Malcolm-Jamal Warner owned this hour and delivered!
We knew the day would come when Carol passed away, but that didn’t make it any easier to sit through The Resident Season 5 Episode 19 as she slowly faded away, leaving people who adored her in pieces in her wake.
We also saw some bold life and career moves from other characters.
Before we get into the heavy matters, Bell may be basically married to Boss Voss, but he made the ultimate Boss move when he exposed the medical board and called out the governor for not outwardly caring about patients’ concerns.
Who had Bell as a medical whistleblower on their 2022 Bingo Card? Not I!
All doctors benefit from the shield the white coat provides. I have too. Malpractice breaks our oath to do no harm, but it also destroys the public trust in even the best doctors. And the bad ones are few. They need to be weeded out, and the guard dogs need to be reminded of who they’re meant to protect.
Bell
It was easy to assume that the medical board was blowing smoke up Bell’s and Emily’s bums when they claimed that they would look into her case. It was the best way to get her out of the room since they rarely had to look a person in the eye when they decided that their experiences didn’t matter.
And it was also a way to appease Bell. But they severely underestimated how far he would be willing to go to ensure the medical board functioned as it’s supposed to do.
Bell was never going to take the dismissal lying down, and it’s annoying that they implied the case was “too personal” for him because of his passion and determination. How is asking these people to do their jobs a matter of him getting too attached?
Bell is in a place in his life and career where he doesn’t care about risking it all, so that’s placed him in the perfect position to challenge the system.
His experience in the public eye served him well since he knew that the best way to get heard, a la how Dr. Death finally got caught, was to get the press involved.
It speaks to what kind of man Bell is that he framed a piece about him that criticized him as heavily as it praised him. You can’t think of a better way to humble someone.
And his time spent with the reporter showed that he’s not another doctor who feels exempt from overreach.
He was very candid about the type of white coat that exists in the field. He knows that he’s benefited from it, too, so when Bell criticizes these things, he speaks from experience.
The problem is bigger than the hospital or the medical boards. It expands to the government and beyond. It’s about legislation.
Unsurprisingly, Bell is off the board, something stacked against him from the moment they introduced the notion. But now he’s calling out the governor directly on national television.
It goes beyond Emily and her sole experience. What good is protection or a system of checking and balancing to keep doctors honest and in line if none of it is done?
They’re supposed to protect patients, and instead, everyone is lining their pockets, hustling their agendas, and throwing caution to the wind.
Bell: Most people don’t know that the state medical board is there to protect patients.
Reporter: Who’d have thought?
Kit: He just called out the whole medical board.
Billie: He just called out the freaking governor.
Kit: That’s my man.
Bell on television again speaking the truth was such a gratifying moment, and Kit couldn’t be prouder of her man, Billy. The way The Resident keeps serving up all these delicious Kitbell crumbs — the writers are doing the lord’s work.
But it’s worrisome, too. We know you don’t get away with calling out governors and systems publically without blowback or other issues. The stress of not knowing how it can come back on Bell, his loved ones, or Chastain is enough to carry over for the remainder of the season.
Randolph Bell has had one of the greatest character arcs currently on the air, and Bruce Greenwood does so much with his character, and he’s intoxicating to watch.
While Bell was making some bold moves, Devon and Conrad were making some groundbreaking career moves themselves.
We’re all familiar with rabies, but you don’t think about the serious nature of it because of all the measures in place to prevent and treat it.
Bryce went from a fun trip getting in touch with nature and “earthing” to fighting for his life and nearly seeing his maker because some sleeping in the nude exposed him to a bite that gave him rabies.
His girlfriend bailing on him was downright appalling, but she also wasn’t contributing anything of use to the situation. She was probably the one who initiated the earthing in the first place.
We got a break from Zach, and instead, we spent some time with Janice. She’s often the most grating intern out of the bunch, but part of the issue is that we never got to know her. We finally got movement in that area, though, or at least we got to see her in action.
She was slow to things when gathering all the pertinent information from Bryce. She had to cope with the possibility that she cost him precious time and endangered his life further when it took her so long to tell them about his woodland activities.
Bryce’s rapid decline was scary, and it didn’t seem as if he’d ever come back from it. But thanks to Devon, Conrad, and Billie, they managed to pull it off, and Bryce survived.
It was quite the turnaround for someone who never should’ve made it.
In that sense, Devon had a far easier time-saving Bryce, someone who had a single percentage shot at surviving, than managing the Devi twins.
Devon proposing that he could be the baby’s father was bound to come up in some capacity or another. They’ve had a bizarre triangle thing for a minute, and it’s evident that there are some unresolved feelings and conversations about parenthood between Leela and Devon.
No way Devon didn’t understand why his suggestion was so disturbing to Leela. If anything, he was trying to get the child that he desperately wants but hasn’t gotten to talk at length with Leela, and he thought it would trigger a conversation they refuse to have.
Throughout this process, Leela has tried to micromanage so much of it. She doesn’t want children herself, or at least not now, but she wants to control how Padma progresses.
We get an enlightening glimpse into their dynamic as sisters with this arc. For as impulsive, indecisive, and free-spirited as Padma is, Leela is somewhat manipulative, whether it’s intentional or not.
Devon: What if I offered to be the sperm donor?
Leela: You can’t be serious.
Devon: Why not? Doesn’t it solve everyone’s problems? Wouldn’t it help us too?
She appeared shocked and uneasy when she learned that Padma had approached AJ about becoming the sperm donor. And she pushed the whole egg freezing instantly. It’s like she thinks she can postpone the child until her sister changes her mind.
And once Devon threw his hat into the ring, Leela spazzed out a bit more. In her defense, it would feel weird for her boyfriend to father her twin sister’s child. It’s already confusing enough that her sister is using her egg.
But it’s easy to imagine that it’ll make Leela feel a certain way about the connection that her sister and boyfriend might have, and it could also make her feel insecure about her relationship with Devon if she focuses too much on the two of them wanting different things.
And it’s doubtful that Devon could contribute to the process and settle with only serving as an uncle to the child if that happened. We all know Devon better than that.
Through this process, it’s clear that Devon wants a family sooner rather than later, and it feels like he and Leela are headed toward a rough patch.
Not talking about it only keeps them suspended where they are; it doesn’t serve either of them. By the end of the hour, their conversations were already stilted.
Leela seemed shocked again when AJ showed up to offer his proposal to Padma; she even looked a bit disappointed because she thought Padma had settled on freezing the eggs instead.
Padma never got into the details about what she expected with parenthood. I imagine that her focus was on a child, but she didn’t seem deadset on raising the child alone if she didn’t have to do so.
I also imagine that she wouldn’t have asked someone she knew to be a sperm donor if she didn’t anticipate they’d want to be in the child’s life.
AJ’s proposal is well in line with what you’d expect from him on a good day, let alone one of the worst in his life after losing his mom.
It’s hard to envision Padma saying no to his suggestion. You would’ve thought that she anticipated something like that.
While this fertility storyline hasn’t exactly been the most compelling of the season and is often easy to push to the back of your mind until the series revisits it, converging with AJ’s in this way is unexpected but potentially compelling.
AJ is a man filled with so much love, and he hasn’t had anywhere to direct it since Mina’s departure. It’s been years for him, and he’s due to love someone.
He’d be an excellent father, one of the most doting ever, and there’s nothing like a loss that makes you reevaluate life, the impact you leave on others, and the legacy you leave behind.
AJ knows that there is nothing like the love between a parent and child because of Carol. It makes sense that he’d want the opportunity to spread that love, pour it into someone the same way Carol did to him, and pass down all the lessons and beautiful things that she did to him.
And he’d do it in a non-traditional way. Carol chose him, adopted and took him in as her own, and it was the best thing in the world for both of them.
And now, AJ can help Padma bring a life into the world, raise that baby, and create their own non-traditional modern family. It would be something beautiful, and hell, so would that baby!
The way that AJ has connected to Conrad via experiences and grief remains one of the season’s best arcs. He’s seen firsthand how lost Conrad has been after losing Nic and how having Gigi gives him a sense of purpose, fulfillment, and happiness.
It feels natural that he can apply that same outlook to his life, and it prompts him to want a child too. No one wants to be and feel alone, and AJ sure as hell doesn’t deserve that.
Carol was his world for so long as he devoted his time to spend every waking moment with her until her passing while denying her time was coming.
Thankfully, AJ had Conrad and that lovely aid to help him with Carol’s last days. He was desperate enough to keep reaching for last-ditch efforts to save her when he knew there was nothing deep down.
And Carol knew that Conrad could get through to AJ in a way that she couldn’t. Her scene with Conrad was beautiful, and the close bond they had was subtle but emotional.
You even felt Conrad’s loss when he stood there for a brief moment where Carol’s hospice bed used to be and thought about her.
But it was AJ who naturally had the most meaningful and impactful moments with Carol. He took the time with her that so many people never get, and he could spend her final days with her, talking and telling her how much he loved her and what she meant to him.
Padma, if it’s not too late. I would like to be your sperm donor … but there is a condition, now that I’m alone in the world, I realize I don’t like being alone, so if we’re going to do this, I don’t want to just be a donor. I gotta help you raise this kid. I want to be a father.
AJ
Hospice is such a difficult thing to do, and like AJ, I looked at the aid in awe of how well she handled Carol and her ability to talk AJ through everything and support his needs.
And she was able to help him track when Carol’s moments were nearing. The tip about how she’d mention wanting to go on a trip was gutwrenching when Carol started speaking about it. In the end, it’s a relief that Carol died peacefully in her sleep.
And my heart ached for AJ as he stood there the whole time as they moved her body and cleared out all the equipment, leaving a physical and emotional void where Carol used to be.
Some of Carol’s final words to him were suggestions that he starts living his life more and find people, a family, so starting one with Padma feels like a way to honor Carol.
We knew it would be a difficult hour with Carol’s arc coming to an end, and it was. But Malcolm-Jamal’s Warner made every single second of it worth watching, however painful it was.
They’ve done wonders by giving him a heavy-hitting arc to show off all of his range.
Over to you, Resident Fanatics.
Will Padma agree to AJ’s proposal? Are you going to miss Carol? Sound off below.
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Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.