The Resident Review: From the Ashes (Season 3 Episode 1)

Pass the tissues and the margaritas. 

The Resident Season 3 Episode 1, “From the Ashes,” makes us thirsty after all the tears! 

The Season 3 premiere proves in its first thirty seconds that The Resident is not messing around.

The stakes of greed are life and death in reality. So too, at Chastain, there are real consequences to medical malfeasance. 

The mistakes and arrogance that took Nic’s mother have now taken her sister.

But Nic’s central storyline isn’t about getting to the truth or getting justice as her father wants. The story is Nic’s grief. 

The choice to wrap the entire episode in the grief storyline makes it a five-star debut.

All the internal storylines support the central conflict of Nic coming to terms with her sister’s death, which we see at the very beginning of the episode and at the very close of the episode. 

This structure allows each second of the episode, even meeting Cain, relate back to the core theme of the show: the human costs to profit-seeking hospitals are too great to be sustained. 

Nic is the perfect character to take us on this journey. We have spent two full seasons getting to know her heart for patients and her family’s past. 

The tender moments between her and Jessica in the flower field slice to the core. It is a beautiful, complicated, incomplete relationship that should have had more time. 

Because of the well-developed backstory, the grief Nic goes through feels intimate and it reaches across the barrier of the screen to directly impact the audience. 

I cry buckets. 

Mina and Conrad each help Nic to see a way forward after her loss. They never judge her or dismiss her grief.

Mina holds up a mirror to remind Nic who she is and how her patients are, in a way, her family too. Conrad knows Nic so well and loves her so well, that he knows she needs to hear from Mina, not him. 

Then, when Conrad is injured, Nic realizes that she has a life with him that is worth living, right now. 

The CoNic scenes on “From the Ashes,” are so tender, loving, and warm, I take back anything I’ve ever said about shipping them with other people. 

Unless it’s a hook up in a flashback scene, I don’t want to see either of them with anyone else, ever. 

Them being together and on the same page doesn’t mean there isn’t room for conflict and growth in their relationship. 

From the episode, we get hints that Conrad can not be vulnerable. The time will come where he is completely reliant on others, and it is going to be painful.

This can be a source of tension in their marriage. Oh, oops, sorry. I mean their relationship. 

Nic has lost so much. It seems like there is never a time when things are fine. So, it is natural and expected that she is going to have a hard time trusting when the times are good. She is going to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Her hesitancy to commit to what Conrad wants, even though she loves him and wants what he wants, is an indicator that this internal conflict is already happening. 

People who have gone through the amount of loss and trauma that Nic has often have the most trouble during times of peace. They may even create hardship and argument where there is none, because of their deeply rooted fear that something is about to go wrong. 

They don’t trust in their own happiness; Nic’s happiness scares her. 

The exploration of this part of grief is very subtle and that makes it more powerful. The series has grown a great deal since Season 1 in crafting nuance and using tools other than dialogue to characterize. 

Mina is my favorite character on the show to watch and the pairing of Mina and Nic is always fantastic. 

Shaunette Renee Wilson adds a complexity and richness to Dr. Okafor that makes her endlessly mysterious. I never quite know what to expect, or what she’s thinking, even though she is super blunt. 

When Mina says she’s worried about you, you know that it is sincere and there is a force behind the worry. It actually rocks Nic out of her defensiveness and allows her to dislodge some of her pain. 

The directing on the episode is very nice as it advantageously uses the height difference between the two actors to allow us to see their faces one at a time and up close. 

I feel like I’m being hugged, watching their scenes. And I think we all need the hugs while watching the episode! 

The B plot on the episode has just as perfect a landing as Nic’s story. 

Dr. Bell’s nature is non-monogamous. 

He is attracted to, flirts with, and is sometimes in bed with his mercenary nature, represented by Dr. Cain. At the same time, he is attracted to, flirts with, is in love with, and would really like to spend a lifetime in bed with Dr. Kitt Voss, who represents his righteous and heroic nature. 

What I absolutely love about this show and “From the Ashes,” specifically is that this is not a binary difference. It is not black and white, good and evil. It is grey AF. 

Sure, yes, Dr. Voss is obviously a good person who we adore and root for. However, a doctor who bills more will keep the office open. There could even be more opportunities for free clinics with that type of billing. 

But, THEN AGAIN, with the type of billing Dr. Cain has, there is no question that there are people harmed by the way he gets there. 

On the other hand, other hospitals are doing the same thing and if Chastain is to stay afloat it has to play the game, right?

DR. BELL: We’ll deal with it to survive.

And, at the end of the day, does it matter at all if a person is in it for the “right reasons,” if the end result is the same? 

Oof. It. Is. Complicated. 

This is the show I am invested in watching! It provokes tough questions and critical thinking about our healthcare that extends far beyond one doctor’s ego. 

A minor beat on the episode captures this dilemma well. The distressed mom of the infant with RSV cries out, “what did I do?!” No one answers her. 

The Resident lets that desperate question, born of guilt, pain, and impossible choices, hang in the air. 

This question is asked of all of us, I think. What did I do with my set of circumstances?

It’s a sneakily difficult question to face. 

Dr. Voss is not ambivalent. Neither, it seems is Dr. Cain.

It is Dr. Bell’s nonmonogamy that is going to guide us through the moral questions of the season. I for one am prepped and scrubbed in for Operation Bell.

I’d call dibs on Eloise over Cain any day.

She is my favorite new character on The Resident and she adds some needed gender balance to the resident level doctor staff.

Importantly, as a woman with a chronic illness recovering from triple transplant surgery, she also provides disability representation. 

Those are what we call BIG ASS pills.

Elosie showcases some of the daily steps she has to take but the episode is not inspiration porn. Instead, the new doctor uses her own voice to explain that her experiences with an immune deficiency disease have prepared her to be an excellent doctor. 

Her knowledge is expansive and she is able to care for patients at a level far above her year because of her disability. 

She then recenters her lived experiences exactly where they should be, on her. 

She makes the choices about her body and her care, just like all the other people working at Chastain. It is not Feldman’s decision about her health. 

Eloise is absolutely right to be upset at Feldman’s crappy patronizing. I am so glad to hear her articulate why. 

Devon, to his credit, is an open-minded listener who seems to grow from what Eloise shares. 

ELOISE: But I want to live, and that means risk. 

I’m looking forward to more enlightening and boundary-pushing content from Eloise. 

My messy face at the end of the episode matches the complicated and murky morality that “From the Ashes,” portrays.

In the muck and mire is where The Resident star shines brightest. If Season 3 keeps up the masterful storytelling of this premiere, we are in for an award-worthy journey.

Doctors Notes

• Mina’s Red Rum take on Red Rock might be my favorite thing on the episode. That is saying a lot considering I use all the tissues. 
• The Raptor exclaiming, “I love this game! Wonder Twins do it again!” is so rude. And yet, it is so adorable. Rude cute is kind of his brand. 
• As a mother of two curious boys, what Jonah does is my literal nightmare. 
• Old Town Road in brain surgery is pretty funny. I am hoping it might be a little hint that Dr. Cain is gay. 
• I think “From the Ashes” refers to two things. One, the flowers blooming from the ashes Nic spreads on the field. Fresh life from death. Two, the more profit-centric Bell that comes from the poor investment part of the hospital burning down. Opportunity from loss. 

 

What did you think of this episode of The Resident? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Resident airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on Fox.

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