Spoilers ahead for the 100th episode of The Resident, called “For Better or Worse.”
The Resident has officially hit a milestone that many TV shows don’t even get close to: 100 episodes. The show survived everything from the departure of the leading lady to COVID creating production challenges, and “For Better or Worse” was a celebration of what has made the show last so long with some very high stakes. Between a little girl in need of a liver, Kit struggling to find funding for Chastain, and the clock running down before the wedding with Bell still stuck in surgery, there was a lot to go wrong. By the end, however, The Resident surprised me in some good ways. The ending was… happy!
Maybe I’ve watched too many medical dramas (and one even recently kind of called me out for it), but with all of the dangling plot threads through most of the hour, I was expecting at least one of them to end in tragedy. Even when all was peaceful in the final moments of “For Better or Worse,” part of me expected something bad to happen at the last second to create all kinds of complications for Episode 101 and beyond. So, what were all of the dangling threads with potentially disastrous resolutions, that still mostly ended okay?
Kit And Bell Were Being Pulled Away From Their Own Wedding
If one thing is true of television as a whole, it’s that weddings rarely go off without a hitch, and The Resident didn’t even let Kit and Bell get through their rehearsal before she had to take a call from the governor’s office and he had to go back to Chastain with Conrad to try and treat the daughter of a potential donor. Throw in some lost luggage, a surgery with potentially deadly complications, and the hours ticking away, and it seemed that the most the happy couple could hope for was a few people staying late in the night.
But the nuptials happened, and almost everybody who planned to attend made it! Cade decided to skip the wedding so that she could be there for a young patient who would need her when she woke up, but everybody else was on hand and full of smiles as Kit and Bell walked down the aisle together, with Jake on hand to officiate his former stepdad’s wedding (and sing a lovely rendition of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” at the reception). The crises were not entirely averted, but the wedding prevailed!
The Critical Patients Both Survived
The medical stakes of “For Better or Worse” were high enough when the only person whose life was in danger was a young girl who could only communicate via sign language; the situation grew even more dire when young Max’s mom Tracy learned that she couldn’t safely donate a lobe of her liver because of a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Max had no hope of getting a UNOS liver in time, so – against his better judgment – AJ agreed to extract the lobe with Sullivan planning to do the transplant.
And between Tracy running into a heart crisis with no time left to crack her chest and Sullivan injecting himself with drugs before the surgery (and spiraling because of it), I really thought that either mother or daughter was doomed. But Bell pulled off a save via Tracy’s abdomen that had AJ in awe, and Leela was on hand to help save Max’s life. They both lived, and I’m not saying that I cried when Max woke up and said “thank you” after Cade gave her the good news, but it got a little dusty in my living room.
Chastain Might Get Its Funding
Some possible good news may have come from the near-deaths of Tracy and Max: thanks to the tireless work of the Chastain doctors, both mother and daughter survived… and Tracy has more reasons than ever to donate money to the hospital. That’s not necessarily enough to save them from becoming – to quote Kit – a “third-rate hospital” in light of the state’s budget cuts, but it sure would help!
And even Kit made some progress, even though she still hasn’t been able to meet with the governor. After getting the runaround from his office, she took the issue to Twitter, and then to local news with some help from the adorable Sammie, who came on camera to share her story of how Chastain saved her. It was enough that Kit will at least get her meeting with the governor, which is a lot more than she had at the beginning of the episode!
Billie And Conrad Had A Sweet Moment… With No Lines Crossed
Although Conrad and Billie were apart for most of the 100th episode, she spent the day helping Gigi find a replacement flower girl dress after Conrad was called back to Chastain. While his relationship with Cade is seemingly still going strong and pretty sweet on the whole, he realized at the wedding reception that he doesn’t thank Billie enough for what she does for him and Gigi. As they danced, she said that it was nothing because she loves both of them, and the two doctors got a whole lot cozier with each other.
And as much as I’ve generally been Team Billie since last season, I had a few moments of dread that one of them would cross a line and turn the background love triangle into a real problem. Conrad is with Cade, and they truly care about each other. If anything happens with Billie, it should be when neither of them are attached to anybody else. Fortunately, it turned out to just be a sweet friendship moment between them, even if there are some unspoken feelings.
Basically, with the exception of Sullivan escalating his drug use to stealing injectable painkillers before going into surgery, “For Better or Worse” was a celebration of The Resident characters. Nic even got a mention, which felt right – after all, Emily VanCamp’s character was part of the winning recipe of the medical drama for years, and her guest appearance in the Season 5 finale was a poignant way to set the stage for Season 6.
Keep tuning in to The Resident on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox to see what the show has in store after the 100th episode, and revisit past episodes streaming with a Hulu subscription.
