How Should ‘The Resident’ Handle Morris Chestnut’s Availability in Season 5? (POLL)

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to Morris Chestnut this fall on Fox on Tuesdays. We might not see as much of him as Dr. Barrett Cain on The Resident as we’d like, but we will see him following the medical drama on the new series Our Kind of People (on which he is a series regular).

The Resident has already built in a potential exit for Cain: In the Season 4 finale, he received a job offer at Johns Hopkins. “Interestingly, we didn’t know about the Lee Daniels show when we made this decision,” co-showrunner and executive producer Peter Elkoff told TV Insider. “We just liked the idea that he’s going to make a decision to stay or go and we’ll use him as we can and as the story fits. It turned out to be a really good decision that we made that we left it open-ended since we are not going to be able to have him for every episode. You will see him, but not in an episode after episode way.”

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But should Cain stay (and just be offscreen when Chestnut isn’t available)? Or should he leave and occasionally drop in? We examine the possibilities below — we need to have him around in some capacity! — then invite you to vote in a poll.

Cain Stays at Chastain

Just because we won’t see Cain in every episode doesn’t mean he can’t still “be” at Chastain all the time. It is quite easy to say he’s just in surgery or busy elsewhere and simply not show him. He can even have Dr. Billie Sutton (Jessica Lucas) step in for him because he’s busy elsewhere. After all, he may have been somewhat redeemed, but he’s still Cain. (“He still might leave the hospital that put up with all his stuff,” Elkoff pointed out.)

So just because he came back to the hospital to operate on Dr. AJ Austin’s (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) mother, something from which he wouldn’t gain anything, doesn’t mean he’d make himself readily available all the time moving forward.

Guy D’Alema/FOX

Cain Takes the Job & Leaves

The easiest route would probably be to have Cain take the job and leave behind Chastain, at least at first. It’s easy to imagine scenarios that lead him to drop by from time to time and perhaps need to have Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves) grant him privileges to work at the hospital. And then who knows, maybe depending on Chestnut’s schedule, Cain could return to Chastain at some point during the season.

How do you want The Resident to handle Chestnut’s availability in Season 5? Vote in the poll below.

The Resident, Season 5, Fall 2021, Fox