‘The Resident’: What Do You Think of Conrad’s Potential New Love Interest? (POLL)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Resident Season 5 Episode 8 “Old Dog, New Tricks.”]

It’s only been about a handful of episodes, but three years in show time since Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) lost his wife, nurse practitioner Nic Nevin (Emily VanCamp), on The Resident. Is it time for him to start dating again? That’s the question in the latest episode.

While dropping GiGi off at pre-school at the hospital, a nurse, Amber (Julie Slack), approaches Conrad and is not at all subtle in her interest. “It is so great to have you back, Dr. Hawkins. Should I call you Conrad, now that our kids are friends?” He allows it, but the expression on his face as they part ways… (watch the clip below). Amber doesn’t let up later, but fortunately, Nurse Hundley (Denitra Isler) helps him escape.

Amber is far from the only one obviously interested in Conrad. Another nurse, Valerie, stops by with cookies for GiGi … and her father. She offers to take GiGi to the break room. “You can pick her up any time, and stay as long as you want,” Valerie tells Conrad. As Hundley puts it, “it’s like when they put chum in the water to attract sharks… the nurses are swiping right on you.”

But “I’m not ready for it. It’s uncomfortable,” Conrad admits to Dr. Billie Sutton (Jessica Lucas), Nic’s best friend. “There’s no rush,” she assures him. “But it’s been a few years, you’re allowed, if you want… Nic wouldn’t want you to be alone forever, for your sake and for GiGi’s. You deserve to be happy.”

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As it turns out, he may not be opposed to Marion (Ana Mackenzie), who works in the hospital’s daycare and actually cares about GiGi as a person versus as a means to an end (with the end being Conrad). When she catches up to him, GiGi, and Billie at the end of the day, Marion has a toy stethoscope for his daughter since she’d said she wants to be a nurse when she grows up. After she leaves, Conrad turns to Billie and asks, “What you said earlier, you think I really could?”

Realizing he means with Marion, she encourages him to “go for it.” And as he and GiGi catch up to Marion to invite her to join them for ice cream, Billie watches them. But what does the expression on her face (below) mean? Is she wishing she was with Conrad and GiGi, that Nic was there with them, or that she’d had that time with her own son, Trevor (Miles Fowler), whom she gave up, as a kid?

FOX

Conrad moving on isn’t too surprising, given how much time has passed for him, even if, for the audience, Nic just died. Plus, as executive producer Andrew Chapman told TV Insider (albeit after her death and before we knew about the time jump), one of the questions for Conrad moving forward was, “Does he ever have another relationship? Obviously, he needs time to recover, but who knows somewhere out in the far, far distance, there may be other people.” It seems we may have reached that “far, far distance.”

What do you think? Vote in our poll below.

The Resident, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox