‘The Resident’: A Doctor Has a Major Decision to Make (RECAP)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Resident Season 5, Episode 17 “The Space Between.”]

Give it a couple decades, but Chastain may have another Dr. Hawkins on its staff in the future. In the latest episode of The Resident, Gigi (Remington Blaire Evans) turns to her father, Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry), to help her sick friend — and is key to him diagnosing him.

Also in “The Space Between,” Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal) takes the interns to a senior living home, where Dr. Kit Voss (Jane Leeves) introduces Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood) to one of her medical heroes … only for his wife to end up a patient at Chastain. Plus, Dr. Leela Devi (Anuja Joshi) discovers something about the sperm bank her twin, Padma (Aneesha Joshi), plans to use. Chastain feels very much like a teaching hospital in this episode.

Paging Dr. Hawkins … and Dr. Hawkins?

Gigi’s worried about her friend, Peter (Henry Charnaux), who has been having stomachaches much longer than he’s shared with his father, Spencer (Charlie Bodin), she reveals. After his mom left them, he’s been worried about Spencer leaving, too, the dad shares with Conrad. He feels safe at Chastain in preschool because Spencer works in IT. It’s also Gigi who alerts them to Peter’s double vision.

Conrad brings Dr. Billie Sutton (Jessica Lucas) to consult, worried there could be a neurological cause. There’s no evidence of a stroke or a bleed, but Peter’s brain is swelling. She’ll need to perform a craniectomy to relieve the pressure if it worsens, she warns, but Spencer wants to make sure that’s a last resort. Conrad, personally invested since Gigi expects him to fix her friend and he promised he would, tries to delay that possibility as long as possible. (He doesn’t want her to lose her best friend after losing her mom.)

Tom Griscom/FOX

But it’s not until another talk with Gigi that Conrad figures out what’s wrong with her friend — just as Billie’s about to begin operating: urea cycle disorder, a genetic enzyme deficiency that makes it hard to break down protein. Peter got sick that morning after sharing his father’s protein shake, and he’s been eating roast beef since his mom left.

Love & Tragedy

As Devon tells the interns, it’s at the senior living facility that they’ll be treating one of the most challenging patient populations and tackling complex medical cases. Zach (Alan Aisenberg) is frustrated (“We got played”), until he becomes personally invested in the patient they bring to Chastain.

Kit introduces Bell to Dr. Arthur Kravitz (George Wyner), one of her healthcare heroes, who has early mild cognitive impairment. He remembers people and events from the past, but his short-term memory is going. And so while he can tell the interns about past patients and try to inspire them to go into geriatrics, he can’t remember all of the medications his wife, Gloria (Vicki Lawrence), is on. “She not only has my heart, she is now my head,” he says of her. “In every way, she takes care of me.” Watching them, Kit can’t help but wonder, “Do you think we’ll still be that in love when we’re their age?” Bell asks, “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Tom Griscom/FOX

After Gloria collapses, they bring her to the ER, where Devon and Zach (reluctantly, at first) begin going through all her medications. Since she could be suffering from side effects due to the drugs’ interactions, they plan to take her off the ones she doesn’t need and monitor her. But it gets to the point that surgery is her only, very risky option. Gloria is more worried about Arthur than herself, she admits to Bell. “Do you know what it’s like to find the love of your life this late in the game?” she asks. “Actually, I do,” Bell tells her. (We really love how The Resident is handling Kit and Bell’s relationship this season.)

Things go south in the OR — even with Dr. AJ Austin (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) arriving to assist, and Devon and Zach realize Gloria has whipple disease too late: She dies on the table, and Kit comforts her husband. If she’d been diagnosed and treated properly or got to them sooner, maybe they could’ve done something. And with that, Zach has seen the bigger picture, just like Kravitz told the interns to, and maybe he’ll be reconsidering his career path.

Preparing for the Future

Padma decides to just go with her gut and chooses “The Right Stuff” to be her sperm donor, after only reading his bio. But Leela digs into the sperm bank and discovers lawsuits claiming that donors have misrepresented themselves (not disclosing a history of schizophrenia, hiding a criminal record, and claiming college degrees when they’re really dropouts). To make sure her sister is aware of the risks, she has Dr. Nolan (Michael Hogan) tell Padma the truth about what he’s listed on his own sperm donor profile.

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That works, but Padma reconsiders her choice. However, she does come up with a solution. Later on the same day that she’s told AJ about her plans to be a mother, she says that finding out Nolan was a sperm donor put the fear of God in her, so with Leela’s eggs being retrieved in two weeks, she’s decided to find a volunteer she trusts and cares about. “I had a crazy idea. You and I are good friends now that we aren’t lovers, and I wouldn’t mind a kid a lot like you,” Padma tells AJ. “You can do worse,” he agrees. “So what if I did? Have a kid just like you?” she asks, surprising him and giving him something to think about.

The Resident, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox