‘The Resident’: Will Dr. Cain’s Hubris Be His Downfall? (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 4, Episode 3 of The Resident, “The Accidental Patient.”]
Dr. Barrett Cain (Morris Chestnut) must put his life in the hands of those he’s alienated in the January 26 episode of The Resident.
After pulling over to save a woman from a burning car, Cain then notices a man filming the whole thing. When he steps out into the street to warn the bystander to stay back, the neurosurgeon is hit by the ambulance arriving on scene. That doesn’t stop him from trying to take over his own treatment, self-diagnosing and ordering Drs. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) and AJ Austin (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) to get him to CT when he realizes something’s wrong with his arm.
He’ll need surgery if he wants to operate again, they determine, but even with the best orthopedic surgeon, it’s tricky. Fortunately, the best works at Chastain (Jane Leeves’ Dr. Kit Voss). Unfortunately, Cain knows she’s not his biggest fan, considering he nearly killed her son-in-law.
But Kit is a professional. “The sooner we operate, the better chance you have to restore your hand function” and save his surgical career, she tells him. When they discover a problem with his heart, however, that takes priority.
While treating him, AJ takes the opportunity to recall when he heard Cain was coming to Chastain. “I had hoped for a colleague, a comrade, but brother, you have managed to alienate every single doctor I this hospital and even still … that hope I felt is still very much alive,” he tells the other doctor. “Traumatic events like this can have a profound impact on one’s constitution. So maybe you come out on the other side of this surgical gifts intact but a different outlook on life.”
Maybe with another person, that would happen, but it doesn’t sound like a redemption like Dr. Bell’s (Bruce Greenwood) is in store for Cain, not with his focus on finding out who’s testifying against him even as he’s about to go into surgery. (Unbeknownst to him, it was Mina, played by Shaunette Renée Wilson, who informed a patient’s loved one a surgery had been elective; that patient then contracted COVID and faced complications.)
(Guy D’Alema/FOX)
Then Cain’s own words come back to bite him. He may have wanted his surgical residents to observe Kit given his history with the orthopedic surgeon, but that may very well be his downfall. When Kit’s late, the residents decide to start operating on Cain on their own, as he encourages them to do with his patients … and by the time she walks in, they’ve messed up.
The residents went too deep, and Kit must call in AJ for an assist. The surgery on his hand must wait until he stabilizes, which leaves his future as a surgeon in question. After all, Kit said they needed to do it ASAP.
While AJ does suggest it’s a matter of “if” not “when” he wakes up, we think Cain will be back — and eventually operating — sooner rather than later. But how will this affect him? Will he have a “different outlook on life” like AJ suggested? Or will he be more Cain-ish than ever? Will this change how he treats his residents? Chances are he won’t be so eager to let them start operating without him. (We also wouldn’t be surprised if those two residents are never seen again.)
Elsewhere in the episode, Mina and AJ set ground rules for their relationship at work and she tells Nic (Emily VanCamp) the happy news (but doesn’t share many details). And speaking of Nic, she doesn’t feel different so she insists she and Conrad get a blood test in hopes it will confirm her pregnancy. (It does.)
The Resident, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox
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