Why has The Resident opted for a time jump in Season 5?
The Resident opted for a time jump in Season 5. We’ll pick up years after Nic’s death in Episode 6, but why has this happened?
With the casting announcements, the time jump on The Resident Season 5 wasn’t really the best kept secret. At the end of the Halloween episode, Conrad walked into nine-month-old Gigi’s bedroom to show us that she’s now around four years old and is ready to head out trick or treating as an astronaut.
The time jump will be disappointing to some. It will also be a surprise to many (except for the casting announcement giving it away). But it all brings up one question for everyone. Why would the show decide to jump ahead a few years?
The Resident doesn’t want to do prolonged grief
The time jump is for one reason only. It’s all about grief.
If the show remained in real time, we’d see Conrad grieving for the majority of the season. In fact, we’d probably see him grieving for the whole season.
While yes, this is realistic, it’s not always what we want to see. We know just how amazing an actor Matt Czuchry is. We’ve seen him show his grief already, so we know that he’d be able to hold it for the full season. But do we need it?
I’m actually glad the show is jumping forward. Prolonged grief would be hard on Czuchry. It would also be hard on us as viewers. And we’ve had some difficult storylines across all our shows lately with the COVID storylines being written in.
So, the time jump gives us a chance to get out of that grieving space. There probably won’t be any flashbacks based on an interview between Entertainment Tonight and Peter Elkoff, but we will get to find out what’s happened in those three years that have passed.
From the promo, we can see a lot has changed. Conrad is no longer a doctor at the hospital, and that’s probably the biggest change that has us questioning a lot. Why did Conrad leave, and why is he coming back to the hospital now?
The time jump also helps to shake things up a bit. We’ve seen other shows do it, such as One Tree Hill and Riverdale. They certainly did shake a lot up, so it’s going to be exciting to see what happened in three years for our favorite characters.
MORE: Why did Emily VanCamp leave The Resident?
What do you think of The Resident doing a time jump? What do you hope to see during the episodes? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The Resident airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on FOX in the U.S. and on CTV in Canada.
