A blackout at Chastain Memorial Hospital requires the staff to treat their patients without the help of any technology. Bell orders the staff to stop accepting new patients and transfer those on life support, but when a child in need is rushed to the ER, Conrad and Devon go against the mandate. Mina and Austin are tasked with performing heart surgery on a premature baby, despite the lack of power. Nic works tirelessly to organize the staff and patients who stay during the blackout.
In 2018, it has become very difficult to keep up with every television show out there. It's even more difficult to provide adequate coverage on this site about the episodes that air every week. Not every show can get full coverage because of my busy and hectic viewing schedule. As such, some reviews will now be condensed to give only some summary thoughts. But it also affords a space for me to jot down my thoughts on the various episodes. And so, here are my thoughts on this week's episode of FOX's The Resident.
"00:42:30" was written by Todd Harthan & Elizabeth Klaviter and directed by Rob Corn
The second season premiere of The Resident is mostly focused on a high-stakes disaster. It's a way to get the audience's adrenaline pumping without also having to introduce a bunch of the new stories for the season. Sure, that will more than likely be delegated to next week's episode. But this way also affords the show to get off to a strong and intense start. This is a compelling episode because it's mostly focusing on the doctors as they adjust to this horrible and sudden change to their ability to practice medicine. Sure, it makes it seem like Austin has superpowers in being able to tell the precise moment that the backup generator will run out of steam and when the system will officially come back online. He is able to predict it right down to the last seconds. That seems way too good to be true. It does a nice job in setting a time frame for the audience to be worried about with these cases. It just feels a little too neat - with him also being able to save the life of this premature baby whose heart he and Mina are working on. Of course, it's still very emotional watching the twins hold each other when they are placed in the same incubator. It's also just so rewarding to know that there are no major deaths that occur here. Yes, there is high reason to be concerned. Every member of this family with the babies has the potential of dying. But the doctors manage to save all of them. That's impressive. Meanwhile, Conrad still is very assertive and forceful. His opinion continues to be played as the right call to make in any given situation. The other characters keep telling him that his luck is going to run out one of these days. That day has yet to occur though. Things have actually gotten better for him considering he and Nic are back together. Plus, he didn't make a mistake in bringing in this trauma where a young boy wouldn't have made it to another hospital. He created a makeshift operating room that proved to be quite effective. However, his decision to cut first also seems prime to be the action that could lead to more trouble for him. Bell still has a vendetta against him and will continue to pursue that even though Conrad and Nic are the reasons why the hospital was able to figure out what was going on. It turned out to be a patient who launched this cyber attack. That was the twist that could have potentially made this story too complicated. It was perfectly reasonable to expect that this power outrage was just from the storm. It being a hack for ransom could have taken too much story away from the other plots without having the substance for the show to explore that side of things in a meaningful way. In the end, it still feels like a story that just barely glazes the surface of this real fear in the medical community. But it still amounts to things coming to a neat and simple conclusion by the end of premiere. That means things can get back to exploring the characters' personal lives next week - especially when it comes to the ongoing relationships between Conrad & Nic and Mina & Micah.
