‘The Resident’ EP Addresses Emily VanCamp’s ‘Powerful’ Return


Emily VanCamp
FOX/Nathan Bolster

Finding closure. After Emily VanCamp‘s shocking departure from The Resident, the show’s executive producer Andrew Chapman opened up about her character’s necessary return in the season 5 finale.

“Because so much of the season thematically had been about grief and loss and coming to terms with mortality and how Conrad [Matt Czuchry] is moving on from his relationship with her and the time jump and being a single dad with Gigi, it felt like the right thing to do,” Chapman explained during an interview with ET CanadaTuesday, May 17. “We reached out to her and she was super excited to come back. She had not had a chance to say goodbye to everybody on the show, the crew, all the other actors.”

The EP noted that the season finale allowed the show to wrap up Nic’s story line. “The beginning of the season, we knew that we were going to lose Emily in this season, but we didn’t know when we were going to lose her. We lost her in episode 3 and we really had to scramble, and it didn’t give us the closure of the relationship that we had wanted,” he shared. “We thought we were going to have her for a couple more episodes and it wasn’t anybody’s fault. We understood that she had a medical problem and had to deal with it. But we really didn’t get to close the loop with her, so to speak.”

In August 2021, VanCamp, 36, announced that she would be leaving the show after four seasons. Season 5’s second episode featured Nic in a car accident, which left her with a brain injury. This ultimately cost her her life.

The Resident Executive Producer Breaks Down Emily VanCamp Season 5 Finale

Emily VanCamp
Broadimage/Shutterstock

The following was at the time: Captain America Civil WarStar addressed her decision to leave the series after having a child with her husband. Josh Bowman. “I spent so many years on network television, but then suddenly priorities shifted,” VanCamp told Deadline in October 2021, two months after announcing the birth of daughter Iris. “I think there comes a moment in every woman’s life — in every person’s life — where it becomes less about work and more about family, and that’s what happened while I was making the show. Doing that many episodes in a different city and then you add COVID to that, most of us couldn’t see our families for almost a year. It really solidified for me that family is where my heart is at the moment.”

The Everwood alum’s return to the series introduced a flashback where Nic tells her husband, Conrad, to move on if she dies before him. The conversation took place as Conrad, a widower, was involved in a romance triangle with Billie.Jessica Lucas) and Cade (Kaley Ronayne).

The Resident Executive Producer Breaks Down Emily VanCamp Season 5 Finale 2

Matt Czuchry, Emily VanCamp
FOX/Nathan Bolster

“We wanted to see Conrad finally put that relationship in its proper perspective. Honor the relationship and also set it aside so he can move on with his life,” Chapman added on Tuesday. “And Matt Czuchry, the actor who plays Conrad, was adamant as were we that he could move on with his life at the end of the season, but he wasn’t going to make a choice about who he might move on with.”

VanCamp’s return on set helped everyone to say goodbye to her and her character.

“I think it was really moving for everybody. It was moving and moving for everyone. Because like I said, Emily never had a chance to say goodbye to all the people that she’d worked with for all these years,” Chapman concluded. “She was torn away from the show in an untimely way. It was her last chance to say goodbye. The scene shows the power of the woman. You feel it.”

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