This week’s episode of Fox’s The Resident featured the departure of beloved character and surgeon Mina Okafor. Chastain Park Memorial Hospital won’t be the same without Mina, or actress Shaunette Reneé Wilson, and executive producer Andrew Chapman is revealing how the series, mostly the characters, will move forward.
After Mina was getting ready to testify against Dr. Cain about his medical malpractice, he conspired to get Mina deported, putting her entire medical career in jeopardy. Mina ultimately chose to go back to Nigeria voluntarily, and it was planned that AJ would be joining her, but he stayed back in Atlanta after learning his mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Andrew Chapman spoke to TVLine about what this could mean for AJ, especially when it comes to Cain:
AJ does not forgive Cain and is still angry at him, even when dealing with the heartbreak of what’s going on with his mom. Especially in our last episode, you’ll see the pain that AJ battles is going to boil and boil and boil, and, in our season finale, comes to a head, and it’s just great. I’m not going to give it away, but he’s dealing with the loss of the love of his life, he’s dealing with his mom being sick, and now in the last couple episodes, he has to deal with the fact that here’s this guy who he blames for a huge amount of his problems. They have to come to some kind of understanding, or one of them absolutely has to leave. That’s what we’re playing right up to the end. And honestly? It’s awesome.
Seeing the dynamic between AJ and Cain moving forward will be interesting. Now that Cain is officially back at Chastain after recovering from his accident and easing back into the operating room, and AJ staying behind for his mother, these two will be having it out for each other. With Cain as an on/off villain in the series, sometimes you don’t know whose side he’s on. At this point in time, he is not one of the good guys. But Andrew Chapman praises the actors for going above and beyond in all of their scenes together:
Not to toot our own horns, but Malcolm [Jamal Warner] is a great actor, Morris Chestnut is a great actor, and they just dove into it. Every scene that they have together is electric. You’re like, ‘Holy mackerel, and you just want to see more of it, see more of it, see more of it.
Besides the lingering emptiness at Chastain over Mina’s departure, the hospital will be in the direct path of a tornado coming up next week on The Resident, and it will cause some major damages. New episodes of The Resident air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox!
