Never really gone. Emily VanCamp may have bid her final farewell to The Resident, but the Fox drama wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Nic Nevins.
During the midseason premiere — which aired on Tuesday, February 1 — Conrad (Matt Czuchry) was reunited with his late wife (VanCamp) in an emotional way when he encountered a young woman who was given Nic’s heart in a transplant. Complications arose from the operation, but in the end, the patient’s life was saved. At the end of the episode, Conrad and his daughter listen to Nic’s heartbeat.
Nic and Conrad finally got married and welcomed their baby girl, Georgina, at the end of season 4. When season 5 returned in September 2021, there was a nine-month jump into the future and Nic was involved in a nasty car accident that left her brain dead.
One month before the premiere of season 5, it was announced that VanCamp was leaving the series, on which she’d had a starring role since its 2018 debut. The Revenge alum later addressed her exit, telling Deadline in October 2021 that her “priorities shifted” following the birth of her daughter with husband Josh Bowman.
“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,” the Everwood alum explained. “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.”
VanCamp acknowledged that deciding to step down from The Resident was a “bittersweet moment,” but reassured viewers that there was no bad blood between her and the team behind the scenes.
“I loved doing The Resident so much for the four years I was on it,” she told the outlet. “Oftentimes you hear about someone exiting a show because something bad had happened or there was some bad blood. But in this case, it’s the exact opposite. There’s nothing but love and respect between all of us and this decision was not an easy one for anybody. But it was the right one for me, personally. I’m grateful that I was met with understanding and compassion.”
The actress’ onscreen husband was one of the first to learn that she was planning to leave, Czuchry told TVLine last fall. “I was completely supportive of that and had been, of her, from the beginning, in terms of our partnership and relationship on the show and also as friends,” the Gilmore Girls alum added.
Following Tuesday’s episode, cocreator Amy Holden Jones told Entertainment Tonight that fans are in for a “great season” despite the “painful loss” of Nic.
“It opened up the door to some very big themes: grief, recovery, loss, persistence of love, haunting by the past,” the screenwriter explained. “I think we made lemonade out of lemons, to be honest. We’re proud of the season and excited about where it’s going. … This is an episode in which Nic becomes present for [Conrad] in a certain way, in a real way, in hearing her heart. And it reignites the question in the back and forth, which continues through the season of, ‘Can I move on or not? And do I want to move on?'”
The Resident season 5 airs on Fox Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
