The Resident Season 1 finale: No, Dr. Bell hasn’t turned over a new leaf

The Resident concluded a strong first season on Monday night with Dr. Randolph Bell appearing to turn over a new leaf. But don’t expect that the show’s biggest villain has suddenly become a good guy.

In medical speak, Fox’s The Resident has just completed its intern year. And what an intern year it was.

Beware: spoilers follow.

In Monday’s Season 1 finale, we saw Big Bad Dr. Lane Hunter brought down by none other than her new boyfriend Dr. Randolph Bell, who called the FBI to catch her in the act of destroying files that would have confirmed she was overtreating cancer patients — or administering chemotherapy to patients who didn’t even have cancer to begin with.

We began this season thinking that Dr. Bell, the aging surgeon literally killing patients during surgery with his rapidly declining health, was going to be the season’s main antagonist — and he’s certainly still the main foil to our main character, Dr. Conrad Hawkins.

But over the course of the season, Dr. Hunter — who was already nurse Nic Nevin’s biggest adversary — proved to be the biggest baddie of the season, directly leading to the death of beloved patient Lily Kendall by administering too much potassium during her treatment. She also framed Nic for breaking and entering in Dr. Hunter’s clinic — a felony, as Nic dramatically notes during a jail visit from Conrad.

To complicate matters, Dr. Bell and Dr. Hunter struck up a romantic relationship late in the season after Dr. Hunter helped Dr. Bell co-opt the Chastain Park Memorial Hospital CEO position. At first, it seemed to be a genuine love connection between the two, but after tonight’s finale, it’s obvious in retrospect that Dr. Bell was using Dr. Hunter to advance his own aims.

And while tipping off the FBI to catch Dr. Hunter removing her incriminating medical records at her clinic might suggest that Dr. Bell, by doing the right thing, was redeeming himself at the end of the season, make no mistake.

This character is as shallow as a kiddie pool and twice as cold — there’s no way he’s had a sudden change of heart when, throughout the season, we’ve seen him make countless ethical transgressions and continue to put patients’ lives at risk to further his career goals.

But even if the show is setting Dr. Bell up to be an even bigger villain in Season 2, there’s a new twist. Conrad’s father, Marshall Winthrop — who helped Conrad bail Nic out of jail after Dr. Hunter set her up — is the new chairman of the board.

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And while this might suggest that Conrad and his father could team up to bring Dr. Bell to justice in Season 2, let’s not assume that Marshall Winthrop is going to be on Conrad’s side. The tension between Conrad and his father has been well-established this season, and now it looks like Conrad is going to have double the headaches at work next season.

Oh, and speaking of next season — we opened this season with Conrad already a third-year resident, taking intern Dr. Devon Pravesh under his wing. Conrad is an Internist, which only requires a three-year residency. So in order to continue working with the rest of the gang at Chastain next year, Conrad will have had to be offered a position as an attending physician — the hiring of which, ultimately, involves the hospital CEO.

Hmm!