Dr. Randolph Bell (Bruce Greenwood) is operating on a patient, a routine appendectomy.
The Chief has a secret, though everyone who works in the hospital seems to know about it.
Everyone knows precisely what happeneda brilliant surgeon hit an artery during anappendectomyand whos to blame.
Credit: Guy D’Alema/FOX
The camera catches Dr. Bell walking away from his patient, leaving bloody footprints behind.
In a later episode, a major hospital executive describes cancer as our number one revenue stream.
That line couldve come from a bleak medical satire, or a David Simon show.
He vainly scrubs into a pioneering medical procedure involving a robotic surgical tool.
In the real world, most of this American decade has turned on hysterical debates about health and money.
Greenwood makes Bell a symbol for some greater moral rot within the medical trade.
Listen how he responds when challenged on the pace of his surgeries.
One of Bells five-star compliments reads: McDreamy is real!
But its implied that Bell writes all his own reviews: This doctors only as good as his hype.
But what we have here is really two shows in one.
Theres that dark, fascinating portrait of the modern hospital.
and I have only one rule, covers anything: Im never wrong.
Conrads the definitivedoucheboat, all flirtatious mansplaining and in-your-face truthbombing.
Stick your hand up his ass, he commands Devon when they visit their first patient.
Actually, from what Ive seen,The Residenthas what I choose to call a Butt Motif.
The C-plot of episode 2 involves buckshot fired where the sun dont shine.
And in another episode, a frequent patient returns to the hospital with a recurrence of polyembolokoilamania.
Look it up, or dont:The Residentprovides x-rays!
Its a little adolescent.
Because Czuchry is so obviously a hero, Greenwood gets pushed to a cartoonish extreme of villainy.
(In bad-guy terms, were inMortal KombatFinishing Move territory.)
Theres some real energy here.
(Conrads noble; shes no-bull.)
An episode later in the season stages a multiple-surgery disaster withBourne Identityflair.
