The Resident cast exits guide: Every major character exit explained

Across its six-season run, The Resident saw many changes to its core cast with several key characters coming and going over the course of the show’s run on FOX. Some exits were welcomed by the fans as they came with the downfall of villains from the season, while others left fans in tears and shock as beloved characters left the show. 

If you’re watching the show for the first time, you might find yourself worrying about many characters as you embark on your journey, and understandably so. The show has a handful of exits over the course of the series, but there are also a lot of fakeouts along the way as well with storylines that suggest someone could be leaving the series only to never go anywhere. 

My guess is that if you’re here reading this piece, you’re a bit like me in that sometimes you simply can’t wait to see how things play out during your binge-watch and need answers as you watch. Maybe you’re wondering when a villainous character FINALLY gets what’s coming their way and leaves the show. Or maybe you’re worried about a favorite character leaving the series and want to make sure they stick around. Whatever the reason might be, I’m here to help use my knowledge of the show to help guide you through the exits that await in The Resident’s six seasons!

Needless to say, there are A TON of spoilers coming up ahead so if you’re just beginning your journey of watching The Resident or haven’t yet finished the show be prepared to know that we will be giving away some spoilers regarding some of the many key characters who leave the show! 

Emily VanCamp as Nicolette “Nic” Nevin

Without a doubt, the exit that shook The Resident fans the hardest during the show’s run came when Emily VanCamp exited the series after four seasons in the series regular role of Nicolette “Nic” Nevin. To say Nic was the heart of the show might be an understatement as she was at the center of many of the show’s key storylines and was one-half of the show’s central couple with her relationship with Conrad giving the show its biggest love story over the course of the show. 

Nic tragically was killed off the show in the second episode of season 5 as a way to write the character off the show. In the episode, audiences discover that Nic had been involved in a car accident on her way back from a spa trip. While the medical team at Chastain Park Memorial did everything they could, Nic’s accident left her brain dead which forced Conrad to make the impossible choice of withdrawing life support knowing the Nic he knew and loved was gone. 

In leaving the show, VanCamp had nothing but love for the show and all those behind the scene 

“It’s such a bittersweet moment for me. I loved doing The Resident so much for the four years I was on it. 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,” VanCamp shared with Deadline following her exit. 

“We started talking about a while ago. I spent so many years on network television, but then suddenly priorities shifted. 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,” she added. 

Shaunette Renee Wilson as Mina Okafor

Chances are that if you started The Resident on Netflix after the show’s run you might have had an inkling that Emily VanCamp left the show as her exit was widely publicized at the time of her departure. However, the exit of Shaunette Renee Wilson as Mina Okafor is sure to leave you stunned because going into the series I too had no clue that Mina did not stick around until the end of the show. 

Mina was a key character in the early seasons of The Resident which is why it was so shocking to fans when she left the show halfway through the fourth season. In season 4, the show introduced a storyline that saw Mina threatened with being deported after she spoke out against Dr. Barrett Cain. It looked like the storyline was simply part of the bigger story season 4 was telling, but it ended up being used to write Mina off the show, with Mina leaving Georgia and returning home to Nigeria. Sadly, Mina never returned to the show after her exit in the tenth episode of season 4, though Wilson did express gratitude to the fans, network, and studio when exiting. 

"I am appreciative of them for allowing me to embody as beautiful of a soul as Dr. Mina Okafor. I would also like to thank the studio, network, cast, crew, and, most of all, the wonderfully dedicated fans of The Resident for their support over the last four seasons."

Morris Chestnut as Barrett Cain

From the moment we met Morris Chestnut’s Dr. Barrett Cain, a neurosurgeon who ruffled feathers among the Chastain Park Memorial team from day one, we had a feeling he was going to be trouble and he most certainly was. The character was one of the show’s most polarizing characters, giving fans a character they loved to hate. 

Ahead of the fifth season of The Resident, Chestnut was cast in FOX’s Our Kind of People. While initial reports suggested he’d return in a recurring status for season 5, Chesnut exited the show in season 4 with Cain’s final episode coming in the fourteenth episode of season 4. 

Chesnut never publicly addressed his exit, but it came after his contract on the show ended and seemed to be a direct result of FOX casting him in Our Kind of People.

Melina Kanakaredes as Lane Hunter

Melina Kanakaredes’ exit from The Resident isn’t likely to come as much of a surprise given the fact that most of the first season was about unearthing the truth about her illegal practices of treating healthy patients for cancer and pushing extreme treatments in order to get insurance payouts. Still, it was the way that the character was written off the show that was so shocking. In season 1, Lane was finally brought to justice and landed behind bars for her actions hinting that her time on the show was over. 

We didn’t see her at all in the early episodes of season 2, but she returned in the eighth episode of the season to blackmail Randolph Bell into helping her get out of prison. Her plan worked and she was released in the tenth episode of the season; however, in a shocking twist of fate, Lane was shot to death by the family member of a former patient. 

No exact reason was ever provided for her exit, but it was confirmed after the show’s first season that Kanakaredes would not return as a series regular in season 2.

Merrin Dungey as Claire Thorpe

Speaking of season 1 mainstays who were abruptly shown the door after season 1. The Resident had quite a few cast shakeups in its early season including the departure of Merrin Dungey as Chastain Park Memorial CEO Claire Thrope. During the early episodes of the show, Claire was a key figure on the show operating as the CEO of the hospital but she ultimately put her trust in the wrong people. 

Halfway through the first season, Lane Hunter and Randolph Bell managed to convince the hospital board to relieve Claire of her CEO duties after suggesting to the board that she was a liability who cared more about money than the care of the hospital’s patients. The duo framed her for a fire in the OR that caused a patient to catch fire by claiming she was to blame for not bringing in new equipment. The ploy worked as the board outed Claire and we never saw her again on the show after.

Rob Yang as Logan Kim

The Resident has a way of introducing characters that we love to hate and Logan Kim was most certainly one of those characters. From the moment we met him in the seventh episode of season 3 when he entered the fray as the vice president of Red Rock Medical, we knew he was going to be trouble. 

Kim was a character with few redeeming qualities and fans were quite pleased when he left the show early in the fourth season after being fired from his CEO position at Chastain Park Memorial. Kim’s downfall came when he began pushing for elective surgeries to begin again as a way to bring in money during the pandemic despite the risks they posed to the surgeons and patients. He was ultimately fired after Conrod testified in a board hearing about the decision and revealed that Kim had bent the rules to get the hospital PPE equipment after Red Rock Medical refused to foot the bill.

Julianna Guill as Jessie Nevin

The Resident was not kind to the Nevin family. Not only did Nic Nevin die in season 5 of the show, but earlier in the series she lost her sister Jessie who died from complications during surgery. 

Appearing in 11 episodes over the course of the show’s first three seasons, Jessie’s last episode came in the season 3 premiere when we learned that Jessie died from a pulmonary embolism from her kidney transplant surgery, a surgery that was needed after Jessie fell ill and her kidneys began failing.

Michael Weston as Gordon Page

The Resident has a way of creating amazing villains and Gordon Page is most certainly towards the top of that list. Page was introduced in the fourth episode of season 2 as the owner of the QuoVadis, a medical device company that we quickly came to discover was not all that it was cut out to be. Page proved to be quite the devious character, lying to investors about the quality of QuoVadis products and nearly costing one doctor his career when a device malfunctioned. 

Page’s time on the show came to an end in the seventeenth episode of season 2 when the FBI raided the QuoVadis offices. After escaping a shootout with the police, Page fled the scene in his car entering a high-speed chase with the police that ended with him crashing his card and dying in the crash.

Jenna Dewan as Julian Booth 

Also introduced in season 2, Julian Booth was a medical device representative working for QuoVadis who quickly caught the eye of Devon Pravesh. While their relationship was innocent at first, their friendship grew into something more with Devon breaking off his engagement on his wedding day in realizing he had developed feelings for Julian. 

Unfortunately, their relationship was short-lived after Julian caught wind of the shady and illegal practices going on at QuoVadis. When she confronted Gordon Page about her findings, it looked like he had her killed to silence her; however, we found out after Page had died that Julian had simply faked her death and was lying low and did not die in the car crash after all. 

While Julian was not killed off the show, the character was written out of the series following the eighteenth episode of season 2 when she left town for a new beginning.

Miles Gaston Villanueva as Alec Shaw

Alec Shaw might have had eyes for Nic, but Nic only had eyes for Conrad so we knew he wasn’t likely to last long on The Resident the moment he began showing feelings for Nic. Introduced in the second season, Alec seemed like a great guy using his training as an Infectious Disease Specialist and Family Medicine Physician to help those in need of medical support via his free clinic. He later joined Nic in working at Chastain Park Memorial’s free clinic, but we later found he was into some shady stuff helping top broker deals for black market organs in exchange for cash. 

Funny enough, it wasn’t his involvement in the black market that led him to leave town but rather his feelings for Nic which were not reciprocated.

Steven Reddington as Dr. Bradley Jenkins

Dr. Bradley Jenkins was a recurring player across the show’s first season, appearing in a number of episodes as a young doctor struggling to adjust to the pressures of the job. About halfway through the first season, Jenkins left the show after it was discovered that he had attempted suicide and nearly lost his life after he fell through a hospital skylight. After the brush with death, Jenkins left the hospital and it seemed like we had seen the last of him until he returned in season 2. 

Upon his return in the fifth episode of the season, we learned that Jenkins had gone into medical marketing after leaving the hospital and was doing much better now – both mentally and also financially. In his return, we discovered that he needed a heart valve, and surgery was completed by Dr. Austin with a QuoVadis device used in place of the preferred device typically used in the procedure. 

Sadly, when the device malfunctioned, the team at Chastain Park Memorial was unable to save Jenkins with his final episode coming in the eleventh episode of season 2.

Don’t worry Jessica doesn’t die or leave The Resident 

In season 3, our favorite nurse, Jessica, was rushed into Chastain Park Memorial after falling asleep at the wheel and crashing her car in the previous episode. We discovered that Jessica suffered a brain injury and there were a lot of debates about the best course of treatment. It looked touch and go for Jessica, but luckily her Chastain Park Memorial family rallied behind her in order to get to the bottom of the problem and save her life. 

Jessica did have to deal with some initial repercussions of her injury and we watched her recover in the episodes after, but fortunately, Jessica did not leave the series and remained a part of the show throughout all six seasons!