Following Monday's episode, ET jumped on the phone with the actor behind the character who suffers a dramatic death.
Warning: Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you have not watched Monday's episode of The Resident.
The Resident bid farewell to its latest patient in emotional fashion.
On Monday's episode, titled "Lost Love," terminal cancer patient Lily Kendall (Violett Beane) was the latest to fall victim at Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. But her death wasn't like the others. Since the series premiere, Lily's connection with senior resident Dr. Conrad Hawkins (Matt Czuchry) was unique, as depicted in the utter devastation that Conrad felt -- a rare sight -- following his unsuccessful attempts at bringing her back to life.
Lily's death came moments after oncologist Dr. Lane Hunter (Melina Kanakaredes) curiously reassigned oversight of Lily's care to Nic Nevin (Emily VanCamp), with the additional charge that she up the dosage on some meds. After Nic reluctantly agrees to be Lily's primary caregiver and follows through with Lane's orders, Lane slips into Lily's room later that evening while the floor is relatively empty. Presumably moments later, Conrad notices the distress call coming from Lily's room, only to discover her unconscious and sprawled on the floor. By then, it was too late.
"When I first read it, it was pretty intense," Beane says of Lily's death scene in an exclusive interview with ET. "The fact that Conrad is giving CPR for more than 20 minutes is pretty outlandish. When we were shooting it, that scene probably took about 11 hours -- a full day of shooting."
For much of the scene, Conrad desperately attempts to revive Lily through chest compressions while he yells out instructions and a flurry of nurses run in and out of the room trying to assist in his hopes of a miracle. Beane shared behind-the-scenes secrets of how they were able to pull that moment off and the emotional toll it took on her and Czuchry especially.
"In order for him to push down onto my chest, we built a chest plate and they molded hot wax into the shape of my body. We put foam in between me and the board, so he could push as hard as he wanted without it hurting me. It was pretty crazy. I've never anything that extensive," Beane, 21, says. "But when we were shooting it, it was so heartbreaking seeing Matt go through all of these emotions of what Conrad was feeling. Conrad's only lost one patient on the table; this was so important [to him] -- and it didn't work out."
Conrad's breakdown following Lily's death shows just how close he was to Lily, Beane says. "As a doctor, you have a lot of people's lives in your hands and it's hard to not take it personally -- especially for Conrad, who seems like a put-together guy. Hearing [Matt] and hearing how raw he was, it was intense." She says there were times during the filming of the hospital scene where she "absolutely" wanted to cry: "You can't be around that energy and not feel it."
There have been some suspicious (and oftentimes aggressive) medical treatments Lane has overseen, and it's become increasingly clear to Conrad, Nic and others at the hospital that she's operating with a motive other than to better her patients' health prognoses. Beane spoke of Lane's modus operandi and just what exactly she was doing sneaking into Lily's room after turning over medical oversight to Nic.
"Lane is just so calculated and she's so good at throwing people off, not just the people on the show but also the people watching it, and it's pretty creepy that she asks Nic to take over for her as Lily's practitioner right before Lily dies," Beane points out. "The next episode is going to make the viewers question what was she doing in Lily's room minutes before she died. You even see Nic's hesitation, when she's like, 'Are you sure she's going to need that? That's not good for Lily's blood?' There's definitely something going on there. There's definitely a bit of some blame being pushed on some people."
Beane shared that when she signed on to do The Resident, she knew that Lily would die around this point in the season. "Because it ties into other characters' arcs, it was kind of interesting knowing that. It was bittersweet, because you know when the end is coming," she says. "It was helpful in knowing the stages of her sickness and where she needs to get at for each episode."
Though Beane is moving on to her next project (she's the lead in the CBS dramedy pilot God Friended Me), rest assured this won't be the last time you'll see Lily.
"I loved playing Lily because she has a softness about her that I haven't really played in other characters. She has a real innocence and a real selflessness, which I think is magical and really sweet," she says, teasing her future appearance on The Resident: "Being that she's the only other patient that Conrad has lost, it's going to have a huge impact on him, so I think you're going to be seeing Lily soon."
The Resident airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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