The Resident Adds Gotham Actress Kaley Ronayne as ‘Badass’ ER Doc

A onetime Gotham citizen is returning to Fox, by way of The Resident‘s fifth season: Actress Kaley Ronayne has been tapped for a recurring role on the medical drama, TVLine has exclusively learned.

Ronayne will appear as Cade, a badass emergency room doctor described as an “action heroine.” Strong and athletic, Cade takes no prisoners, but also has her own brand of no-nonsense empathy for her patients. She’s a rational problem-solver and, physically, a daredevil.

As Resident co-showrunner Peter Elkoff tells TVLine, Cade will have a large presence in the second half of Season 5, where she’ll “help us do one of those thriller-y arcs that we’ve done in the past.” He further describes the doc as “mysterious” and “very guarded about her past,” while her methodology “is not like our other characters.”

“She’s going to attract a lot of attention while trying to keep a low profile, which is sometimes complicated,” Elkoff continues. “I just imagine that the audience is going to have really strong feelings — a lot of theories and a lot of predictions.”

In addition to Gotham — where she popped up as Oswald Cobblepot’s stepsister, Sasha Van Dahl — Ronayne’s TV credits include Army Wives, Quarry and episodes of Nashville, Chicago P.D. and Blue Bloods. Most recently, she portrayed trailblazing aerospace nurse Dee O’Hara in Disney+’s historical drama The Right Stuff.

The Resident continues tonight (Fox, 8/7c) with Episode 5 of its fifth season, which Elkoff previously teased will “put a new spin on the show.”

“We’re going to employ a wrinkle in storytelling that I think will really excite the audience and turn our show upside down a little bit,” Elkoff told TVLine at the time.