When The Resident returns for Season 6 at Fox (and it is officially a “when,” not an “if”), Conrad Hawkins will indeed get a new romantic partner — but Tuesday’s finale ultimately gave no indication as to who the lucky lady will be.

During the emotional season ender, Conrad found himself frequently revisiting the memory of his and Nic’s first real date night after Gigi was born.

“After a while, I do want you to move on,” Conrad told his wife.

Below, executive producer Andrew Chapman details why that romantic cliffhanger felt like the right stopping point for Season 5, although the show had not yet been renewed at the time of our conversation.

Given that we had Billie already on the show, and then we got Cade — and she was fantastic and a great character — we just loved the idea that, at the end of this season, Conrad would be ready to move on, but we weren’t going to make that choice yet.

Making the choice is for the premiere of next season, and in fact, we have an idea laid out of what exactly it will be, and how we’ll lay it out to the audience.

TVLINE | Quite a few of our readers, at least, have expressed that it’d be too jarring to see Conrad with someone new at this point in the season.

To really move on — we weren’t ready to do it.

He didn’t want to see Conrad make a choice.

These are things that women have to grapple with all the time, and that’s what we wanted to show, and we want to show it more next season.

One of the things we really wanted to do was, because Conrad lost Nic and the show lost Nic, we wanted a couple to take their place as the central couple of the show — and in fact, we got two central couples.

We wanted to show that he is a real rockstar in the world of medicine, and we really want to go with that.

He’s moved up to being this scientist doctor who’s lauded and sought after by other hospitals, and we just love the idea that he’s a superstar?

We were careful not to raise the issue of abortion and to really just make it this medical thing that they can try, but you don’t know [if it’s going to succeed].

We don’t want to be political in that way, but these things really happen, and it was an incredibly tragic story.

It just felt so moving and poignant, especially with the idea that Devon and Leela were talking about starting a family!

It all just felt thematic, and we had no idea [it would be so relevant]!