Note: This story contains spoilers from “St. Denis Medical” Episode 18. “St. Denis Medical” wrapped up its first season with big money and big reveals, setting the stage for interesting dynamic shifts upon its return. Episode 18, titled “This Place is Our Everything” followed as Joyce (Wendi McLendon-Covey) juggled many demands from hospital staff on how to use the $10 million funds that were raised in last week’s gala. With an assist from Ron (David Alan Grier), Joyce was encouraged to reject everyone else’s ideas in favor of implementing her own to turn St. Denis into the prime destination for maternity medicine in Oregon — with the money helping to kickstart those efforts ever so slightly. The episode also saw some full-circle moments for Matt (Mekki Leeper) and Alex (Allison Tolman). After spending the day getting questions from Serena (Kahyun Kim) about his ideal lover, Matt helped a patient with an EpiPen emergency, mirroring when he injected himself in the premiere. The rescue gave him the confidence to accept that Serena might not be into him romantically, giving himself the opportunity to move on. Then, the tables turned when Val (Kaliko Kauahi) told Serena about Matt’s crush — leaving her reaction to her coworker’s feelings for her ambiguous until Season 2. “We really wanted to avoid making it a story where we just set up this want and then they get what they want. That would be the most boring version of it for me,” showrunner Eric Ledgin told TheWrap. “It feels very real to me in the workplace that there are these long-term longings that can evolve over time, and there are twists and turns that happen.” As for Alex, after juggling her husband’s vasectomy appointment with work for long enough, an eye-opening conversation with Joyce finally led her to delegate — letting Serena handle any ER drama while she took care of her husband. With Season 1 of the NBC medical comedy in the rearview mirror, Ledgin said seeing the reception to the show grow feels “validating.” “I’m even grateful for the haters,” he told TheWrap. “To be able to carve out our small corner of today’s very crowded landscape is an honor.” Below, Ledgin breaks down the finale’s biggest moments and teases “getting out of the hospital” in Season 2. The finale has so much great character development, but Matt got to be a good nurse. I loved the full circle rescue with the EpiPen and his decision to maybe let go of his crush on Serena. How did his arc come together? I think that part of it was going in without a plan, saying “let’s see how these two characters’ chemistry is. Let’s see what it wants to be as it unfolds.” Over time, it took a little convincing for us to be like, “Yes, these two characters, there is something there.” It feels very real to me in the workplace that there are these long-term longings that can evolve over time, and there are twists and turns that happen. Val tells Serena about Matt’s crush on her and we get an ambiguous response from her, and we see her start to see him as a potential romantic match for someone else. Where is their story going from here? It was nice to see Serena on her heels, because she’s such a cool, confident character that to have a moment of vulnerability like that felt really rewarding for me watching it back. Joyce decides to take Ron’s advice and use the money on her vision for the hospitals future. How far can she get with $10 million? As we see in the finale, these places tend to be bottomless pits that can vacuum money up pretty quickly if you’re not careful. I think that Joyce holding the line on whatever money she needed to at least put the first step of her plan to action is what we are playing right now in Season 1. As we put things together we will see what it’s like when you get the means to do what you want, and now you have to make good on all these grand promises and visions that you had for the future. That’s obviously a lot of pressure, and I think Joyce is a fun character to watch deal with that pressure. Alex also gets that reality check from Joyce about how she’s been prioritizing work over her life, and finally decides to choose her life. What led to this moment for Alex? What’s next for her? This is something that so many people struggle with. We hear about work-life balance all the time and no one seems to have perfected it, so maybe there’s no such thing as the actual balance. But it’s something to strive for. Alex is experiencing something that is very common, which is that there are times when you have to make a big choice, because it signals to the people around you whether or not you really matter to them. And I can’t imagine a world in which the Alex character that we have created and grown to love would make the wrong choice there, but I think there are moments where it feels like a closer call than it is, and are hard to take yourself out of it when you are dealing something with like life and death if that’s your job. I imagine it’s much, much harder to make those choices than it is for someone like me. It has been great to see the cast’s chemistry evolve throughout the season. Which episode did you feel like you guys really hit your groove? There were two points in the season where I felt that. One was the prisoners episode, where it just felt like the comedy was hitting really hard and the camera work was fun. It was just one of those episodes that came together. It was just a really fun episode. The second moment was when we made the ladybugs episode, because that was after we had shot most of the season and I had been in and out of the hospital for something that we used in that episode. It felt like despite all of the stress of making Season 1 of my first show, I hit a point where I was able to sort of let go of that and enjoy the process … everything coalesced in this episode that ended up being my favorite episode of the season. That was another moment where I was like, “We could keep doing this for a while.” What is one joke or sequence that hurt you to leave on the cutting room floor? Honestly, my rule of thumb is if something makes you laugh hard enough, it has to stay in and we have to find a way to work around it. That said, there was so much fun stuff in the pilot that did have to go away, just because we had to establish these characters. We had to tell this first story clearly enough to bring people into the show. There was one scene where Bruce is interrogating this patient about whether or not he’s been to the Congo, and that could be the source of his illness. That just kept going on and got much, much funnier. I wish we could have included all of it. Season 2 is happening! How do you see the show growing from here for this next chapter? I feel like we really hit a stride in the later part of Season 1, and I want to ride that momentum and keep telling these stories inside the emergency department of this hospital with pairings and groupings of characters that we now know are still fun to see together. But obviously, there are some different story turns suggested by the finale, and we are going to be following those threads and seeing what happens when Joyce gets something she wants, the evolution in Matt and Serena’s relationship now that the script has been flipped a little bit in terms of who knows what. And also just getting out of the hospital a little bit here and there, which is something we didn’t really do at all in Season 1. That’s something I’m also really excited about. What’s a pairing that you have not been able to explore too much yet on the show that you are excited for these next few episodes? I feel like we hit just about every pairing, and I’m excited to revisit them … and I want to see more of Val with anyone. The medical genre had a huge resurgence this season, with “St. Denis” standing as the one comedy out of a sea of medical dramas. How has it been to see this TV phenomenon unfold, and now that your show was one of the first to secure a renewal? The renewal part felt amazing, just from a standpoint of financial security and love of making the show. But I totally get the trend. Part of the reason that I wanted to make a medical show was because of how much the industry has changed in the last few years. There’s a role for these dramas. Some of them are soapy and fun. Some of them are really hard-hitting and expose huge problems in the medical industry. I think that as a comedy, our mission is to entertain people. It’s not anything much deeper than that, but if we have a role to play amongst the medical shows, it’s that I would like to be the one that’s reminding people that despite all the problems we have in the healthcare industry, it’s not the fault of these frontline workers who are, for the most part, doing their best with limited resources. So when you go to the hospital, which we all eventually will, I think it’s helpful to remember that. Have you been able to watch any of the shows? I am most of the way through “The Pitt,” which is so different tonally from “St. Denis” and yet, we cover a lot of a lot of similar setups and dynamics, which I find so interesting. It’s a testament to how much of a difference tone makes in a show. But, even the fact that they really lean into showing you the most gruesome stuff head-on, which I as a viewer, not only don’t mind, but usually like. But it’s certainly very far from what we’re doing. The one kind-of funny reaction I’ve had to “The Pitt” is that there are times on this show as a comedy, where I’m like, “Is this too much of a coincidence? Is this too much to be happening in one hospital in one day?” And then I watched “The Pitt” and I’m like, “I’m overthinking that.” “St. Denis Medical” Season 1 is now streaming on Peacock.