St. Denis Medical, the mocumentary series about an underfunded Oregon hospital, has ended its first season on NBC, and did so in a surprisingly dramatic way.
While the cast became accustomed to “surprising and weird” improv and enthusiastic prat falls, the finale included a wild practical effect that really kept star Allison Tolman on her toes during filming, because it could only be done in two takes.
SPOILER ALERT: This article will discuss the St. Denis Medical Season 1 finale
St. Denis Medical Season 1 finale’s big effect
The St. Denis Medical finale picks up after Tolman’s character, Nurse Alex, and her husband, Tim (Kyle Bornheimer), agree not to have any more children, which had been a point of contention between the couple at the hospital’s boozy fundraising Gala.
We find Tim at the hospital getting prepped for a vasectomy upstairs from the emergency department, and Alex is there to hold his hand and support him on her day off. But the workaholic head nurse can’t resist jumping back into the action when a storm makes the hospital very busy and decides to “pop down for just a second,” while her hubby awaits his procedure.
“I promise I’ll be by your side for the cutting part,” she told him.
Although the storm is brewing outside, all the watery effects occur right in the emergency department. Just as Alex shouts, “Guys, I am out!” and hands her clipboard to a staff member, a ceiling panel crashes down, pushed by a rushing flood of water that soaks an unsuspecting patient in his hospital bed.
“The practical effect guys are on set and they’re like, ‘we’re gonna bust down a wall!’ It’s super, super fun,” Tolman told NBC Insider in a recent interview.
What made Allison Tolman nervous about the flooding scene
With a background in stage theatre, Tolman is no stranger to the thrill of small-scale practical effects but given the scope of the scene and how long it took the crew to prep, the pressure was on.
“We’re gonna flood the hospital, and yeah, we can only do it so many times. The reset is really long, and there’s always special excitement in the air whenever there’s a big stunt or whenever there’s a bit of a practical effect. It’s always a little bit exciting,” she told NBC Insider.
Her character, Alex, was at the center of the chaos, directing nurses to get patients out of the way, and Tollman was acutely aware she had a max of just two takes to get it right. But for the seasoned actress, who has been nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe, it was all in a day’s work.
“I love that stuff. Because I come out of the theatre world where everybody’s in the dirt doing everything together,” she explained. “Everything has to be in order, and I just really love it… the technical side of making TV.”
The Finale, called “This Place is Our Everything,” is available to stream Peacock along with all of the past episodes from Season 1.
