Pulse’s Willa Fitzgerald Breaks Down Danny and Xander’s Messy Romance, Season 2 Hopes

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from Season 1 of Pulse. Read at your own risk!]

Netflix’s Pulse isn’t ready to hang up the stethoscope. Over the course of its 10-episode first season, the Miami-set hospital drama examined the complexities around a secret workplace relationship between third-year medical resident Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) and her direct supervisor, chief resident Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell), at the fictional Maguire Medical Center. Though their feelings were mutual — both doctors exchanged “I love you’s” during a staff retreat seen in flashbacks — their romance grew increasingly complicated once it became clear they were not on the same page about the power imbalance within their relationship and whether they should disclose their romance to the hospital. 

For Danny, it was the fear that she would be perceived as using her romantic connections to gain favor for a promotion if their relationship did become public. As a result, Danny reached the conclusion that a harassment claim against Xander, whose wealthy parents had a lot of financial sway at the hospital, was the only way to get what she wanted. But what she didn’t predict was the ripple effect the harassment claim would have throughout the hospital as she was suddenly promoted to interim chief resident while Xander was suspended, but still temporarily assisting on medical emergencies amid the ongoing case. 

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By the end of the season, Danny decided to drop the harassment claim, coming to terms with the fact that the outcome she was looking for would not be satisfying and that all she truly wanted was an apology from Xander for putting her in an impossible predicament. Still, Danny’s future at Maguire was put in jeopardy after she got into a fight with a patient’s combative parent in the hospital lobby. Already in the hot seat due to the harassment case, there was now cause for her to lose her spot in the residency program. After hearing about Danny’s uncertain future, Xander revealed the truth about why he left his last hospital — that he accidentally killed a patient during a routine procedure and his parents covered it up. It was the olive branch Xander needed to extend to Danny that set them on a path to forgiveness and reconciliation, despite being far from ready to rekindle their spark. 

In the end, Danny lost out on the chief resident job — of which she was considered a frontrunner — to her colleague, Sam Elijah (Jessie T. Usher), after the newly appointed ER department head Dr. Patrick Sanchez (J.R. Ramirez) went rogue with his pick. And now she’ll be working alongside her ex, Xander, who’s back at Maguire as an attending. 

“It’s exciting to get to see this genre blown up in the way that it is on this show,” FItzgerald, a self-proclaimed House fan, told TV Guide. “It’s functioning on the level of a really great medical drama, but it’s also going further and doing something that I’ve never seen a show in this world do, and that was really exciting.” The Pulse star hopped on Zoom to break down the ending, where Danny and Xander go from here, and what fans can expect in a possible sophomore season.

When you got the script, what connected you to this story?
Willa Fitzgerald: The first thing I ever read was the monologue between Danny and the coach in Episode 1, where she talks about her sister [Harper]. I was so fascinated by what is said, what is not said, the dynamic of [their] connection while also there being disconnection from this patient. It was operating on so many levels. What immediately drew me in was the fact that we have a woman who is perfectly suited to working in the emergency room because she is so compartmentalized and so driven towards fulfilling a task, fixing a problem, and moving on to the next one. Yet her own emotional life is so stunted and [she’s] unable to move on from things and confront past pain. The conflict between those two sides of her personality was really fascinating to me. I’m always looking at those contradictions and those complications towards self-understanding that clearly runs deep for Danny as a character, and that was really exciting to me. 

How clued in were you to Danny’s full arc when you first started filming? 
Fitzgerald: I had several big conversations with [executive producers] Carlton [Cuse] and Zoe [Robyn] about the character and the skeleton outline of everything that she’s gone through and everything she is going through in the season. I knew the basic story points, but they were still writing episodes as we were shooting, and we were shooting two episodes [at a time]. By the time I was reading Episodes 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, the places we ended up were deeper, more complicated, and more interesting than I expected them to be. It was definitely daunting going into it because I had about a week and a half before I started shooting to really prep — I was coming off of another movie and I have two dogs, so I had to drive. There was a great synergy between my own prep [being] exactly as Danny’s resident schedule. I really felt like I was keeping the same schedule. 

Let’s dive into what happens at the end of the season. Danny and Xander’s relationship is the story point of which everything pivots off of but by the final episode, Danny decides to drop the harassment claim against him and Xander tells the truth about what happened at the previous hospital that got him transferred to Maguire. How did you feel about where they stand by the end of Season 1?
Fitzgerald: For me as an actor, that was the central question that I was always returning to as I was working on Danny as a character, and looking at all of the scenes and trying to make sense of all of them so that they would hopefully read as a legible story to the audience. It is really complicated, and it is intensely human. The choices that are being made and the things that are happening, all of us can see and be like, “Yeah, I’ve experienced that. I’ve been there. I’ve been on either side or both sides of that situation before,” and that I was really drawn to. It’s not often that we get to live in that gray area as an audience. Oftentimes, network show writers want to hand-hold their audience through what they should think about — the decisions that characters are making, the relationships that they’re in. What’s very cool about this show and what was satisfying to explore are all of the ways in which we as humans make really imperfect decisions based on imperfect understanding of situations that is also informed by everything that’s happened to us in our life before then. 

We get to see a lot of that in this show, which is also really special. There’s a lot of the story of Xander’s family and Danny’s family, and the worlds in which they grew up in and the inherent incompatibilities there — all of that gives these moments of clarity for the audience. I’m interested and excited to see how people talk about the story that we’re telling and my hope for it is that it fosters nuanced and complicated conversations because that’s something that as a society, we’re really bad at having these days. It feels like things are either yes or no, good or bad, she’s wrong or he’s right, he’s right or she’s wrong. 

Danny and Xander don’t end up together, but there’s clearly a lot of love still left between them. Is there a possibility down the line for them to rekindle their romance?
Fitzgerald: Anyone is capable of growing and changing. Fundamentally, why these two characters get into trouble is because neither one is being completely honest or listening completely to the other one. That doesn’t lead to healthy relationships, as I think we all know. It’s certainly possible that people grow and change and are able to become more complete people for the people in their lives. That’s the quest of growing up and becoming an adult. It’s certainly possible. Anything’s possible.

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There are also plenty of changes at the hospital: Elijah is named chief resident instead of Danny and Sanchez is the new head of the ER department. What do you make of Danny’s future now that she’s found herself in an interesting spot?
Fitzgerald: That’s what makes this type of show — any sort of workplace drama — so relatable and immediate to people is that you don’t ever end up at the end of your story until you die. There is constant change happening in all of our lives. Anytime you arrive at a place where you’re like, “This feels nice,” it’s not going to feel nice 10 minutes from then. There’s going to be some other thing that comes up that makes it feel complicated again. The ER and this format for a show is a lovely parallel to that experience we all know because you’re settled in your life for a minute and then another trauma walks through the door. There’s infinite potential in this show for things to work out well or work out badly. This is true in any workplace — there’s constant turnover, especially right now in the world that we’re living in. There’s instability in those places and there’s a lot to explore there.

Danny jumps into the ocean after she loses out on the chief resident position and has a moment with Xander on the beach where they let water under the bridge. How did you read that scene of Danny diving into the water?
Fitzgerald: It’s a beautiful moment. I personally do not love being in the ocean, so I saw that written and I was like, “All right, interesting, interesting.” There’s no better time for me to personally work through fears and discomforts than on set because there’s no other option than to go do what is asked of you in the scene. I think I got quite lucky because there was this parallel character experience and human experience happening in that moment where there is just a surrender. I think it is a surrender to the ever-changing tides. The metaphor is so legibly present. She is a leaf on the stream. There’s very much a surrender to the things that you cannot control and to try to be present for them while also moving through them and with them. We see Danny this season gripping so hard at so many things, and to get to have that final moment with her where she seems able to release that tension, it was nice for me to experience as Danny. She’s a tough cookie. And it was a really lovely way to end the season.

Pulse is now streaming on Netflix.