The Good Nurse follows the story of Amy, a compassionate nurse, as she grows close to a colleague who might be responsible for the unexplainable deaths at her hospital. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Amy, a dedicated and hard-working nurse, knows very well how to make her patients feel at home in order to help them recover.
She is also a single mother suffering from a severe heart condition that requires a transplant. As she is yet to complete her first year at the hospital, she can’t take paid leaves.
The night shifts, which were a heavy load on her, soon start getting easier when a new colleague named Charles ‘Charlie’ Cullen joins her. Much like Amy, even he is compassionate, and they both hit it off instantly.
Things go sideways when a patient of Amy’s dies suddenly during the shift change. The hospital carries out an internal investigation for a total of seven weeks before alerting the cops.
The detectives find it hard to investigate with the hospital keeping most of the information away from them.
Regardless, they go through the staff and come across Charlie’s name, who has a criminal record for trespassing and harassment. During these seven weeks, Charlie grew closer to Amy and she let him into her life.
The detectives continue to face obstacles as the hospital demands that their risk manager should be present while they carry out interrogations with the staff members.
During Amy’s interview, the detectives find an opening when the risk manager is required in the other room for a minute. With the help of Amy, they discover that someone gave insulin to the victim, which might be the cause of the death.
They also question Amy about Charlie, and for now, she defends him as a friend and claims that she knows him very well. Following that, another patient dies because someone added insulin to her system.
When the detectives approach Amy again, telling her about Charlie’s history of changing hospitals around nine times, with none of the hospitals wanting to talk, she decides to investigate herself.
She meets a friend of hers from the hospital where Charlie once worked and finds out that everyone suspected that he was responsible for a death.
Similar to the deaths at the hospital where Amy works, even here, insulin was found in saline bags. Someone added that in those before they went out.
The staff suspected Charlie because they got emergencies every night until he left. Amy ran and searched for insulin in the saline bags at the hospital she works and finds it in one of them.
From here on, she starts being careful around Charlie and works secretly with the detectives.
The Good Nurse ending explained in detail:
Do the detectives find proof against Charlie?
Amy explains to the detectives that Charlie injects insulin into the saline bags inside the storage room before they even go out. The detectives also discuss whether there is a chance that digoxin is present there as well.
Amy takes a look at the reports the detectives received from the hospital and finds them incomplete.
She volunteers to pull out Charlie’s PYXIS report to prove that he might be behind these deaths. Though the first patient was cremated, she tells the detectives about the second patient that died because of insulin.
They recover that patient’s body and PYXIS reports prove that Charlie did add insulin and digoxin. The only thing the detectives are concerned about is that the report suggests cancellation, not withdrawals.
Charlie made use of a fault in the system that could protect him.
Before the detectives could find a way out of this, the hospital takes action and fires Charlie for mentioning the wrong employment dates on his application.
How does Amy persuade Charlie to tell the truth?
After getting fired, Charlie continues to stay close to Amy. She, on the other hand, co-operates with detectives and agrees to join them in an operation.
They arrange a meeting between her and Charlie where she questions him about his firing and the deaths at the hospital. She pushes him too hard using the emotional bond they had created over the months.
He eventually reacts a bit violently and avoids the question to walk away.
The cops later catch him, and Amy gets another chance to talk to him in the interrogation room. He doesn’t confess in front of the detectives but opens up when Amy comes to comfort him.
Amy treats him like he is her friend and not a culprit. She apologizes for lying to him and thanks him for being there for her.
An emotional Charlie admits to killing a number of patients. He confessed that the hospitals never stopped him from doing so, and therefore, he continued.
Where do Charlie and Amy end up?
Charlie is arrested for his crimes. He avoids the death sentence by pleading guilty to the murder of 29 people. The real number of people who died at the hands of Charlie is believed to be as many as 400.
Charlie never explained what drove him to commit these crimes. He now serves 18 consecutive life sentences in New Jersey State Prison and won’t be eligible for parole until 2403.
He worked as a nurse for 16 years, and the hospitals he worked at suspected him but never did anything to stop him. Also, there have never been criminal proceedings against these hospitals.
Amy got the heart surgery she required. She now lives in Florida with her daughters and grandchildren and continues to be a good nurse.