Netflix seems to have checked the audience’s pulse for what the genre of the year is and is coming out with a medical drama to compete with Grey’s Anatomy and The Pitt. The streaming platform’s first foray into the genre will be the drama Pulse, which is set to premiere on April 3, 2025, and will see an emergency crew deal with hurricane victims.
The series comes on the heels of Max’s The Pitt, which has been garnering rave reviews so far. The cast of Netflix’s show seems to include former alumni from the streaming platform and some new faces. While Willa Fitzgerald headlines the series as the recently promoted chief resident, several others round out the cast. Here is the cast of Pulse.
1. Willa Fitzgerald – Danielle ‘Danny’ Simms
Willa Fitzgerald is best known for her work in the shows Reacher, House of Cards, and more. The actress has already been in a Netflix series, i.e., Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where she played a young Madeline Usher. She also starred in the indie film Strange Darling.
Fitzgerald will be playing the lead, Dr. Danny Simms, in Netflix’s Pulse. Her character will reportedly be a third-year resident at the Maguire Medical Center in Miami in the emergency ward, who is suddenly promoted to chief resident after the previous chief is suspended. Simms has to not only establish herself as a leader but also has to lead the team during a hurricane.
While she deals with this sudden increase in responsibilities, she also happens to be dealing with the end of a romantic relationship with Dr. Xander Philips, the previous chief. The show is set to explore, in true Grey’s Anatomy style, the messy relationships in the workplace set at the emergency ward.
Writer Zoe Robyn said about the dynamic between Danny and Xander (via Netflix),
We always endeavoured to make Danny and Phillips’ relationship a real, authentic look at a workplace romance. We wanted to play in the grey area of that situation. Pulse shows the edges and pitfalls of their relationship, but also all the joyous moments of working a high-pressure job like this.
Willa Fitzgerald also starred in MTV’s Scream and in the political drama Alpha House. She played Roscoe in the Amazon Prime Video series Reacher.
2. Colin Woodell – Xander Philips
Colin Woodell plays Dr. Xander Philips, the former chief resident whose suspension pushes Danny Simms into the forefront in Netflix’s Pulse. Woodell is best known for his role on several TV shows, especially The Originals. The actor played Aiden in the spinoff series of The Vampire Diaries. He was also in the John Wick spinoff show, The Continental.
Xander and Danny’s relationship is reportedly the heart of the series, with the falling out of it forming the inciting incident and an undercurrent for the rest of the season while a hurricane ravages Miami. Co-showrunner Carlton Cuse spoke about the complexity of their relationships to TV Insider,
I think what’s interesting about our show is that at the center of it is this very complex relationship between these two doctors. And by the way, that is pretty common in the medical world because medicine is so consuming and involving that a lot of relationships arise between medical professionals, but there are so many layers to it.
Woodell’s character also has to deal with the complexity of being suspended due to a complaint allegedly filed by Danny and how the two navigate this relationship during a critical emergency from the basis of Pulse. The actor has also been in the show Designated Survivor, Fly Me To The Moon, and Unfriended: Dark Web.
3. Jessie T. Usher – Sam Elijah
Fans know Jessie T. Usher from streaming rival Amazon Prime Video’s The Boys. Usher’s character A-Train is the reason why Jack Quaid’s Hughie gets into Billy the Butcher’s gang of Boys. The fastest man alive in The Boys universe has a legendary redemption arc in the show, going from an arrogant superhero to an insider with a conscience.
In Pulse, Jessie T. Usher plays the role of Dr. Sam Elijah, a third-year medical resident at the Maguire Medical Center in Miami. The actor referenced Grey’s Anatomy while talking about the medical drama. In an interview with Screen Rant, he said,
I can’t give away story points on it, but it has the feel of early Grey’s Anatomy. It’s sexy, and it’s romantic, and it’s dramatic in a lot of ways. It was one heck of an experience. It’s the polar opposites from The Boys, so that was nice.
The actor mentioned how working on The Boys made him desensitized to violence and joked that it took him a while to realize that people still saved others in a TV show.
4. Justina Machado – Natalie Cruz
Justina Machado plays Dr. Natalie Cruz, the Chief of Surgery and Emergency Medicine in Pulse. Fans know her from the series Six Feet Under, where she played Vanessa Diaz, a supporting character who got promoted to the main cast and featured in 42 episodes of the HBO show. She won the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast.
Funnily enough, Pulse is not the first medical drama the actress is a part of. Machado also featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, which seems to be the basis for Netflix’s procedural. She also had a role in the OG medical drama ER. She returned to the show as a different character in 2009 and featured in eight episodes.
In Pulse, Machado’s Natalie Cruz promotes Danny Simms to the position of chief medical resident and is privy to the relationship between Danny and Xander. Co-showrunner Zoe Robyn said to TV Insider,
Cruz is put in a very difficult position when Phillips is suspended. I think that she’s always seen Danny as a very promising doctor, and she is rooting for her. But I think when Phillips is suspended and Danny is the one who brought the complaint against him, Cruz finds herself in this position where she needs to act pragmatically for the optics of the hospital.
Machado’s Natalie Cruz and Willy Fitzgerald’s Danny Simms reportedly share an interesting dynamic in the show.
5. Jack Bannon – Tom Cole
Jack Bannon is best known as Alfred Pennyworth in the crime drama series Pennyworth. The actor played the titular role in the short-lived DC series. He also starred in Brad Pitt’s Fury as well as Benedict Cumberbatch’s The Imitation Game. Bannon will be playing Dr. Tom Cole in Netflix’s Pulse.
Bannon’s role is reportedly that of a young surgical resident struggling to figure out his place in the medical industry. Writer Zoe Robyn said to TV Insider,
Tom Cole, Jack Bannon‘s character, is kind of trying to figure out basically what kind of medicine he wants to practice and also who he might find as a partner in his life. And I think that that’s a really kind of compelling set of dynamics.
Bannon is also in a Nordic TV show called The Darkness, where he was a series regular.
Pulse will premiere on Netflix on April 3, 2025.
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