‘New Amsterdam’ Boss on Helen’s Return & ‘Pressure’ It Puts on Max
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers through New Amsterdam Season 5 Episode 10 “Don’t Do This for Me.”]
Just as it looks like things might be moving forward for Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) and Dr. Elizabeth Wilder (Sandra Mae Frank), he gets quite the blast from his past in the New Amsterdam Season 5 fall finale.
After Wilder explains that she feels she can’t share everything she’s feeling with him, even though he’s learning ASL, it seems like they’re over before they even get started. However, then Wilder decides she can’t accept a job offer from her mentor, Dr. Bev Clemons (Marlee Matlin), because while the other woman might have had a tough experience as a deaf doctor, she feels seen — by Max.
Bev encourages her to tell whoever’s been seeing and hearing her that they should be hearing and seeing her a lot more. And so Wilder goes to see Max, tells him to take here home … and then they see Max’s ex-fiancée, Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman), on the TV! She’s back in New York.
“Having Helen Sharpe back in New York will profoundly affect Max,” executive producer David Schulner tells TV Insider. “Just knowing she’s in the same city will put pressure on his budding feelings for Wilder, it will test how much he has truly moved on, it will call into question everything he has done and said and felt this entire season. Which is why we brought her back!”
Agyeman appears in Episodes 10 and 11. “However, her presence and the repercussions of her visit to NY are felt far beyond that,” the EP teases.
Peter Kramer/NBC
The two episodes of the fall finale also reunited Dr. Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine) and Martin (Mike Doyle) but ended on a less-than-hopeful note: with Martin saying they should finalize the divorce. We couldn’t help but note that in that final conversation that Iggy said not only that he loved Martin but also he’s in love him, while Martin only said he loved Iggy. When it comes to what’s next for them, Schulner points out the importance of Martin wanting to finalize their divorce.
Elsewhere, Dr. Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery) has had a rough few episode: Her mother died, then her sister Vanessa (Kathryn Prescott) overdosed. Though she doesn’t want to turn her back on her family, Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) reminds her that change won’t happen unless you demand it. And so Bloom does what’s best for her sister: She lets Reynolds bring her the card for the church where she goes to NA meetings.
How worried should we be for Bloom after all that? “Absolutely, you should be concerned,” the EP says. “But, we’re not going to go down the obvious or expected road with Bloom. She’s a different and stronger person than she was at the beginning of this season.”
New Amsterdam returns on January 3, with the two-hour series finale set for two weeks later. With this break before those episodes, “I want to leave the audience with the feelings they felt when they first fell in love with the show. I hope fans who left when Freema left come back for the end,” Schulner shares. “I hope fans who left when the show got ‘too political’ to come back for the end.”
He continues, “because there’s always been more to the show than Sharpwin. There’s always been more to the show than the issues we tackle. New Amsterdam is all of that and more. So most importantly, I want to honor the fans who stayed with us for five years. This is for them.”
New Amsterdam, Midseason Premiere, Tuesday, January 3, 10/9c, NBC
