How Did ‘Doctor Odyssey’ End? Details on Avery’s Choice, Max’s Fate & More in Finale

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Doctor Odyssey‘s Season 1 finale, “The Wave, Part 2.”]

The Doctor Odyssey love triangle is officially no more — sorry, all ye ODY3 ‘shippers — because Avery (Phillipa Soo) has finally decided to partner up with just one of her beaus exclusively.

Thursday’s Season 1 finale (which may be the series finale, if ABC decides not to renew the show) picked up right where the penultimate episode left off.

Avery, unable to reach Max on the walkie-talkie anymore, had to perform lifesaving surgery on her own, with just a hungover Tristan (Sean Teale) and a blood-fearing psychiatrist (played by Jonathan Bennett) there to help. Luckily for her patient, Avery studied up on the procedure and pulled it off without a single hitch as well as anyone could.

After hearing her patient’s stepdaughter telling him she was sorry for the mean thing she’d said to him and how it would’ve broken her heart if that was the last thing he heard of her, Avery seemed to remember the biting tone with which she told Max she didn’t love him. Tristan, seeing her obvious concern, encouraged her to lead the rescue mission to bring him back.

Meanwhile, Max (Joshua Jackson) woke up beneath a pile of rubble after an aftershock leveled the place he and Barry (guest star Jim O’Heir) were helping the injured, but he emerged unharmed. Barry, on the other hand, needed an emergency field procedure, and Avery arrived just in time to lend a hand with it.

Back on board, Captain Massey (Don Johnson) was formally relieved of his duties due to his insubordination of the corporate command, which left Spencer Monroe (Marcus Emanuel Mitchell) to take charge of the ship. And Tristan had to help the karen who was saying terrible things about the locals who boarded the ship while seeking safety turned out to be in labor with a cryptic pregnancy. Thanks to one of the very people she disparaged — a very gentle woman who just so happened to be a midwife in Mexico — she successfully delivered a baby girl, and it changed her whole personality to feel that real love.

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On the island, Avery explained that she was afraid of her feelings for Max because it might mean she’d choose someone else over herself once again, after a lifetime of doing that. However, she eventually decided to tell Max how she really felt about him, admitting that she did have feelings — “big feelings,” even — for him. Later, Max responded to her to and said he wanted her to choose herself (“unequivocally, unapologetically… always, but in particular right now”) and that a relationship with him didn’t mean compromising that.

“Whoever you go, whatever you do, you’re going to be OK,” he said. “I just want you in my life.”

Tristan saw them holding hands as they returned to the ship and wordlessly picked up on what that meant for them — no more casual romps in the cabin in their future.

Back on shore, the captain played host to the array of weddings that were interrupted by the wave, and Max seized the opportunity to speak to Tristan and apologize for violating the “bro code.” Tristan, having seen what true love can do a person thanks to his new mother patient, responded with, “I have a new philosophy in life: Go where the love is. Eventually, I’ll find someone whose love is only for me.”

From there, everything went right back to where it all started on the show, with Avery and Max dancing on the beach to their song, “Despacito.” After a quick wink to those audience members who might’ve been expecting a musical moment given Phillipa Soo’s credentials — “I was gonna maybe sing it,” she joked — she decided to finally declare herself to Max.

“Max, I do love you. I do want to be with you. And I want to go to med school. And I want to choose me and choose us, and I have no idea how to do all of that,” she said, to which he answered, “And you don’t have to because we’ll do it together… Details TBD.”

Disney / Tina Thorpe

Back on board, Robert congratulated Monroe on getting the big job in his wake, but Monroe had a surprise for him — he told the company he wouldn’t be taking his place any time soon, and he wasn’t the only one. The whole crew, including the medics, echoed his sentiment and forced corporate to give the captain back his crown — er, hat — and continue commanding the ship.

In the final moment of the episode (and, again, possibly the series), the trio had one last conversation about their life, and the chat paid some fan service to those theorists who’ve been wondering if there’s an afterlife element to the Odyssey. After Avery revealed what she’ll miss most about the ship when she goes off to medical school, she pointed to the unlimited clean towels before choosing the boys: “Fine, I’ll miss Max and you, followed by clean towels.”

Tristan then admitted that Max and Avery make a cute couple and toasted them with, “To love, no matter the distance.”

Max offered his own sentimental bit by saying, “When I came to the Odyssey, I had stared death in the face and was desperately searching for fun, adventure, sun, [and] good food. But instead what I found were hurricanes and necrotic bowels.”

“You mean this isn’t the paradise you were expecting?” Avery mused.

“Far too much vomit for Heaven,” he answered.

“But there is unlimited clean towels, so not exactly Hell,” Tristan added.

“Right, so maybe some place in between, which I think is the point,” Max said. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad, and for you two, I would take a heck of a lot more bad.”

“Never have the words ‘necrotic bowel’ been used to such poetic effect,” Tristan joked, ending things on a light note as always.

Doctor Odyssey, Streaming Now, Hulu

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