‘New Amsterdam’ Addresses Max and Helen’s Relationship (RECAP)
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1 Episode 17 of New Amsterdam, “Sanctuary.”]
There’s nothing like a blizzard and a clairvoyant to prompt someone to share their feelings. It’s just too bad that in Helen Sharpe’s (Freema Agyeman) case, a blackout keeps her and Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) from having that very important talk until the end of Tuesday’s episode of New Amsterdam.
In Episode 16, Max and Helen ventured out into the blizzard to treat those who couldn’t make it to the hospital. Max promised her he’d take care of himself because “I love my doctor.” However, the woman they treated claimed to be a clairvoyant and told Helen it would never work out between her and Max.
With the power out in the hospital in Episode 17, Max and Helen have to focus on their patients. Throughout “Sanctuary,” she watches him refuse to rest when he should or lose even one patient, even when he has no other choice.
“Your job is no longer to save everyone,” she tells him. “It’s to try and minimize the damage.” He refuses to make that decision, and before she does it for him, the power comes back on.
After the crisis is over, Max tells Helen he wouldn’t have gotten through it without her, but while she didn’t have to prioritize patients, she does decide to triage their relationship. The latest two episodes have tested Max and Helen as friends, doctor/patient, and medical director/deputy.
“This thing where I’m your deputy and your doctor and your confidante and your friend … it’s not working,” she tells him. While she’s not criticizing his refusal to choose who to save, just because it worked out this time doesn’t mean it always will. “Sometimes you have to choose, and you couldn’t,” she says.
But what does that have to do with Max and Helen? “It’s what you do with your cancer as well,” she explains. “You want to stay healthy for your family, but you want to stay in charge of the hospital. You want the chemo, the strongest that we have, just not any of the side effects that come with it. From the day this began, from the day we met, you have refused to choose.”
The problem is that Max wants “everything,” which leads to him making “inspiring, completely impossible demands” of Helen. When he does, she doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be.
“I have tried to be all of the above,” like he is, she says. “I can’t. I can’t be your friend and your doctor and your deputy, so I have to choose. I have to triage us.” That means he’s getting a new oncologist, and even if he wants her, “that’s no longer an option.”
Fans aren’t ready to give up on a romantic future for Max and Helen, despite her taking a step back.
Helen and Max will be an iconic tv couple at some point on the show. Quote me! #NEWAMSTERDAM
— PineappleExpress (@Pineapple1306) April 10, 2019
I can’t believe some folks seriously think things are done with Max and Helen and that the show won’t be pursuing that ship. Do y’all actually watch TV, lol? That last scene showed they’re just getting started. 🙌🏾😍 #NewAmsterdam
— Lisa Bee (@leebee4life) April 10, 2019
However, they are also proud of Helen for standing up for herself.
I’m so happy Helen made that choice. I was not here for her giving Max everything she has and her not getting anything in return. I’m even more happier that she came to that conclusion and chose her own well being over his. Ball is in his court. #sharpwin #NewAmsterdam
— إِنَّ اللّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِينَ (@Damonslilwitch) April 10, 2019
Whew, Helen was right tho! Max wants all of her which is messy because the lines are blurred. #newamsterdam pic.twitter.com/pqSaVDVLRx
— Ayana ♔ (@AyanaMonique) April 10, 2019
“They seem to have developed a unique friendship,” Eggold previously told TV Insider about the relationship between Max and Helen. “Perhaps because Max shared his secret with her, she’s felt safe to share her secrets, and a kind of intimacy was born from that.”
Max and Helen’s relationship will be different moving forward. Tell us how you feel about Helen’s decision in the comments below.
New Amsterdam, Tuesdays, 10/9c, NBC
Conversation7 Comments
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Stupid. I hate the way this is going. I never got any vibes between them other than a best-friend type relationship until the past 2 episodes. Now, all a sudden, there's these feelings? What about how much Max adores his wife and did everything to make sure they would fix their relationship? Ridiculous storytelling now.
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G
I agree with you. I will be very disappointed if they ruin Max's marriage just to satisfy viewers who want to see Max and Helen get together. Just once can't we see someone stay committed to the spouse he loves and make his marriage work? Now, that would be something truly inspiring.
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I guess everyone has their opinions. I don't find it stupid. I saw chemistry between the two from the very beginning. I think a traumatic experience can bring people closer in ways they never imagined, whether it's romantic, friendship, etc. That is what is happening with Max and Helen.
I do not expect Max to cheat on Georgia. Max is going to struggle between both women. His commitment to his wife and trying to figure out if what he's feeling for Helen is more about his cancer or if he truly is falling in love with her. I thought it was very telling that Helen wants a baby at the time that Georgia is having a baby. Not that I need her to die, because I don't think they necessarily have to do that to Georgia's character to bring Helen and Max together. But my theory about what happens has always been that Georgia would die. Max thinking it's him all this time that would leave has a hard time dealing with raising a child without her. Helen helps him through that tragedy and raising their child.
Again, it doesn't have to happen that way but it would make for real good tearjerker. In the end, I just don't see Max and Georgia making it because they want different things. They always have and in order to make her happy he has to sacrifice who he is and vice versa. Georgia has sacrificed. I do not see her doing that for the long haul. They pretty much are in the same situation Randall and Beth was this entire season of This Is Us. JMO
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I get what you're saying. I guess I've just think we don't see enough characters on TV who truly love their spouses enough to sacrifice everything for them. Think about it. We're so used to hearing things like "they were too different" and "they wanted different things." You know what? That's real life and that's part of making marriage work. To me that would be really heroic to see Max and Georgia survive. I'm so tired of TV giving us nothing but failed marriages and affairs and justification. Maybe she dies in childbirth and that would be an easy way out. But Helen already has someone she's beginning to care for, someone who gives her a break from the madness of the hospital and that's a good thing. Max and Helen together would be too much togetherness. They would eventually burn out and break each other's hearts. Too much drama.
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There is so much chemistry between Helen and Max that it's crazy. What surprised me is that Helen ended her relationship with him as his doctor, not her personal relationship. I thought it would be the other way around.
Honestly, I think that was more about her realizing their feelings for each other is neither professional nor friendship and less about him not making choices. I am looking forward to seeing how they navigate through all that. What would make it even better is if Georgia starts to notice it because I'm sure they are going to start putting Helen and Max in even more uncomfortable situations now that we know there is something growing between them.5
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tammy4423:
Something "growing between them?" More like this: Max is hopelessly in love with Helen –- and she is in love with him. Their chemistry was ablaze from the first moment they appeared together. There is no doubt that Max loves his wife.
But he is IN love with Helen.
It's just there, oh, in every single scene in which the two share: their laser-like focus, eye-to-eye; the disappearing of the rest of world so that it's just Max and Helen, even in the middle of a crowd; the body language, how they literally move close in and in sync with each other, as if ...they were making love; the way even when discussing something banal (the plans for the day, the doctors' roster, whatever), that mutual, intense, eye-to-eye gaze of theirs sets the very air on fire.
And that scene in which Helen resigns as Max's doctor: in what universe is a simple resignation freighted with such power, loss, longing?
When Max says, "I want you," he's speaking THE core truth that has NOTHING to do with Helen as his doctor. Max WANTS Helen, all of her. Period.
And when Helen responds, "EVERYBODY wants you," she isn't conveying such pain about a mere hospital staff of hundreds but only about one person alone, Georgia, Max's on-again, off-again wife.
For all of the brilliant actors/characters on New Amsterdam––and each has got charisma, heart, soul, and chops to make the everybody from the Beatles to Beyonce and Jimi Hendrix to Prince a tad bit intimidated ––the heart and soul of it is Max and Helen.
THAT is the "New Amsterdam." The chemistry is so obvious and incandescent that Stevie Wonder and Helen Keller can not only see it but complain: "HEY!! Ratchet it down, will you?! You're blinding me!!"
This Max-and-Helen thing is so not over. It's Everything. Everything.
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I couldn't agree more. I live for complicated love stories like these. I do not need them to be perfect, because life is not perfect. I get those saying, why can't he just work on his marriage and stay with Georgia. That's a beautiful thing too but sometimes the person you think you need in your life is not who you end up with. It doesn't make them terrible people. It doesn't mean they have to go the affair route. I appreciate the slow pace between Helen and Max. The buildup is like you said "Everything". I'm sitting on on the edge of the couch waiting for this show to come on every week because of it. That break we just had, I about lost my mind. lol
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