How 'New Amsterdam's' Final Episodes Are Shaken Up by Freema Agyeman's Return

Warning: This story contains spoilers for the Season 5 mid-season finale of New Amsterdam, titled "Don't Do This for Me," streaming now on Peacock. Read at your own risk!

It did feel too good to be true. After doubting whether or not she could have an emotionally satisfying relationship with someone she can't fully communicate with, Dr. Elizabeth Wilder (Sandra Mae Frank) decided to forgo a prestigious position running the first medical school for the deaf and instead stay at New Amsterdam because not only did she feel heard and seen by the hospital's medical director Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) on a professional level, but she was also finally ready for him to take her home. 

And then, in the cruelest of twists, Max hears the voice of his former fiancé Dr. Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman), who is back in New York. 

With only three episodes to go before NBC's New Amsterdam takes a last bow, Agyeman makes a return just long enough to shake everything up. And Max and Elizabeth are not the only ones whose lives are going to get one final jolt before we say farewell. 

"We definitely could have kept on going," series creator David Schulner tells Metacritic. "I still get emails from the World Health Organization saying, 'We think this would be a great story.' I still get emails from Eric Manheimer, on whose book the show is based, saying, 'You should do this story.' I even get emails from our executives saying, 'Aw man, if you had one more episode, I think you guys could have done really a great job on this issue.' So, we could have kept on going, but we ended where we were told to end."

Here, Schulner talks to Metacritic about the individual challenges faced by staff of New Amsterdam, as we ramp up toward the Jan. 17 series finale and how the show changed over the course of five years.  

In terms of the last three episodes, are you working on a conclusive arc? 

Yes. Luckily we knew our end before we started the season, and we knew it would be a 13-episode final season. It allowed us to really craft the stories that we wanted to tell and realize we didn't have room for other stories. We had to truncate some stories. But it caused us to be really selective about what we were going to say in this final run. So luckily we did know where the end was when we started the journey.

Let's start with the cliffhanger that you left us on this fall. Are you about to split our hearts in two?

Well, we try. That's our job. That's why they hired me.

What can you say about Max's emotional dilemma?

It's a huge dilemma. The whole season thus far has been healing Max. We spent 10 episodes getting him ready for a new relationship, 10 episodes getting ready for him to move on. And then just when he made that turn, we challenge whether he has moved on at all or whether he's healed at all. So Episode 11 is all about, is he ready? Was 10 episodes enough time? Was it not enough time? Has he moved on? Has he not moved on? Has he lied to himself, thinking he has moved on? So all the angst, all the feels, all the conflict, inner and external.

Is this a conclusion that Max will come to fairly quickly?

Yes. It takes all of Episode 11 for him to get to the conclusion. And then Episode 12 is a brand new day. And then we throw a wrench into that, of course. Because that's our job. And again, it's all about Sharpe. It's all about this thing that doesn't go away even when you think it does.

How would you describe Elizabeth's feelings about what's happening with Max?

So conflicted, deeply understanding, very self-protective. These are two adults. And even though she hasn't been watching Sharpe for four years, she definitely came into Season 4 knowing exactly who Sharpe was, how formidable she was, and saw how deeply Max was in love with her. So she knows there's trouble, but it's Max's decision. And she's the one who forces him to make it. It's not for just himself, but for her as well.

Other than just throwing a wrench in Max's plans, what was nice about having Freema back as you wrap up the show?

We even wanted her for the finale as well! The whole idea is just to bring back all the people you love, all the people we haven't seen in a while, all the people throughout the seasons that we got to know. And that was the idea for the finale. We couldn't make it work with Freema, but we tried.

Speaking of bringing back the ones we love, it seems like Iggy [Tyler Labine] has to do some work on himself in these next three episodes. What can we say about Iggy's journey towards the end? 

I think Iggy's journey is realizing that just because he changed for the better or feels like he has, doesn't mean that Martin [Mike Doyle] has changed. Or, if it means that Martin changed, too, are they even meant to be together? I think Iggy has to fight for Martin in a way he never had to before.

Reynolds [Jocko Sims] seemed to come to a really good place with his dad. What are you putting him through in the last three episodes?

Now that he finally has his father back, it's a matter of what's he going to do about Gabrielle [Toya Turner], this new woman in his life, and is she the one?

Bloom [Janet Montgomery] made a call to stop coddling her sister Vanessa [Kathryn Prescott], after her latest overdose. Where does that leave her and that relationship?

It's funny, we broke Episode 11 with her really traumatized by that decision and then we realized that was the wrong place for her to be. We have her feeling like she finally made the right decision about her sister, after so many years of making the wrong decision. She's in a real place of stability, so of course we now have to knock her off that with something else. We throw Bloom another huge curve ball right at the end.

It really feels like there is so much more potential with these characters. Was there a temptation to leave things open-ended?

No, we have no temptation of that. We feel like we were given the opportunity to end the show on our terms, and I want to wrap things up. I want to end people's journeys either with them having gotten the thing that they desired, or they lose the thing that they desire and are forced to carve a new path and go on a new journey. So the finale really is about wrapping up everyone's journey in a surprising yet inevitable way, while also leaving a couple doors open for the future.

Are there full-circle moments to look forward to?

Definitely. Always. I forgot who said it, but you end where you begin. And if you want to know how to end the story, you have to look at how you began it. So the finale really is a callback to the pilot in many, many ways.

Did you go back and look at earlier episodes?

Yes, I went back and looked at the pilot, absolutely, just to remind ourselves where we started and what we could use and, if we've left anything open, that we could finally close the door on.

What struck you about the pilot?

How much better the show has gotten.

[Laughs] In what way?

How much I've benefited from the voices of the other writers, from new directors, from different crew members. I just feel like the show got better and deeper and richer and really took the pilot to task in many ways, where Max really was coming in and solving everything himself. The series really showed Max how he couldn't do that anymore. And it showed him how he could rely and should rely on other people and other points of views. And I think that, to me, is the most exciting part of it.

Throughout the run of the show, you depicted political division, the abortion ban, the pandemic. There was so much to work with. What was it like to incorporate what was happening in the moment into your show?

That's really how the show was born. Trump was President, and his very first act as President was to abolish Obamacare. He came into office and he said, this is the most important thing for us to do: Abolish healthcare for everyone. So if it wasn't for John McCain's single vote, it'd be gone. That's how tenuous our healthcare is for many Americans. That's when I started writing the show. And so incorporating politics has always been at the very core of New Amsterdam. And it was the core of Eric Manheimer's book, which was about what outside influences patients bring into the hospital. What are they experiencing in their neighborhoods, in their societies that lead them to get sick and lead them to New Amsterdam, or Bellevue in Dr. Manheimer's case? Politics are why I wrote the show to begin with, and so we just kept incorporating them into the show as things developed.

New Amsterdam airs its final batch of episodes at 10 p.m. Tuesdays beginning Jan. 3 on NBC.