Warning: The following incorporates spoilers from Tuesday’s New Amsterdam premiere. Proceed at your individual danger!
New Amsterdam‘s Max didn’t precisely get the closure he was searching for from his ex-fiancée Helen in Tuesday’s fifth and last season premiere.
The episode opened with a montage spanning the months post-their breakup, throughout which Max marked Luna’s birthday and his pals consoled him. Meanwhile, former forged member Freema Agyeman’s voice was heard over the sequence, studying a letter that Helen wrote to Max.
“What I did was unforgivable, to you, to our friends, to sweet Luna. It was never my intention, none of this is what I intended,” the be aware learn. “Everything I ever said to you was true, everything we had was real. But so was this thing that kept me in London, that kept me from marrying you. I wish I knew what it was. I wish I could rip it out of me, obliterate it, so I could be with you, because you deserve all the happiness in the world. I wish I had an explanation to help ease your pain, but none has come.”
Moving on following that letter might be “a slow process” for Max, govt producer Peter Horton says within the above video. “It’s not something that happens quickly.”
Initially, within the premiere, Max can solely recall the nice occasions he shared with Helen. But as soon as he began to recollect all of the red-flag moments of their relationship, “I think finally being able to answer those questions for himself allows him to not be obsessed about it, allows him to move on,” showrunner David Schulner shares. “It’s not something that we’re going to be playing throughout the season of Max [being] like, ‘Why did she leave me?’”
For the brokenhearted doc, “it is not totally clear why she left from that letter, and I think that’s perhaps something we’re going to get into later,” star Ryan Eggold provides. (*5*)
While even Helen can’t clarify in her letter why she couldn’t undergo with the marriage, the indicators have been there all alongside that one thing was off between “Sharpwin,” as witnessed by the numerous flashbacks within the episode, going all the best way again to final season’s premiere. So was it simply fortuitous that the producers had these scenes of their again pocket?
“We didn’t even know that we would have Freema for Season 4. Freema was thinking of leaving after Season 3. So Season 4 was a gift to us,” Schulner beforehand revealed to TVLine, now including that “we planted those moments throughout Season 4 so we would have them as an explanation. The sign posts were there if you were watching.”
Eagle-eyed viewers might have additionally observed that as all of Max’s pals stepped as much as assist him in his time of want, he and Dr. Elizabeth Wilder (performed by Sandra Mae Frank), specifically, shared just a few appears that may very well be construed as having chemistry.
“Oh, no. There’s nothing there at all,” Horton says (sarcastically?) with a smile.
(*1*)Eggold, who directed the season opener, says, “We did the push-in on her and that look [at the end of the episode], and I couldn’t call, ‘Cut!’ because she was so amazing in it and alive and connected, and it was bewitching to watch her do that moment. So I think I rolled on it for like 10 minutes. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we need it for two seconds, right.’”
“So speaking as Ryan about Sandra, I can say she’s an absolute joy to work with and so talented and so smart and brings great things to the scenes and is so fun,” Eggold continues. “In terms of Max and Wilder, Wilder was there for Max as a friend even, I think it was Wilder’s first episode, she was giving him advice about Sharpe and saying, ‘Don’t let her go’ and stuff. So there’s been a cool connection with them, I think, from the very start.”
New Amsterdam followers, press PLAY above to listen to extra from the trio about Agyeman’s “return,” then hit the feedback together with your ideas!
Discussion about this post