New Amsterdam's Producers Revisited The Series' Pilot For Finale Inspiration
The following article contains spoilers for "New Amsterdam" Season 5, Episodes 12 and 13 — "Right Place" and "How Can I Help?"
Bringing a long-lived series to a proper conclusion is always a difficult prospect, but it appears that the folks behind "New Amsterdam" did it the right way.
Of course, the show's characters are a long way from where they started when the series opened in 2018. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) started out as the idealistic medical director trying to change New Amsterdam Hospital's way of seeing its patients. He closes the series working for the World Health Organization, pioneering their global health policy. After a Season 5 storyline that some fans just didn't enjoy because it revealed a new side of him they didn't like, it definitely brought things full circle for him. But what really brings the show to a fulfilling close is a flash-forward that reveals his daughter, Luna (Molly Griggs), will one day become a doctor and the medical director of the hospital just as her father did before her. Luna was born at New Amsterdam, and it's the sort of sunrise/sunset move that brings the whole series full circle.
That's the sort of storytelling that requires intense study of your characters to figure out the ending they deserve. According to a recent interview with the producers of "New Amsterdam," they went all the way back to the show's beginning in a quest for the right ending.
The show's producers revisited the pilot to wrap things up
According to an interview with "New Amsterdam" co-executive producer and series creator David Schulner and co-executive producer (as well as series finale director) Peter Horton published by Deadline, the writing staff studied the show's pilot to bring things full circle as the show concluded.
"We knew the ending would have to come out of the beginning, just because that's good storytelling. So we definitely went back to the pilot to find where these characters started and what would be a satisfying yet surprising conclusion," observed Schulner. That's why fans were treated to back-to-basics flashbacks of each of the show's main characters deciding when they would become doctors, and why the finale showed Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine) and Martin McIntyre (Mike Doyle) reuniting in a romantic remarriage ceremony and Dr. Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) finally finding love with Gabrielle (Toya Turner) even though it meant plunging into a long-distance relationship.
Other ideas came into the finale from other areas — sometimes from people who weren't even on the show's staff. Per an interview with E! News, Schulner revealed that the notion of Luna returning to the hospital as an adult doctor came from an idea proposed by his eleven-year-old daughter, Ella. He initially put the notion aside, but then one of the writing staff, Laura Valdivia, also proposed the notion. That resulted in the idea being greenlit.
Not every character got a crowd-pleasing conclusion (and, according to Reddit fans of Freema Agyeman's Dr. Helen Sharpe, the show actively undid the good that she achieved on the program). But one can't say the show's producers didn't try to make an effort to give the show's fans closure.