New Amsterdam Review: Two Doors (Season 4 Episode 15)
The DamFam is back on New Amsterdam Season 4 Episode 15, “Two Doors,” after an Olympic hiatus, and makes a valiant effort to justify the choices that have been made this season.
The character moments are what elevate this episode. When this is where the show turns its focus, New Amsterdam shines.
It’s also no small feat to give fans some of the best Sharpwin moments to date, when these characters are still half a world apart.
Max (Ryan Eggold) swooping in to save the day was always going to happen. It’s just what he does, and honestly, we wouldn’t expect anything else from him at this point.
It‘s still such a strange decision to set up his character to leave everything he knows and has spent his life building to follow the woman he loves, only to have him return immediately to clean up the mess that has been left in his wake.
Max’s recruitment of his fired co-workers, while a good idea in theory, ultimately fell flat. That being said, the fact that Casey (Alejandro Hernandez) is the one who calls Max out for his shenanigans was poetic justice, and what both of these characters deserve.
It’s great to see these characters together again, but story-wise, it feels like a bit of a cop-out. Although it was always the hope that these characters would come back together again, their reunion just seems unearned.
The real star of this episode, as usual, is Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman). Even though she remains in the UK while New Amsterdam drama unfolds, she’s very much present. The moments of, ahem, connection are a great reminder of why these two deserve each other.
We know they’ll be okay, even if their relationship is currently of the long-distance variety.
What we absolutely don’t need is an attempt to make us love a terrible character, Veronica Fuentes (Michelle Forbes). Flashbacks into a character’s backstory rarely work out well. This one is not an exception.
Okay, so at one point she thought like Max. Isn’t this more an indictment of the American healthcare system, though, that profits are frequently put ahead of patients? Clearly, it’s a far bigger issue than one fictional doctor in a fictional public hospital.
From a story and a character perspective, I’m left asking, what was the point of showing that maybe at one time Fuentes actually cared about patients?
It’s shame that this show still doesn’t seem to quite know what to do with Floyd (Jocko Sims). He definitely needs to be held accountable for betraying his co-workers. The ostracization from his co-workers is definitely not subtle.
Although it’s good to see him out of the mess of a relationship he had previously been in, I’m still waiting for a return to form for a character whose smarts always shone through.
Hopefully, he’s playing a long game here, and we can all look forward to Floyd returning to full character strength.
Iggy (Tyler Labine) continues to be the most infuriating fictional psychiatrist out of the near-endless supply of medical shows currently on TV. His advice to a patient whose father refuses to acknowledge the mass shooting his son survived was completely wrong.
What kind of psychiatrist tells someone just to shut up about the truth for the sake of maintaining a relationship? How about telling the father if he wants to maintain a relationship with his son he has some serious work to do?
Iggy remains a walking red flag as a psychiatrist. It’s been sad to watch this character’s decline from a compassionate, relatable psychiatrist to someone who defends all the wrong people and gives terrible medical advice, even if it’s fictional.
New Amsterdam has struggled with even storytelling this season, even though we’ve been given some incredible story and character moments along the way. It’s clear how much potential this show has, and it would be sad to see it totally squandered.
What I want to know now as the series approaches its endgame is when can we see Sharpwin back together in person? When can we see Fuentes finally get when we deserve?
And will Iggy ever stop giving terrible medical advice? We won’t have another episode of New Amsterdam for several weeks, so I have a lot of time to consider these questions.
What did you think of this episode of New Amsterdam? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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New Amsterdam airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.
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Justine Kraemer
Justine is an unashamed fan of too many TV shows and movies with a particular love of all things Marvel. She balances her love of massive massively popular shows with hidden gems that are just waiting to be discovered.