New Amsterdam episode 2 review: Will Max let his wife Georgia in?
Tonight, New Amsterdam episode 2 arrived with a fairly simple (but reasonable) challenge at the center of it: Finding a way to expand upon the universe and the characters already established, while also still bring you some case-of-the-week stories along the way.
The big takeaway that we have from Tuesday night’s new episode is mostly that Max’s cancer diagnosis isn’t going away, and neither is the way in which he is hiding it from others. Rather than allowing his wife Georgia to learn the truth about what he’s going through, he was warned against doing anything that was going to cause her significant stress by one of her own doctors. Because of this, we’re left with Max having to bottle all of this up except for Dr. Helen Sharpe, who is treating Max and doing everything that she can to ensure that he is okay.
Through her, we’ve learned a few more important things about the relationship that he has with Georgia, starting with the fact that he initially took the job at New Amsterdam without even talking with her about it. Basically, he encouraged her to quit her job as a dancer only to then take an even busier job himself. Max is far from a perfect person, even if he is trying to create the best overall workplace for patients. For now, Helen is going to have to be his sounding board.
As for some of the other stories in episode two, we learned over the course of the hour that Dr. Frome isn’t your average doctor, mostly in that he wanted to remove a young boy from his prescription drugs rather than continue to have them completely overwhelm him. This was a choice made to really get to the root of a problem rather than mask it with drugs. He had to fight, though, in order to ensure that the local court (there is a courthouse in the hospital!) would allow him to still attend school. This is where we saw a little more of Iggy as a father figure, and that in turn led to Dr. Kapoor realizing that he did want to connect again with his own kid, even if he had not been a part of their life for a substantial period of time.
Meanwhile, Dr. Reynolds tonight had to learn to try and let go when it comes to the idea that faith was useless to a patient. He basically had to allow a ritual to performed on a patient, dangerous as it could be, in order to restore some positivity to the hospital. This wasn’t the most essential story on the show, but it did help us to further understand how Floyd handles his job. He is very by the book, and at times doesn’t believe in anything other than science as he fights to get the job done.
CarterMatt Verdict
Two episodes in, and we do very much believe that New Amsterdam is one of the strongest new series of the season. The characters are all interesting, the twists built in reality, and Ryan Eggold remains a more than capable leading man at the center of the operation.
What did you think about New Amsterdam episode 2 overall? Be sure to share right away in the attached comments!