A major character’s death was necessary to prove his disciple’s huge personal development.
The Good Doctor ’s 7-season-long television run is over with the last episode released this week, and ABC’ medical drama has recently been quite relentless towards its fans considering all the emotional plot twists that caught them off guard by the end of the show.
Despite all the worst expectations, the finale turned out to be somewhat bittersweet, showing that even bad things that happened contributed to the main character’s growth both personally and professionally.
The Good Doctor’s ending scenes show the leading character Shaun Murphy giving a TED Talk speech several years after the last season’s events in San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. The episode reveals that Dr. Aaron Glassman eventually died of cancer while Claire Browne was saved by her colleagues after suffering from a dangerous infection.
The scene also makes it clear that, over the course of the years that passed, everyone in there achieved something that they had always striving for, but it’s Shaun who got everything he’d ever wanted through a personal loss.
During his speech, Shaun reveals that he’s now chief of surgery at the hospital while also living happily with his wife Lea and two children, though he would’ve never got where he was at that moment if it hadn’t been for his late mentor Glassman.
The latter has been a father figure for Shaun ever since his arrival at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital in season 1, and Glassman’s death, which Shaun was desperately trying to prevent by looking for an efficient cure, made him realize what path he had to take further in life.
Having been in constant denial for a while, Shaun eventually had to reconcile with his friend’s heartbreaking fate, and this is probably what led him to starting accepting things as they are and getting more comfortable with his closest circle and himself.
The episode also features a heart-warming detail about Shaun’s initiative to start the Dr. Aaron Glassman Foundation for Neurodiversity in Medicine which by the end of the show he successfully runs alongside Claire.
The character’s desire to continue Glassman’s legacy after his death proves that Shaun was still able to go forward not only in his professional life, but also in the way that he evolved as a person and a family man.
According to Shaun’s actor Freddie Highmore, it’s very unlikely that things like starting a family “necessarily were something that Shaun dreamed about at the very beginning of the show. Getting him to that point does seem huge”.
