Wrapping up seven seasons of The Good Doctor has been bittersweet for Freddie Highmore, who plays the part of Dr. Shaun Murphy, a gifted surgeon who has navigated many personal and professional challenges because of his autism.
Bitter, because the series is over; sweet, because Highmore is satisfied with its conclusion, which aired on Tuesday, May 21.
“I loved the way that it brought things full circle, as all finales should do in some way. It looked back to the beginning,” he told Parade of the finale. “I think the most moving scene to film was probably the one where Shaun returns to the very same board room where he gave that speech in the pilot, [this time] to talk to Dr. Glassman and Lea.”
Highmore calls returning to that board room “a little bit surreal, but also lovely.”
“It puts into perspective just how far Shaun has come from vouching for himself at the beginning, and trying to get the job at the hospital, to finally being the person who is standing there, not just with Dr. Glassman, but as a husband and a father.”
The finale allows viewers to watch Dr. Murphy express a loving farewell to Dr. Glassman, while not showing the elder doctor’s actual death.
“I feel that Shaun was saying goodbye to him [Dr. Glassman] when he’s standing in the board room. That, to me, felt like Shaun saying to Dr. Glassman that I accept your wishes, and also that you won’t be around for me in the near future,” he said.
On “some level,” Highmore admits, he knew Dr. Glassman’s character would die at the end of the popular ABC series.
“There’s an inevitability to it,” he explains. “It was very fitting to not just see the moment that Shaun is accepting that he has to say goodbye to someone, but also [to see] that 10-year gap showing how Shaun has processed it and the influence that Dr. Glassman has continued to have on him in the years after that. I think they used that time gap to be incredibly effective.”
“It was lovely to get to see a slightly older Shaun and see how his family has progressed, as well, towards the end,” Highmore continued. “To check in with all of the characters who have all been so special and important to the show, and see how everyone has been getting on over the last 10 years.”
The last scene Highmore filmed of The Good Doctor, which remains top of mind, is when Lea [Paige Spara] comes to Shaun to talk about what is happening to Dr. Glassman, both personally and medically.
“They sit down in the residents’ lounge and it’s a very quiet, nuanced scene. It felt like a fitting end, because I think the show has always been at its best in those little, small moments rather than the big, splashy ones, which the show hasn’t ever really been about,” Highmore said. “Getting to do that last scene with Paige was incredibly special. Shaun and Lea’s relationship has obviously been at the cornerstone of the show and is almost the perfect relationship to encapsulate just how far Shaun has come.”
Summing up the emotional Season 7 finale, Highmore said he feels like The Good Doctor went out on the right note for everyone.
“I think now that we finished it, I feel the sense of peacefulness. Which I think comes from a sense of collective satisfaction, and of knowing that all of us as a cast and crew cared so deeply about the show and always wanted to make it as good as possible, and did that until the very end,” he said. “I think that leaves you feeling grateful, appreciative and satisfied, rather than craving more.”
