The Good Doctor gets a final assist from his very good father in the ABC medical drama’s touching sendoff.
In Tuesday’s series finale, Dr. Shaun Murphy struggles, but ultimately accepts, that Dr. Aaron Glassman will die of terminal brain cancer. He promises Glassman that he will be there for him in his final days, and accompanies him on one last ride aboard the carousel he used to ride with his late daughter Maddie.
Glassman, in turn, saves Shaun from losing his medical license. He proceeds with a non-FDA approved treatment on Claire, who loses her left arm but manages to survive a gnarly post-op infection that nearly takes her life.
In its final minutes, The Good Doctor jumps ahead several years. Shaun, who is now chief of surgery at San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital, gives a TED Talk about his phenomenal journey and the man who made it all possible. Six months after Glassman died, Shaun started the Dr. Aaron Glassman Foundation for Neurodiversity in Medicine, which he runs with Claire. In a few years’ time, the foundation already has affiliations with 17 hospitals and 32 medical schools.
As Dr. Murphy gives his TED Talk, we see that all of his friends and loved ones are there to support him. That includes his wife Lea, their son Steve… and a daughter, who was born after Glassman died. Also in attendance are Drs. Alex Park and Morgan Reznick, who have officially adopted Eden; Drs. Browne and Jared Kalu, who also have a daughter now; Drs. Jordan Allen and Danny Perez, who are married; Dr. Audrey Lim, who left St. Bons and enlisted in Surgeons for a Better World; Nurse Jerome Martel, who is seen holding hands with a new partner, years after the unexpected loss of Dr. Asher Wolke; former med student Charlotte “Charlie” Lukaitis, who is now teaching her own crop of interns at St. Bons; fellow former med student Dominick “Dom” Hubank, who has left St. Bons and opened a community health center; and Nurses Villanueva and Hawks.
“I wanted to help people, and save lives, and I wanted to make a lot of money so I could buy a television,” Dr. Murphy says as his lecture draws to a close. “But because of Dr. Glassman, I have much more than that: I have many friends, I have a family… and I have two televisions.”
Shaun and Lea, and their son and daughter, walk out of St. Bons hand in hand, and the episode cuts to black. That’s a wrap on The Good Doctor.
Below, series star/executive producer Freddie Highmore, and co-showrunners/fellow EPs David Shore and Liz Friedman, talk with TVLine about bringing the long-running medical drama to an end.
TVLINE | David, the finale marks the death of Dr. Aaron Glassman, whose mortality is something we’ve discussed on and off for six years now. Did you always have a sense that Glassman’s passing would tie into the end of the show?
SHORE | No. I wish I was that brilliant! Liz has talked about this a fair bit, and it makes so much sense. It’s Chekhov’s cancer: If you introduce it in Season 1, you need to pay it off in Season 7.
FRIEDMAN | Shaun faces a really unique challenge because of his ASD: He’s a doctor, and his mentor has this very serious illness. He wants to deal with it as medicine, and Glassman doesn’t want to do that; he simply wants to have a personal relationship. For Shaun, that is as hard [to accept] as it would be for me to figure out how to treat Glassman’s cancer…. He has had this very close, and very vulnerable, relationship with Glassman, and that’s been key to his development. It’s such a natural question to ask, “How will he handle life without him?”
TVLINE | It sounds like the goal here was not about teaching Shaun that even the best doctors can’t save everyone. It was more about getting him to a point where he recognizes that being there emotionally for those he loves is sometimes more important than the medicine.
FRIEDMAN | I think that’s right. Shaun has dealt with losing patients before. He does understand that there are illnesses and conditions that can’t be beat. But what if this person doesn’t want to [turn] to medicine?
HIGHMORE | Shaun has always prioritized the medicine; that has always been his goal. That is what he needed to overcome the challenges that he has faced. For him to realize that he has gotten to a point in life where he is now surrounded by people who love him, who are there to support him, and who he cares so deeply about, it changes the way he sees his priorities in life. It shows just how far Shaun has come, and what it means to have unconditional love and share that with people.
