NEW AMSTERDAM Post-Mortem: David Schulner and Peter Horton on the Full-Circle, Open-Ended Finale...and the Possibility for More - Give Me My Remote : Give Me My Remote

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NEW AMSTERDAM Post-Mortem: David Schulner and Peter Horton on the Full-Circle, Open-Ended Finale…and the Possibility for More

January 17, 2023 by  

new amsterdam series finale spoilers adult luna

NEW AMSTERDAM — “How Can I Help” Episode 513 — Pictured: (l-r) Nora and Opal Clow as Luna, Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max Goodwin — (Photo by: Ralph Bavaro/NBC)

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Tuesday, January 17 series finale of NEW AMSTERDAM.]

NEW AMSTERDAM closed out its run by taking things full-circle…for characters both expected and a bit more unexpected.

As Max (Ryan Eggold) desperately tried to complete his final day at the hospital, he found himself letting his daughter, Luna, down…he had promised to take her to the mermaid parade; instead, he saved a life.

But in the aftermath of Max reflecting on his own initial desire to be a doctor—and encouraging his colleagues to the same—the show had one last twist in store: The young doctor who had shown up to be the new boss at New Amsterdam was actually part of scenes set in the future. The young woman in question? An adult Luna (Molly Griggs), whose desire to become a doctor was solidified on her father’s last day at New Amsterdam.

Here, executive producers David Schulner and Peter Horton talk about the finale—as well as their hopes for the future.



David…you mentioned there was an end that people kept pitching to you. Was that the Luna moment? What can you share about how that kind of came to be, as well as casting that actress?
David Schulner: That was the moment, it was. We started from a place of Luna coming to take over the hospital, the same way Max started the pilot. When Max came and introduced himself, he said, “My sister died here. I kind of grew up here.”And for Luna to come back and say, “My mother died here. I grew up here.” And to have that, those two pillars of past and future together, that was the moment that was pitched by my 11 year old daughter, our executive producers, everyone had that moment, individually. And so we started there, and then built up her story. How do we get there, in a satisfying, surprising way?
Peter Horton: The actress was just a gift. We were really concerned about finding the right person that had the right look, had the right spirit, the right age, the right kind of everything come together. And we were like looking at different tapes and suddenly this one popped up and David and I jumped on the phone, and went, “Wow. Did you see that?” And so that was just our casting director David Caparelliotis. He’s just phenomenal. Done this over and over again for the last five years—found the perfect person.

Looking to the montages of the future, how much debate was there about where everyone ended up? And what led to the decision to not really have a clear future for Max, beyond where Luna ended up?
Horton: He’s got…a suggested future with the World Health Organization in Geneva. We never really say, when Luna’s speaking, she doesn’t say, “And he passed on a year ago” or “He’s happily married to a Swiss girl.”
Schulner: Or back together with Wilder…We wanted to leave the door open a little bit. Because that’s where the audience comes in. The audience can only participate if you let them. And so we always try to leave the door open just a touch for every story we do.
Horton: A little ambiguity is always good.



In any part of your mind, was the door left open because you might want to revisit this character in the future? Or is it just purely because you want to let the audience have their own choices in the aftermath?
Schulner: CRIMINAL MINDS was rebooted two years after it was canceled.
Horton: We would love to have it rebooted; we’d love to try again. It’s not up to us yet, but we’re you know, we’re trying; we’ll see. You never know.

Looking to the non-Max characters, how much of their endings were set up from the start, compared to seeing their paths they went down in this final season?
Schulner: Well, you end where you begin, right? A satisfying ending needs to be set up in the beginning. And so for Reynolds, it was finding the kind of family that he wanted. He had a very clear vision, and we put him through the wringer for five years to get there. Same with Bloom and her family. Kind of everyone’s core trauma, or core longing, that’s where we tried to end everyone up.



Outside of Freema, was there any element you wanted to include in the finale that didn’t work out?
Horton: I mean, definitely Freema, but also, frankly, Anupam [Kher, who played Kapoor]. I mean, he’s not with us [in the show] anymore, either. And we didn’t get a chance to really play that out. Those two losses were big losses for us; we hated losing both of them, because they were such a big part of our show initially.

As far as the characters left standing, I think we felt pretty good about where we left everybody. We felt like we had, like David said, come full-circle in a way we hope is satisfying for people. But I think for both of us, those are our regrets. Those are great characters and great actors, and it would have been great fun to have paid those off, as well.

Well, you did get Daniel Dae Kim back. I’m curious how that came to be, and if there were there any other kinds of guest stars that you were looking to bring back.
Schulner: You know, it was so hard because it was a surgery. So I would have loved to bring Sendhil [Ramamurthy’s Dr. Panthaki] back as well. But he wasn’t a surgeon. So all those people who were with us who we loved, it wouldn’t make sense for them to be there unless they were surgeons. But Daniel Dae Kim was the perfect opportunity of, “Here’s someone I bet you’d never thought you’d see again on NEW AMSTERDAM. Here he is.” Christine [Chang], who plays Agnes Kao, getting her back—yeah, we got all the surgeons back we could.
Horton: We had this one moment that we wanted to pay off Eric Manheimer, the guy with this is all based on. And he was there. We filmed them. He was there, during the surgery. We had this big moment where we wanted to have the door open and it’s him. It’s the guy that the whole thing is based on walking by, and passing off to Max. But he left because he had stuff to do.
Schulner: I think he was bored. We did get him on camera. He is in the finale, as one of the surgeons washing in the scrub room. Michael Slovis, our director, had a hero shot plan for him. And he was like, “This is just taking too long. I’m out of here.”



Plus, the EPs share what they’ll miss about the show:

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