'New Amsterdam' Season 4 Episode 13 Review: Max and Helen struggle in somber episode
Contains spoilers for 'New Amsterdam' Season 4 Episode 13
'New Amsterdam' just shows that with every passing pleasant scene, there's a sense of unease and bad news brewing. It's that template the NBC medical drama, perhaps one of the best there is right now, has relied on in the past, and in the form of Dr Vjay Kapoor's (Anupam Kher) death, the show has now managed to bring all the scattered characters under one roof. The tone is unusually dark and somber, but 'New Amsterdam's last couple of episodes were leading up to it. The itty-bitty forced humor and the filler storylines were just a temporary distraction.
Getting into Episode 13, there are three major plotlines — Max (Ryan Eggold) and Helen Sharpe's (Freema Agyeman) relationship has seen some turbulence with the latter fed up with attempting to patch things with her mother. It doesn't help that Max, was, well..being Max. The heart-fluttering shower kisses right at the start of the episode end with a heated argument for the two before news of Dr Kapoor's death shakes them to the core and see them rush back to the US.
The focus is also on Floyd Reynolds (Jocko Sims) who treats a patient banged up pretty badly in an accident while trying to save his baby. He does his best, but while Lauren Bloom (Janet Montgomery) figures out the hidden issue with the baby by doing a manual DNA sequence check, Floyd can only watch his patient die slowly despite his best efforts. The third storyline is about whether Lauren Bloom will leave New Amsterdam. Clearly, her relationship with resident ER, Leyla Shinwari is on the rocks, and Veronica Fuentes (Michelle Forbes) manages to rile her up, so that will be the focal point of the next episode.
The other storyline that slips under the radar is that of Dr Wilder and her relationship with her brother, Adam. It takes some help from Iggy (Tyler Labine) to patch things up between the siblings, but their story just adds to family — the theme of Episode 13. What Dr Kapoor's death does is connect Max back to New Amsterdam, even if it means he and Helen work things out long distance. And from a fan perspective, the hospital needs Max considering Fuentes just pops in to antagonize folks in and around the place.
There are changes ringing in on 'New Amsterdam' and while there is certainly a season 5 in the works (NBC renewed the series for three additional seasons in 2022), there is no better time to switch gears and put the characters through enough before completing their ar