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)

‘New Amsterdam’ Recap: Season 5, Episode 13 “How Can I Help?”

New Amsterdam is officially over. The show comes full circle with its series finale which ends with a beautiful twist.

What’s Next

At the start of the day, Max talks to the doctors of New Amsterdam about what made him want to become a doctor. He reveals that his sister was sick and a doctor went and talked to him about it. The doctor asked him “How can I help?” which inspired him and he’s carried it with him through the years.

He talks to the crowd about how he feels like he’s done his job at New Amsterdam and he’s taking a job at the World Health Organization. Elizabeth has Luna sitting in the crowd watching and Max tells everyone that he can’t stick around because he and Luna are going to the annual mermaid festival.

Beginnings

With Max sharing what made him become a doctor, the other doctors start thinking about why they did too. Lauren, who wasn’t sober and spent her time with people she didn’t like while making her money off the stock market, witnesses a homeless man collapse and doesn’t know how to help and has to watch him struggle. Iggy’s family liked to tell him all their problems. He was frustrated by it until his brother explained it was because he doesn’t judge them. Elizabeth dressed up as a doctor for Halloween and was told by other kids that she couldn’t do it because she’s deaf.

Everything You’ve Got

NEW AMSTERDAM — “How Can I Help” Episode 513 — Pictured: (l-r) Matthew Jeffers as Resident Mark Walsh, Janet Montgomery as Dr. Lauren Bloom, Debra Monk as Karen Brantley — (Photo by: Ralph Bavaro/NBC)

A patient is brought into the ED with strange and extreme symptoms. After running some tests, they realize that it’s an extremely rare disease and the only doctor that they know that’s successfully treated it is Max. They call him in and he starts to treat it while talking to the patient because the diagnosis is something that’s caused by an underlying condition. He learns about what she went through when she was fleeing Ukraine when the war started and she mentions staying at farms. Max connects that to what the underlying condition probably is.

The condition is extreme itself and she was living with it for a year so it’s spread throughout her whole body. They need to remove every trace of it to successfully cure her. Max talks to Floyd about it and tells him that it will take 53 surgeons to pull this off.

They plan out the procedure and do a trial run but the space is too crowded and hard to work with. Floyd says that he wants to take a risk and operate on her heart without putting it on bypass so they can have more space. The patient starts to decline and they have to do the surgery sooner than planned.

It all goes smoothly for the most part. Floyd is nervous because of the lack of time to prepare and tells Max that they need to go with their original plan. He doesn’t get the chance to do that though because starts crashing. Elizabeth jumps in to fix what’s causing her to crash and the rest of the surgery goes smoothly.

A Voice

The patient came in with her son who hasn’t spoken in the year since they left Ukraine. Lauren has him go with Iggy to see if he can help him. Iggy’s approach is to ignore the kid and let him come to him, but it doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, Iggy brings him to the vending machine and tells him that he doesn’t have to tell Iggy what he wants from it but he needs to point to it. The kid doesn’t do anything though. He does tell his mom that he’s not worried about her anymore after she’s out of surgery though.

Endings

NEW AMSTERDAM — “How Can I Help” Episode 513 — Pictured: (l-r) Tyler Labine as Dr. Iggy Frome, Megan Byrne as Gladys Miller, Mike Doyle as Martin McIntyre — (Photo by: Ralph Bavaro/NBC)

At the end of the episode, Iggy and Martin have a lakeside wedding with Gladys officiating and just the kids in attendance. Lauren goes to a meeting and while she’s there, Vanessa walks up and sits next to her. Floyd has a nice dinner with his family, including Gabrielle and Horace. Lastly, Max stops by Elizabeth’s office at the end of the day and talks to her. They talk about Max needing to be there for Luna going forward and how he’ll be back to visit her. He follows up that there’s no one better for him to give the hospital than her before passing her the keys.

Dr. Luna Goodwill

NEW AMSTERDAM — “How Can I Help” Episode 513 — Pictured: Molly Griggs as Dr. Luna Goodwin — (Photo by: Ralph Bavaro/NBC)

A woman runs into the hospital and looks around confused. She ends up going to the information desk and rambles to them before asking for help. She reveals that she’s the new medical director. After the conversation, she decides to go shower before starting her first day. In the locker room, a couple of people are talking in another language about how young the new medical director supposedly is and how she’s not going to succeed. The woman replies to them in the language that if she does her job right, she’ll be fired in a week.

She goes around and looks for the heads of the departments to talk to them, but doesn’t find anyone. While looking around, she runs into her assistant whom she was trying to find this morning. The woman asks her if she can have all of the department heads meet in the auditorium.

In the auditorium, she introduces herself to them. She talks about how she grew up here and how her father used to be the medical director. In true Max fashion, she talks and explains that she discovered her love of medicine and that she wanted to become a doctor after watching her dad do everything he could to save this one patient. To finish her speech, the doctor, who is clearly a grown-up Luna, asks the crowd “How can I help?”

With that full circle of Luna taking over, New Amsterdam has come to an end!

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