Spoilers ahead for the series finale of The Good Doctor on ABC, called “Goodbye.”
The Good Doctor had a healthy run of seven years on ABC before coming to an end with its appropriately titled finale on May 21 in the 2024 TV schedule. Fans knew from the start of Season 7 that it would be the last for Dr. Shaun Murphy and Co., and the writers had time to craft a hypothetically perfect ending rather than end on a cliffhanger. Well, the finale has aired, and I feel comfortable saying that “Goodbye” was a reward for fans who stuck with the medical drama from the early days, not least because it avoided what could have been a ruinous move from Shaun.
How The Finale Rewarded Fans
Historically speaking, some shows have used finales to boldly subvert expectations or deliver last-minute curveballs or swerve in directions to land them among the ranks of shows like How I Met Your Mother and Game of Thrones with heavily criticized finales… and fans often don’t appreciate that kind of boldness. Finales can dole out deaths for the sake of deaths, parting of the ways because the show is ending anyway, or even open endings that don’t deliver any closure in case a rescue or revival comes along.
The Good Doctor did none of those. Yes, Dr. Glassman died, but everybody other than Shaun himself could have seen that coming, and there were happy endings all around for the surviving characters, as established by Shaun giving a TED Talk after a flash-forward ten years into the future.
After ten years, Shaun – a.k.a. St. Bonaventure’s Chief of Surgery – and Lea were the proud parents of a daughter as well as Steve, with family rides on the carousel. (This is a particularly fun development since The Good Doctor was originally supposed to end with Shaun becoming a father.)
Park and Morgan were able to officially adopt Eden. Claire, who was running the Dr. Aaron Glassman Foundation for Neurodiversity in Medicine along with Shaun after Glassman saved her life, rekindled the romance with Jared and the pair had a daughter. Jordan reunited with Danny (with Brandon Larracuente returning briefly after his Season 6 departure). Dr. Lim joined Surgeons for a Better World. Even Jerome was revealed to have found love again despite the devastating death of Asher in Season 7.
Happy endings all around! I was so relieved that not only was Claire saved prior to the time jump, but The Good Doctor only sprung good surprises at the last minute. Plus, with callbacks like the carousel, the episode truly felt like it was crafted to reward fans who have been around for years as well as tie off the loose ends from the arcs of the seventh season. A+ finale, The Good Doctor!
What I Was Afraid Shaun Would Do
Now, as much as I just spent several paragraphs raving about the happy endings galore in the series finale, I went into “Goodbye” nervous that The Good Doctor would go a little bit too happy. It was clear from the promo that Shaun was not going to react well to Glassman revealing that his brain cancer had returned, and I was nervous that for the finale, the show would have Shaun find a miracle cure for his father figure and everybody would live happily ever after.
I love Glassman as a character and how Richard Schiff portrayed him for more than 100 episodes, but it was going to be too much of a suspension of disbelief if The Good Doctor gave him another brush with death only for Shaun to find an impossible solution. It was more important for Shaun to learn to say goodbye; a miracle might have been more sappy than sweet, and I’m so glad that my concerns were unfounded.
Plus, Shaun did get his miracle in the finale when he figured out how Claire’s life could be saved, although Glassman did the actual procedure since it would have cost Shaun his medical license to do without FDA approval. All in all, this was a finale that tied off loose ends without going so far into happy endings as to deprive the narrative a powerful development with Glassman’s death.
There was restraint in just the right places and generosity in others, and I think we don’t have to worry about a How I Met Your Mother or Game of Thrones legacy for The Good Doctor. Now that Shaun’s journey has concluded, you can restart from the beginning or just revisit your favorite episodes streaming with a Hulu subscription.