The Good Doctor boss previews 'incredibly intense' two-part finale
A disaster will rock The Good Doctor to its core in the two-part season 3 finale.
"It’s certainly an incredibly intense two hours," The Good Doctor showrunner David Shore tells EW. "We’re an unabashedly emotional show. I don’t think we’re melodramatic. We are dramatic, and we’ll make you cry, and we will make you smile. It’s such a cliché, but we really do strive to do that and we do it even more in these last two episodes."
After a massive earthquake hits San Jose at the beginning of the episode, Shaun, Park, and Claire rush over to a local brewery that was severely hit to tend to the wounded and check on Dr. Melendez, Dr. Glassman, and Lea, all three of whom were there when the tremors started. Up until now, the doctors have been dealing with all kinds of relationship drama, from Shaun's hurt feelings over Lea's rejection, to Claire realizing she's in love with Melendez, but this disaster forces all of that to the back burner.
"Shaun in this episode is not trying to navigate a relationship. He is aware of the relationship. There’s a lot of very interesting discussions underground with a person facing death about what that all means, but this is an episode about Shaun being Shaun and what that means to Lea, what that means to him, what that means to us, and what that should mean," says Shore. "What we see in this episode are priorities being refocused, or being reminded of them. That is the thing that happens in situations we as a society are facing today. You know, you go along day-to-day and there are things you think are important and then suddenly you’re faced with bigger issues of mortality and our responsibilities to our fellow people, and little quibbles we have on a day-to-day basis take on less significance."
Darko Sikman/ABC
The finale's theme reminds Shore of a classic line from the "Three Stories" episode of his show House. "This is really douchy to quote myself, but one of my favorite moments on House was [the line about how] facing death answers the question of what we're willing to lie for and what we're willing to die for," he says. "That's really what this episode is about. All our doctors deal with mortality on a daily basis in terms of their patients. In this episode, it becomes a little bit more personal for several of them."
That being said, those relationship issues do end up coming back into play, especially in the second part. "We have to go back to that and ultimately, love does matter and that’s how we end the episode in the two-parter," he says.
The Good Doctor airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on ABC.
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