Spoilers ahead for Episode 21 of New Amsterdam Season 4, called “Castles Made of Sand.”
New Amsterdam is officially just one full episode away from entering the hiatus before the fifth and final season, and “Castles Made of Sand” set up what would be an eventful season finale even without the natural disaster that is on the way. In the final moments of the episode, Max made a gesture that was bold even by his “How can I help?” standards, and I’m not sure that it won’t backfire in the finale on May 24.
Max and Helen were once again separated by an ocean in “Castles Made of Sand,” but he was planning on returning to London ASAP while she was happily checking out a castle as a potential wedding venue. Things went sideways – as they so often do on New Amsterdam – when Max discovered that the hospital was falling apart without a medical director, and Helen’s mum managed to talk her out of not only the wedding at a castle, but possibly getting married at all.
Helen seemed poised to break that news to him over the phone from London while he was in New York, but didn’t get too far before Max declared that he didn’t want to get married in a castle either. She seemed to think that he was ready to call off the wedding altogether, but he continued:
I don’t think I’m getting on that plane. And I know this is unexpected and unplanned, and everything we said we weren’t gonna do, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for you. And if this is it, if this is our time, then I don’t want to wait another minute. Because in a minute, it could be gone. I’m not coming back to London, because you’re coming home… Let’s get married tomorrow in New York. Wait, wait, wait. Just think about it. Okay, what do you need for a wedding? You need two people in love. You need a couple people, a couple friends to witness it, and a super cute flower girl who just happens to be my daughter. Our daughter.
Now, on the one hand, a lot of that speech made for a pretty great grand gesture to sweep anybody off their feet and across the ocean to get married, but Helen seemed about ready to call the wedding off altogether before he made the speech. He also outright said that she would come to New York to get married instead of asking what she wanted, or listening to what she was starting to say. Sure, Helen gave him “Yes!” after “Yes!” after he made this new proposal, but I’m a little uneasy about how it happened.
Plus, the promo for the Season 4 finale makes it very clear that things are going to quite literally get stormy for the doctors of New Amsterdam. Called “I’ll Be Your Shelter,” the episode’s description reveals that Bloom and her emergency team have to scramble to prepare for the monster hurricane heading for New York while Max and Helen plan their wedding.
The promo includes a shot of Max all suited up and looking ready to tie the knot, but almost all of the rest of the footage points toward a disaster of pretty epic proportions hitting the hospital, and I’m not convinced that the sunny shot of happy Max isn’t a dream sequence. Take a look at what’s on the way:
See whether or not Max and Helen get a happy ending this time around with the Season 4 finale of New Amsterdam on Tuesday, May 24 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC. After everything the characters went through in the fourth season with Veronica Fuentes before she was finally ousted (not to mention all of the poisonings and Helen’s stroke), I have my hopes for an uplifting ending, but only time will tell whether or not a cliffhanger is on the way.
For more important TV dates in the coming days and weeks, be sure to check out our spring finale schedule, and don’t forget that you can rewatch earlier seasons of New Amsterdam streaming with a Peacock subscription.