10 New Amsterdam episodes to help get us through this hiatus

“The Forsaken” (written by Y. Shireen Razack, directed by Michael Slovis)

I feel like nearly every episode of New Amsterdam requires you to have your tissues on standby, but, boy, does “The Forsaken” tug on the heart strings.

By this episode we know how much Helen wants a baby, and she come so close to adopting a baby girl that she even gives her a name: Zurah. It means brightness, and it’s the name Helen had reserved for the child she’d one day call hers.

Helen believes she and Zurah are meant to be in each other’s lives, that it’s fate that brought them together. She found her mother when she was coming into the hospital from a different entrance. Zurah, who was born an opioid addict due to her mother’s use of the drug, is responding to Helen’s care for her when previously her health had been flagging. And Zurah’s mother waived her parental rights. Everything has lined up to bring them together there’s just one unforeseen piece that slots into frame…

Zurah’s father wants her. He was unaware of her existence, and he is trying to wrap his head around the news he’s received, but he is willing to jump through any hoop he has to jump through in order to bring his daughter home. My heart soared for Zurah, but it broke along with Sharpe’s as the quiet dream she’d held as close to her heart as that baby girl disappeared before her eyes.