Everything we know about New Amsterdam season 3 so far

New Amsterdam season 3 isn’t until next year, but we’ve got just enough news to speculate. Gather round, Dam Fam, let’s chat!

The pandemic has canceled most of our regularly scheduled fall television programming and postponed it until 2021. Sadly, for New Amsterdam that means some vague future after January 1. Season two of our beloved show left us in a bit of a middling place. By the time “A Matter of Seconds” aired, three out of five of our burning questions were answered.

Max is moving on from Georgia even if he’s not ready to be in a serious relationship. He did find out about the workplace struggle between Helen and Valentina which resulted in a “will-they-won’t-they” moment between Sharpwin. (Spoiler alert: they didn’t.) And Reynolds did leave to be with Evie in San Francisco.

The series, however, did leave us in the lurch regarding Iggy’s possible eating disorder with no clear indication that’ll be picked back up in the third season.

According to Extra TV, Freema Agyeman (Helen Sharpe) told Emmy Magazine, “Anything the producers and writers had planned has taken a complete 180,” thanks to the pandemic.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to dial back into Iggy’s mental state and how he processes stress, for better or worse. Executive producer Peter Horton hinted at how the pandemic will affect our doctors in the first half of season 3 in a conversation with EW:

"“Like soldiers coming back from war, we know each one is going to have a different capacity to deal with what they’ve seen, different reactions to it. Some are hit harder than others, and all of them in very specific ways.”"

As uplifting, heartwarming, and genuinely fueled by pure heart as New Amsterdam‘s storytelling routinely is, the season opener is going to be a rough one. The season is set to begin at the end of a case surge in New York. Horton says the characters will have “been through hell” and one of them will contract the virus.

What creator and executive producer David Schulner undoubtedly has planned is sure to shake viewers up. It’ll hit close to home for many of us, but we echo Janet Montgomery’s (Lauren Bloom) sentiment that “a show pretending like this didn’t happen would be so bizarre,” especially considering its star Ryan Eggold (Max Goodwin) had COVID-19, as did new addition to the cast Daniel Dae Kim (Cassian Shin).

Schulner told TV Guide:

"“In season 3, we have to rethink everything. Their priorities are going to change after this pandemic. I don’t think we can force storylines on a new world we’re living in — it would ring false. They’re going to change.”"

We’re worried for Max. In season one’s “Sanctuary,” a power outage caused by a blizzard nearly forced him to choose between which patients he could save and which he couldn’t. The writers are likely to put him back in the same situation with the virus and remove “all of the above” from his list of options.

Hospitals around the country buckled under the sheer wave of cases rushed into their emergency rooms that weren’t equipped for the crippling effect the virus would have on their resources. He may have to triage his patients. He may once again be confronted with the immediacy of death and no means to do anything about it.

Max is also newly in remission, and while that doesn’t mean he’d be at a higher risk since he is no longer going through chemo, his feelings on that along with Helen’s as they try to safeguard cancer patients is bound to come up.

Speaking of Helen, season two pretty much dropped her story arc centered on her desire to be a mother after she said she didn’t want to do so alone. Perhaps we’ll circle back to it in season three since she’ll be starting a fledgling relationship with Shin.

Before season two wrapped, Helen began incorporating Shin’s philosophy of taking care of yourself in order to do good work into her own work philosophy. Paired with Max’s “How can I help?” mantra which has fused Team New Amsterdam together, she’s been working on not burning out and stretching herself too thin.

As much as I love Sharpwin, season two put Helen through a lot over Max and his health. She did start prioritizing her own desires and laying down what she needed from him in order for their relationship to work, but something tells us things are about to get dicey at New Amsterdam thanks to Shin and Max’s contrasting work styles.

Shin is a trauma surgeon. He needs to be at his best for when the worst cases come his way. His version of helping doesn’t involve being a part of all of the action, not even some of it, but rather specific parts. He’s a closer, not an all-purpose doctor.

Max believes in all hands on deck. If you have the ability to help then you should help. It’s that simple to him. He hired Shin, so he knows what the man is about but knowing something and seeing it in action are two different things.

While we don’t doubt Shin will do his part when New Amsterdam needs him to step up, what he believes his part to be and what Max believes it should be is sure to cause friction between the two.

Helen, as Deputy Director, is unfortunately going to be in the middle, as will Bloom who isn’t a fan of Shin’s work style either. It is, after all, her emergency room that’s going to be hit the hardest when the pandemic makes its way to New Amsterdam. Will she be able to hang on to her sobriety? What about her mother? The last we saw of them, they were doing fine but with all the changes in store for season three that may not be the case for long.

There’s also Ella to consider. She’s pregnant, and Vijay is an essential worker. He’s also the oldest doctor on their team. There’s so much worry to go around for everyone that we’ll be a mess by the time season three premieres.

For now, though, we’ll be lamenting the loss of the planned season two finale which was supposed to take place during a hurricane. Schulner had this to say about it:

"“Hurricanes are becoming more frequent because of global warming; a lot of hospitals don’t have the resources to handle it. [The doctors] were going to a failing hospital to help — it was going to be a huge cliffhanger, life and death, people’s jaws would have dropped. Now they’re going to have to wait before jaws drop again.”"

Fingers crossed, they’ll be returning to that idea, though perhaps it will be a little closer to home than the Dominican Republic as previously thought out. Our gulf coast has continuously been hit pretty hard this year and there are stories to be mined from there as well.

In any case, the long wait until the season drops is going to be difficult, but we’re happy the show will be back in the future. As Eggold has said, “the show always comes from a place of hope,” and we could definitely use some hope going into 2021.

What are you hoping to see in season three of New Amsterdam? Serve up your thoughts in the comments below!