Last night I finally finished the whole season of The Good Doctor. The series first aired in 2017 and followed Dr. Shaun Murphy, a young surgeon with autism and savant syndrome, as he navigated medicine, relationships, grief, and the exhausting pressure of proving himself in spaces that constantly underestimated him. Over the years, the show slowly became less about medicine itself and more about the emotional lives surrounding the hospital. Every season seemed determined to test how much loss these characters could survive before they eventually became shadows of who they once were.

I think the last time I watched an episode was in Bavaria around December 2022. I still remember the feeling clearly. It was freezing outside, one of those evenings where the snow made everything look quieter than usual. I went inside, sat on the couch, wrapped myself in warmth, and started what was then the newest episode. Strange how certain memories stay attached to weather. Sometimes I cannot remember what I ate yesterday, but I can still remember the colour of the evening outside that window.

This week, after waiting years, I finally continued the show. Part of the reason I stopped was because I wanted the series to fully end first. I hate cliffhangers. I hate investing myself into a story only to realise it was cancelled halfway through an emotional arc, or forced into an abrupt ending while still pretending there would be more. So I waited. And now that I’ve finally finished it, I realise I watched it with completely different eyes compared to who I was in 2022.

I still cried, but differently.

Back then, I reacted emotionally to the tragedies themselves. Now I notice the machinery behind them. This show is obsessed with death. It keeps killing its characters as if grief itself is the final destination for everyone written into the script. Maybe that emotional excess comes from its Korean drama origins, where suffering is often stretched until it becomes the emotional centrepiece of the entire experience. Korean dramas really do love turning suffering into a national art form. They have a habit of dragging emotions through the mud until sadness becomes the entire identity of the story. Anyway, after a while, this show begins to feel repetitive rather than profound. Not every meaningful ending needs death attached to it.

Asher Wolke, for example, was one of the strongest characters the show ever created. Passionate, opinionated, kind, intelligent. He felt alive in a way many television characters don’t. He challenged people. He cared deeply. There was something inspirational about him because he carried conviction without losing compassion. And yet the show chooses to end his arc through death as well, partly to prove a political point. I understand the intention behind it. I understand the commentary they wanted to make. But emotionally it felt cheap, almost like the series no longer trusted itself to create impact without taking someone away forever.

Then Claire returns, and for a moment her presence feels comforting, almost like the show remembering its earlier seasons again. But even then, the writers decide to surround her storyline with medical danger and the possibility of losing her too. At some point I found myself asking the same question repeatedly: why is this show so determined to kill everyone it loves?

And Glassman. Of course Glassman too.

After everything he survived throughout the series, the brain tumour, the loneliness, the long stretch of carrying other people while quietly wearing himself down, the show still frames his ending around death as if that is the only language it knows for closure. What made Glassman stand out was never just his role as Shaun’s mentor. It was the way he felt painfully human. Stubborn, sarcastic, emotionally guarded, but still deeply responsible for the people he cared about. He was written as someone who holds others together while slowly falling apart in ways he rarely admits.

That is why the way the show leans toward ending him feels so predictable and almost mechanical. It does not feel like a natural culmination of his journey but another repeat of the same writing habit. It is as if the series cannot separate character growth from character removal. Instead of allowing him a quieter form of resolution, it circles back to the same conclusion it keeps choosing for almost everyone else.

By the final episode, very little surprised me anymore. The structure became predictable. The emotional beats arrived exactly when expected. There was also too much talking, too much explaining of feelings instead of letting actions or silence carry them naturally. The emotional effect is still there, but diluted now, like something repeatedly reheated until it loses its original flavour.

Still, despite everything I’ve said, I know I’ll watch it again someday. Maybe because I wasn’t fully present while finishing it this time. Maybe because life has been distracting me lately. Or maybe because certain shows become attached to periods of our lives so strongly that revisiting them feels less like watching television and more like reopening an older version of yourself waiting somewhere in the background.

Labels: motivation, MovieMarathon