As so many of you may know at this point, Freema Agyeman will not be a series regular on New Amsterdam season 5 — and yes, this news is extremely hard to swallow. We are talking about someone who was critical to its success for many years, and the relationship between Dr. Helen Sharpe and Dr. Max Goodwin was at the forefront of most of what we saw.

With this very thing pointed out, it does bring us to the next important question: How in the world are the writers going to take this on? As you would imagine, that’s not going to be an easy thing to do. It makes no sense to have Helen just break up with Max and disappear; it is extremely out of her character and honestly, we wouldn’t believe it.

However, you can make the argument that Helen would just be off-screen for a good bit of the final season as she is off in the UK. With the way that season 4 ended, the writers may have known that this exit was coming and because of that, they could work in advance to some way accommodate it. Such a thing is still complicated, but also possible to figure out. There could be a practical reason why Sharpe had to stay in the UK and not return to get married to Max, and it could preoccupy her time for most of the season. You may hear Max talk here and there about her in season 5, and their relationship could still be going strong.

Of course, in order to make an explanation like this work, we do think it is imperative to see Freema in the finale. You have to make all of this longing and the on-screen absence work it. So long as she is available to do that and New Amsterdam can make it work, that’s probably a way to get around Sharpe’s exit … even if we are still struggling with it.

Related – Be sure to get some more news when it comes to New Amsterdam right now

How do you think we could be seeing Helen written out of New Amsterdam season 5?

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