#New Amsterdam Season 3 Episode 11 Review: Pressure Drop

A heatwave had everyone hot and bothered and in none of the fun ways.

Well, assuming you’re excluding those opening moments of New Amsterdam Season 3 Episode 11 with Lauren and Leyla getting hot and heavy.

Outside of that, the warm weather put most of New Amsterdam on edge. Everyone was snapping left and right, and at the center of the frustration was Max and his neverending quest to do the absolute most while attempting to do some good.

The majority of the season has consisted of Max setting an ambitious goal outside the realm of his capabilities, coming down to Earth, and people chewing him out.

Has Max ever been on the receiving end of so many blowups and tongue lashings as he has during this season?

The thing is, Max has it coming most of the time. His behavior during this installment was Max at his most obnoxious. If the series aired on any other network, he would’ve elicited an expletive-fueled lashing by more than one person for his latest antics.

Max’s mission of the week each installment has reached a point of annoyance.

He chooses a new thing to focus on, pretends as if it’s the first time he’s aware of a problem’s existence. Then he throws all of his energy into this single issue at the expense of everything and everyone as if he can solve a massive systemic issue in a single day.

After a morning where his mother-in-law did what she does best which is make him feel like crap, Max decided that he would devote an entire shift’s energy into fixing Global Warming.

I’m going to fix Global Warming … at New Amsterdam.
Max

To his credit, he amended that his goal was to do so at New Amsterdam, as he’s gradually coming to grips with the fact that he can’t save the entire world by himself.

But it meant that in the face of a plethora of real, tangible, urgent issues that he could find a way to rectify immediately, Max channeled all of his time and focus into long-term solutions to reduce the hospital’s carbon footprint.

In the process, he made everyone’s jobs harder, and when there was any hint of dissent, he spouted off lectures or statistics to justify his choices.

Can you imagine how difficult it must be to work for Max Goodwin? He means well, but he has to be exhausting. You know Max is the topic of dinner conversation in many households at night.

He made the entire Radiology department ration their gloves use. He got rid of the one-time use scalpels, removed red meat from the cafeterias, and so much more.

Yet the ED was dealing with overflow, and Max left Lauren hanging while he focused on his Global Warming endeavors. The staff was overworked and limited, and a host of other issues.

He couldn’t focus on the immediate issues in front of him for looking at other things, and thank goodness Helen and Lauren were able to call him out on it.

Max worked Helen’s last nerve, and she wasted no time disregarding. She did not have time for any of his usual crap that day, and it put them at odds.

Meanwhile, a laidback Lauren’s new approach got tossed out the window. She went to eviscerating Max in front of their colleagues for not addressing any of her concerns.

Max didn’t so much listen as he went ahead and did what he planned to anyway, implementing all of these little changes, making everyone uncomfortable for the greater good. It’s hard to figure out what conclusions we were supposed to draw.

Max did what he wanted to do anyway, still didn’t listen to anyone, and we have no idea if he addressed any of the other issues that needed fixing.

Helen was on one, and everyone felt her wrath. As Max woke up that morning and chose unbridled chaos and pandemonium, she opted for violence.

She dragged the hell out of Walsh for not running tests and missing things that led to Sister Edith’s diagnosis. She had a bone to pick with Lauren for her new carefree, positive, and happy attitude upon returning to the job after a weeklong vacation of sexing it up with Leyla.

And Helen was dealing with her frustrations with raising Mina and the suggestion that she, too, needed some therapy of her own.

She and Max bumped heads, and you never would’ve guessed that they were millimeters away from kissing one another days before.

Helen’s understanding of Mina has complicated her life, and sadly, it’s been of very little interest. Of all the things Helen could face, her fractured relationship and attempting to raise Mina is weak sauce at best.

Helen probably could’ve used a therapy session of her own. However, after heeding some advice from Sister Edith, after Helen diagnosed the woman with Malaria that was dormant for 30 years, Helen found herself outside of an Islamic Cultural Center.

Are we supposed to conclude that it was a method of getting on better ground with Mina, or is she pursuing faith as a way of answering some of her personal issues, including how she’s pushing everyone away?

Floyd’s case with the young child left in a hot car by himself brought up some conflicting feelings.

Usually, it’s hard to sympathize with people who leave children in hot cars. Despite the narrative that it’s easy to do when so much is going on a person is distracted, it seems preposterous, reckless, and enraging.

Floyd: It was a mistake. He made a mistake.

Social Worker: Is this a recommendation for leniency?

Floyd: It’s a recommendation for forgiveness.

Floyd’s initial reaction was that of unrelenting anger, so when he found out his colleague was the boy’s father, he showed no mercy or forgiveness. His colleague mentioned the stress of the pandemic and how schedules and everything else has changed since then.

He was a single father and working professional, and it was an honest mistake for him. And it wasn’t until Floyd made some errors of his own taking care of his mother that he recognized how easily something like that could happen.

It changed his perspective and prompted him to ask that the social worker extend some grace and forgiveness.

While I understand the point of it all, it’s still hard to wrap one’s head around such a potentially life-threatening mistake requiring the level of forgiveness Floyd proposed.

But then, I still cannot wrap my head around anyone forgetting a whole child in a hot backseat for hours, no matter how overworked or distracted a person is, so Floyd’s initial response to the situation felt warranted and understandable.

Lauren’s response to a tough day’s work, concluding that she had to break up with Leyla to retain a certain hard edge, was ludicrous. Sure, she was annoyingly happy upon her return from work, and her behavior was uncharacteristic to everyone around her.

It makes you wonder if Leyla had some mystical abilities or had Lauren been deprived of decent sex for that long that everyone noticed the difference.

Lauren’s happiness at home didn’t mean she had to change her behavior at work. And a particularly difficult day where everyone else was crabby and the heatwave wreaked havoc on the ED didn’t mean Lauren had to give up what made her happy.

Leyla is what makes Lauren happy, and she hasn’t been this way in a long time or ever.

The ED wasn’t a lost cause and falling apart because of Lauren’s rare display of softness. It was a mess for a host of other reasons.

Fortunately, Leyla wasn’t listening to Lauren’s ridiculous reasoning for breaking up, and she wouldn’t let her ruin the good thing they have going on with one another.

Lauren and Leyla’s love story is the unexpected delight of the season, and it’s nice that there’s some couple that has reached their stride and found happiness.

Iggy amused with his support of Max’s impulsive plans until they had a negative impact on him. He’s the ultimate enabler, but he drew the line, and Max screwing with his diet.

Once again, he had an interesting case with Javier, who thought he controlled the weather. For a bit, it was believable that Javier did possess some abilities that bordered on the supernatural.

But it turned out it was the weather that controlled him.

Most of Iggy’s portion of the hour was devoted to this case, but they did touch on the escalating issue with Chance, and the final moments with Samira and the hat were disturbing.

Iggy warned Chance off of his husband and his family.

He even threatened to call the cops and put a restraining order out against Chance. Maybe Iggy should’ve done it instead of giving Chance a head’s up since it only seemed to make the man upset and instigated him.

Chance is obsessed with Iggy, and he’s turned into a full-blown stalker right now.

For Iggy’s safety and that of his family, he needs to take action with Chance sooner rather than later. Nothing about this is reassuring, and you know it’s not going to end well at all.

Over to you, ‘Dam Fanatics. Sound off below!

You can watch New Amsterdam online here via TV Fanatic. 

Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.