#New Amsterdam Season 3 Episode 9 Review: Disconnected

Max is going to Max.

The man donned a suit on New Amsterdam Season 3 Episode 9, as Max set out with another ambitious goal of making sure that everyone who needed it in NYC got broadband and settled for one housing project, a couple of thousand computers, and a new hospital/patient portal.

It was all in a day’s work for Dr. Goodwin.

While the hour could’ve devoted most of its time to the gun violence arc, in the same vein as other series such as The Good Doctor, instead, it was the Wi-fi desert and the horrible ramifications of it on patients and health that consumed most of Max’s arc.

It’s an interesting topic to explore, as the majority of people take internet access for granted. By now, and we’ve learned this throughout the pandemic, the internet is a necessity.

We can’t function properly as a modern society without internet access. In this case, an entire apartment building full of people ingested poison under the belief that it was a vaccination for COVID because of some strange man posing as a doctor telling them about it.

Lauren was generally frustrated by the whole ordeal, especially when her patient also took silver regularly on top of matters. While it did help her receive a proper diagnosis in the long run, it’s insane to think that she was making herself sick under the guise of improving her health.

And this gave Max a new mission, which was a unique take for him. It had many of its amusing moments, from Max donning a suit instead of his coat and scrubs to everyone he approached dreading his arrival since he always asks them for something.

But for the most part, it felt redundant and tired. Max came up with an outlandish but impossible to invoke idea such as making broadband free for the entire city.

He was forced to scale down his expectations and managed to badger a company into providing it for a single building.

Max thought he somehow fixed everything, but he didn’t have the oversight to consider that people living in a wi-fi desert with no affordable internet access also wouldn’t have things to utilize the broadband he just scored him.

Even one of the tenants laughed at how foolish he sounded.

And Max’s new quest was to score some electronic devices to correct his oversight. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Professionally, it was business as usual, but on a personal front, Max is having a hard time with Georgia’s mother. He was the bigger person and did what was best for Luna when he asked for help.

Luna needed her grandmother after spending so much time with her, but now it feels as if Gwen is content criticizing Max for everything he does, making him feel inadequate as a parent, and maybe making a case for why she should keep Luna full time.

Gwen is rehashing the same thing Georgia did about Max working too much and not having enough time for what’s going on at home, and that too is redundant.

He’s a single working father and a widow. What more does Gwen want from him?

Max spent the entire day trying to fix a problem so he could get home for story time after Gwen made him feel like a terrible dad, and then she tired Luna out after a long day and shrugged when Max made it home in time.

And instead of giving him credit for getting there, she made a snide comment about catching the early bus. You can understand why Max had tension with Georgia’s parents.

But if we’re going to dig into personal lives, when will we ever learn more about Max’s background and family? Are her parents still alive? Where are they?

Why does he have no one outside of the people he works with and Georgia’s parents? Inquiring minds would love to know.

But then Helen and Mina’s family situation is a bit of a drag.

Mina is insolent and aggravating. She’s giving Helen hell, and the bratty teenager thing is not fun to witness at all.

She tests Helen at every turn, has no respect for her or boundaries, won’t abide by any rules, and Mina does whatever the hell she wants. Helen is in over her head with her.

Helen’s outburst piqued interest, though. She still harbors strong feelings about her father abandoning her and starting a new family elsewhere. It must be a slap in the face that Mina regards Helen as horrible for never being around or close, but there’s a lot of history there, and Mina isn’t informed.

It was your grandfather, my father who abandoned my mom and I in London. I was the one who was abandoned first. I was the one who was left first.
Helen

Helen’s bittersweet case at least had its pleasant moments. Thomas and his girlfriend were such a pure-hearted couple. It was devastating to hear that his cancer returned and attempts to extend his life for a couple of months impeded on their road trip.

Not only is Helen a wonderful doctor, but she’s a great person. Not everyone would strategically arrange a road trip around transfusion sites.

And not everyone would have the grace and composure that Floyd exhibited when dealing with Alison’s parents. It was such a horrifying moment when her father brought her into the ER soaked in blood and mentioning that she got shot in a drive-by.

But the evidence didn’t lie. It’s one thing for parents to lie about how their daughter got shot. Of course, they were reckless and irresponsible with their gun, and they didn’t want to cop to that.

We’re not racist.
Alison’s Mother

But they went so far as to claim it was a drive-by and describe a shooter as a Black or Brown man, but they didn’t once consider that their actions or any of the things they said were racially insensitive.

A Black man saved their daughter’s life while they subjected any random Black or Brown men to all kinds of potential police harassment under the guise of them fitting a profile that didn’t even exist!

The hour went out of the way to make these people the worst, but the casual and random way they’d throw in comments about protestors and Black Lives Matter felt forced.

And Floyd’s frustrated soliloquy didn’t pack the emotional punch expected.

His was infinitely better than whatever the hell it was that the new head of the Neuro department was prattling on about to Agnes’ dismay.

They say you should never meet your heroes, and Agnes learned it the hard way. Agnes’ obsession with Lucille and enjoying that Lucille wasn’t condescending kept her from thoroughly vetting her.

Who introduces themselves to a department by bashing the previous head of it like that? Everyone loved Kapoor, and the man almost died. It was appalling!

Agnes made a big mistake with this one, and New Amsterdam is about to pay the price for it. Lucille is the type who will clash with everyone.

Iggy wasn’t any stranger to an error either. He got too close to Chance, and it backfired and had unsettling results.

Chance was doing well, as we saw from how he handled himself during the group therapy session. Unfortunately, he thought of Iggy as his family, and that level of dependence and no boundaries was harmful to him.

His attachment to Iggy was unhealthy and heartbreaking. If he had more people in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have felt as if his therapist was his everything.

If Chance thought more people cared about him, he wouldn’t form such an obsessive attachment to the one person who bothered to extend him kindness, grace, and care.

The second Iggy put some boundaries down and reminded Chance that they couldn’t be friends, he went and drank cleaning supplies and burned his throat out.

It was painful for both of them to say goodbye to each other. Iggy couldn’t bear the thought that he failed his patient in such a way, and it ate away at him.

And Chance has to start over with someone new, and he lost out on a therapist he felt comfortable with helping him get better.

Iggy always slides in with his cases that pack all the emotional punches.

Speaking of emotions, Lauren and Leyla are quite the domestic pair at Lauren’s apartment.

Lauren: Is it real.

Leyla: It is.

Lauren: It’s just that I’m not really good with living things.

Leyla: I disagree.

They have an intimacy that is clearly leading somewhere. The two brushing their teeth side by side and smiling like that felt like something couples do, but the tree thing was a dead giveaway.

Lauren, in all of her luscious-haired glory, saves lives every day. It was funny to hear her claim she’s not good with living things.

Her career depends on her being semi-decent with living things. But Leyla was quick to remind Lauren that she’s incredible, and that came with Leyla holding her hand.

As the kids say, there is no heterosexual explanation for this!

Over to you, New Amsterdam Fanatics.

What are you picking up from Leyla and Lauren? Is Gwen too hard on Max? Hit the comments 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.