‘The Good Doctor Finale Was as Preposterous as You’d Expect
It’s hard to overstate how gaga viewers were over The Good Doctor when it first premiered in 2017. The ABC medical drama stars Freddie Highmore as Dr. Shaun Murphy—an autistic surgeon with savant syndrome. A lot of critics might’ve panned the show when it first began, but audiences flocked to it week after week. At one point, the show’s viewership managed to best even the years-long record holder Big Bang Theory, an achievement shocking enough to inspire a flurry of think pieces. On Tuesday night, the series wraps up its seven-season run with a fittingly sentimental and preposterous series finale that dares to ask, what if not one but TWO people in Dr. Shaun Murphy’s life were dying?
In the years following his sparkling debut, our blue-eyed, pure-hearted good doctor has faced a serious fall from grace. The show’s self seriousness combined with its trope-y and frankly ableist depiction of autism turned it into a meme last year, when social media users roasted one infamously embarrassing scene to hell and back. That frenzy also led X users to resurface other clips from the show, in which Shaun—an actual doctor who made it through medical school—commits such gaffes as forgetting that trans people exist and also failing to realize that not all brown folks are terrorists. What a pity this show is coming to a close!
But how did it all wrap up? If you’re a person who wants to watch this finale unspoiled, this is your warning—spoilers lie ahead.