‘The Good Doctor’: 3 Things to Prepare You for the Adrenaline-Filled Season 6 Premiere
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There was great joy and terrible heartbreak when we last checked into St. Bonaventure Hospital in The Good Doctor.
While the long-awaited wedding of Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) and Lea Dilallo (Paige Spara) was being celebrated on the roof, surgery chief Audrey Lim (Christina Chang) and Nurse Villanueva (Elfina Luk) were bleeding out a few floors below after being stabbed multiple times by Villanueva’s abusive ex-boyfriend. Season 6 picks up moments later.
“Real adrenaline with real emotional stakes,” co-showrunner Liz Friedman says of the hour. She hints at what comes after.
Lim survives, but her life is forever changed
Although Villanueva’s fate is under wraps, Lim returns to her prestigious job, despite “having to deal with a long-term [disability] and seeing how the rest of her life fits around that,” Friedman says. As the season progresses, the night’s traumatic events continue to affect many.
Relationships get bumpy
Shaun and Lea will experience the normal adjustments to married life—including the proper way to wash dishes (which split the show’s writers’ room)—but bigger challenges are on the way. Shaun and his beloved mentor Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) have a falling-out that could take some time to resolve, and there’s a shift in the Morgan Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann) and Alex Park (Will Yun Lee) romance. “The conflict over Morgan’s ambitions—how she prioritizes her life and where Park feels he fits in it—continues to reverberate,” Friedman reveals.
Shaun’s not only a newlywed but also a new boss!
As of Episode 2, Shaun and Park will be the new attending physicians, tasked with training two young residents, Danica “Danni” Powell and Daniel “Danny” Perez (new castmates Savannah Welch and Brandon Larracuente). Shaun’s first meeting with Powell, a military vet with a strong point of view, is a contentious one. They’re locked “in a very, very fraught argument over a particular form of medical treatment,” Friedman teases. As for Perez, the former farm boy is easygoing but “a bit of an enigma”—one that surgical resident Jordan Allen (Bria Samoné Henderson) is determined to crack.
The Good Doctor, Season 6 Premiere, Monday, October 3, 10/9c, ABC
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