New Amsterdam season 5 episode 11: Release date, time, and plot details

NBC's New Amsterdam is gearing up to air episode 11 of season 5 on Tuesday, January 3, at 10 pm ET. This will be the first offering from the TV series in more than a month.

The episode before this, Don't Do This for Me, aired on November 22, after which the show went on a hiatus. The 11th episode, titled Falling, will be the third last episode before the New Amsterdam finale on January 17, 2023.

The synopsis for New Amsterdam season 5 episode 11 reads:

"When Helen Sharpe unexpectedly returns to New York, Max escapes to the wilderness on a corporate retreat with Bloom, Wilder, and Iggy; fun soon turns into a catastrophe that threatens a life; Reynolds agrees to perform a risky surgery."

The show stars Ryan Eggold, Freema Agyeman, Janet Montgomery, Jocko Sims, Tyler Labine, and Sandra Mae Frank, among others. Anupam Kher, who was a main cast member, quit the show in April last year after the third season.

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Dr. Helen Sharpe to return to New Amsterdam season 5?

The trailer for episode 11, lasting 15 seconds, shows a pleasantly surprised New Amsterdam Medical Center’s director Dr. Maximus "Max" Goodwin (Eggold) as he unexpectedly receives text messages from Dr. Helen Sharpe (Agyeman) asking him to meet at “that bar that we used to go to.”

The short clip also sees sequences of Max having fun with his new love interest Dr. Elizabeth Wilder (Sandra Mae Frank), after which the trailer ends. It is expected that Helen’s return will have huge ramifications on Max’s personal life. But it seems the character’s coming back was planned.

Showrunner David Schulner told TVLine:

“We knew we wanted to bring Helen Sharpe back to test Max’s resolve. To test his feelings for Wilder. To test whether or not he’s truly healed. And we knew we wanted it to happen at the worst possible moment for him (Elizabeth is now ready to get into an affair with Max). ”

For those who don’t know, Agyeman’s Dr. Helen Sharpe said goodbye to the show after season 4 ended, but will now stay till the season finale.

Schulner added:

“There are so many unanswered questions he has for Sharpe. Yet, at the same time, there’s the promise of something new with Wilder. We’re going to put Max through the wringer so whatever decision he makes is hard-earned.”

He emphasized that whatever Max decides, it “certainly will” affect what Elizabeth felt about him.

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New Amsterdam finale will have ‘a lot of twists and turns,’ says Schulner

As mentioned above, the 13th episode will mark the finale of the NBC show, which will air on January 17. Though Schulner, also the EP for the series, assures New Amsterdam won’t end tragically for the lead man, he teased that the finale will have “a lot of twists and turns.”

He told TVLine:

“Hopefully, our legacy will be that there’s hope for a better medical system, so I think killing Max would not be a great way to go out. There are a lot of twists and turns in the finale… a lot of reveals and reversals. You’re not going to know where it lands until the very final moment of the episode.”

Eggold, on the other hand, told NBC that he doesn’t “think it'll (the show ending) hit me until a month or three months or a year from now,” but he will “just fall apart” as time passes.

Watch the episodes of New Amsterdam released so far on Peacock.