Dr. Floyd Reynolds has dealt with a lot of curveballs in New Amsterdam’s fifth and final season, ranging from learning that Dr. Bloom had an abortion during their relationship to once again starting to fall for a woman who might just complicate his life even more to his father reentering his life. While he and Bloom are on good terms and the immediate future seems bright enough for him and Gabrielle, the issues with his father have forced him to make some tough decisions. According to Jocko Sims, a scene showing the toll of those decisions had to be cut.
Reynolds realized earlier in Season 5 that his father’s lifetime of erratic behavior could be due to a case of undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, Horace took the unofficial diagnosis as more of an excuse than motivation to seek treatment, and the situation escalated to the point that Reynolds had his father put on an involuntary psych hold at the hospital. In the latest episode, called “All the World’s a Stage…,” a judge determined that Horace wasn’t allowed to go home yet despite some improvement, and his son stepped up and volunteered to take him in and look after him.
While noble, Reynolds volunteering also seemed somewhat impulsive. When actor Jocko Sims recently spoke with CinemaBlend about New Amsterdam, he weighed in on whether his character knew what he was getting into, and the emotional scene that didn’t make the cut. He shared:
Well, I think that he was prepared for some resistance, but there is a lot of guilt associated with it that he wasn't prepared for. And speaking of that episode, there was a great scene that they had to cut due to time, but where Horace, Reynolds' father, was just having an episode and losing it in the background, while Reynolds is on the floor, just hearing the voice of his father screaming as he put him in the ward. I just remember having my hands like this [covering ears], trying to block out the sounds and getting emotional and teary-eyed. Due to the time, we had to get rid of that, but that said a lot. That said a lot.
Unfortunately, there just wasn’t time for the scene of Reynolds reacting to his father having an episode, but the good doctor volunteering to take Horace in is proof that his dad’s predicament really was weighing on him. It remains to be seen what their relationship will be like living together, though! While Floyd volunteering to bring Horace back to his home and take care of him was a deeply caring move, Floyd is also the reason why Horace was put on an involuntary psych hold in the first place.
Fans will have to tune in to the upcoming episodes on NBC (or stream next day with a Peacock subscription) to see exactly what’s in store for the Reynolds men, but the actor dropped some clues about what to expect. When I asked what the two characters are like as roommates after Reynolds made the big decision to open up his home, Jocko Sims previewed:
It's a challenge. Here you have a man who's set in his ways, an older man, and then you have a young bachelor. And then you have, Horace is going to do what fathers do. He's gonna push for advice. He's going to be a bit inconsiderate of Floyd's time. But Floyd, at this point in his life –and I've seen the character evolve to someone who's even more patient – even the fact that he's willing to take his father into his home shows that in this season, Floyd is very determined to have a relationship with his father and willing to do what it takes to sort of bring his family back together again.
Reynolds really went from having no relationship with Horace to living with Horace and facing some fatherly advice (whether he likes it or not) pretty quickly! It wasn’t that long ago that the two men were completely estranged, after all, so it’s interesting to learn that Floyd is determined to keep building that relationship even with the added complications of the psych hold and now shared home.
Find out just how Reynolds adapts to having his father in his home (and if that means anything for his budding romance with travel nurse Gabrielle) with the next new episode of New Amsterdam at a special time on Tuesday, November 22 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC, taking the usual place of La Brea, which recently aired its eventful fall finale.
A second episode of New Amsterdam will also air at 10 p.m. ET, so be sure to plan on double the medical drama on Tuesday night! The show is scheduled to end in the 2023 TV schedule with another two-hour event, which is either good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it!
