Spoilers ahead for the Season 4 premiere of New Amsterdam on NBC, called "More Joy."
New Amsterdam returned for Season 4 with a premiere that got off to a much happier start than Season 3 last spring, but things couldn't go too well for too long. At the hospital, a series of deliberately-set fires was endangering a whole lot of lives and forced Iggy (Tyler Labine) to turn to a dangerous source for help, while Max (Ryan Eggold) faced a different problem on the personal front when Helen (Freema Agyeman) put a damper on the post-hookup afterglow by saying that she intends to move back to London after her experience there in the Season 3 finale. Max ultimately made the big decision to move with her, but a new "bad guy" is on the way to mess up his plans.
And that "bad guy" will be played by none other than Michelle Forbes, who is on board New Amsterdam Season 4 to play a "fixer" by the name of Dr. Veronica Fuentes. Fresh off of a run as a complex character on ABC's Big Sky, Forbes evidently isn't going to be good news for the characters at New Amsterdam. Tyler Labine, who plays Iggy, spoke with CinemaBlend ahead of Season 4, and he previewed just how Fuentes is going to mess things up for Max and the rest after the eventful premiere. Labine said:
Well, you know, I always like to avoid the good guy, bad guy tropes. But she's a bad guy. She's a bad, bad guy. And it's really fun to watch somebody challenge Max in a way that really flummoxes him. Like, we see that she... We don't know, and I'm not gonna say what, but there is history there. That really gets under Max's skin. And he doesn't know how to be Max around her. He feels very young and flustered. And you know, it's fun. It's like watching a little hurt kid in him come out. And so I think her presence alone, Michelle Forbes is such a powerful actor, and she's so present.
You know a character is bad news if an actor who usually avoids the label is willing to call her a "bad, bad guy" before she has even debuted! When Michelle Forbes' casting was announced, her character was described as one who comes to the hospital to do some reconstruction as it is failing. Despite the physical damage done to the hospital in the premiere thanks to the fires, I highly doubt that Dr. Fuentes is coming on board just to fix the building.
And it's not going to be good for Max, now that he has made a bold (and pretty optimistic) decision to go to London with Helen, but intriguing for viewers who haven't seen that side of Max before. Plus, according to Tyler Labine, Michelle Forbes' character is bad news for more characters than just Max. The actor continued, saying:
And I've got to have a couple of really fun scenes with her too, where it's just like, she's got a thing that kind of puts you on your heels, you know. She's beautiful and she's tall, and she's powerful. But there's also this, like, she's got some darkness in there. So she's gonna mix it up for everybody, not just Max. I mean, honestly, coming up in the next episode we're shooting, she really sticks it to Iggy. She puts him on the spot with a huge decision, a massive decision that really will mess with all of his plans. And also, let's not forget, Max is leaving the hospital. So we don't know who's stepping in yet, but somebody. Might be her. I don't know. We'll see.
Well, if Max is leaving the hospital and it falls into the hands of Michelle Forbes' Dr. Fuentes, I can imagine that some of the others who are staying behind wouldn't be too happy about it! Iggy made the big decision to stop seeing patients at the end of Season 3, and seems to be sticking with that decision in Season 4, so it should be interesting to see the massive decision that Fuentes will force on him. For now, though, it's looking like Max will have problems on his plate even without her in the mix. Take a look at the promo for the next episode:
See what happens next with new episodes of New Amsterdam on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, following new episodes of The Voice. The course of true love evidently isn't going to run smoothly for Max and Helen, and it's already clear that there are plenty of complications on the way for the rest of the characters, so be sure to tune in!
