Warning: spoilers are ahead for Episode 5 of New Amsterdam Season 5, called “Grabby Hands.”
The fifth and final season of New Amsterdam kept on rolling with “Grabby Hands,” and there were plenty of people in need of some extra help this week. While there was enough of a time jump from the end of the previous episode that Dr. Wilder back back in the OR, Max was dealing with the problem of a nurse being arrested because of an incident that wasn’t really her fault while also dealing with accidentally cutting Luna, who had the “grabby hands” this week. But it was after watching Iggy’s storyline that I was left wondering: does he need an intervention from his coworkers?
Iggy took some young patients on a field trip to the forest in “Grabby Hands,” with the goal of exposing them to nature and getting their faces away from their cell phone screens for some time. The kids weren’t really admiring the scenery on the drive there, so the psychiatrist confiscated their phones. When they called him out on keeping his phone on him 24/7 (and all the push notifications for the dating app for “professional singles”) he decided that he would be fair and leave his phone behind for the hike as well.
And what happened was what pretty much any other adult would have predicted: the group got lost in the woods, with no phones to call for help or use to consult a trail map. A storm blew in, and Iggy was more relying on the kids for wilderness skills than they were able to rely on him. They got out of their situation eventually, but only when Iggy found out that one of the kids kept an iPad on him after getting his phone confiscated.
Iggy didn’t seem to really take away a lasting lesson from the disastrous field trip, although he did realize that just taking away their phones wasn’t the right solution. I also like to think that he learned that making sure kids have sunscreen, water, and hats for hikes won’t help all that much if their inexperienced guide doesn’t have any means of navigation or communication. (Well, Tyler Labine did open up about his character’s breaking point back in Season 4!)
It was an interesting side plot in the episode, and I for one always love stories that pair Iggy up with kids, but I spent most of his screentime thinking about the kids’ parents and hoping that they would find a new therapist after the events of “Grabby Hands.” Iggy was already throwing up some red flags even before he took the party to the woods, with his dating app notifications going off enough that the kids noticed, and still wearing a wedding ring.
I like to think that some of the other doctors at New Amsterdam might have had a thing or two to say if they found out about what he did. In fact, Reynolds recently went on his own nature adventure with his dad, and that was enough of a disaster that I can imagine he might have an earful for Iggy on this instance.
Of course, the staff at New Amsterdam had some much larger concerns in “Grabby Hands” (and Reynolds’ determination to try and find a lasting romance after all the drama with Lyn didn’t hold for very long), but I’m thinking that Iggy is going to need somebody to step in.
See what comes next for Iggy and the rest with new episodes of New Amsterdam on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC in the 2022 TV schedule. You can also catch up with episodes streaming next day via a Peacock subscription.
