Spoilers ahead for the eighth episode of New Amsterdam Season 4, called “Paid in Full.”
New Amsterdam was even more intense than usual in “Paid in Full” due to a ransomware attack on the hospital, requiring Max Goodwin and Veronica Fuentes to either wait out the situation or pay $10 million. Max wanted to pay to save as many lives as possible, and Veronica was on board… as long as Max signed off on her budget that involved mass layoffs, and he ultimately agreed. He did find a way to save his friends’ jobs, but at the cost of others, and it was a major blow. At the same time, it looks like it’s possible that Veronica’s move could be undone as soon as next week.
Veronica was downright cold-blooded in “Paid in Full” when she refused to try to get the ransom paid for the hospital until Max signed her budget, although it can be argued that Max was in the wrong for holding out because he didn’t want his friends to lose their jobs. Oddly enough, it was a conversation with the always-helpful Iggy – who was unknowingly on the list to be laid off – that settled Max on signing, and it did ultimately pay off when it came to the ransomware. And honestly, if not for how she leveraged the ransomware situation to get Max on board with her budget and some of her speeches in previous weeks, her efforts to embrace a practical budget for New Amsterdam wouldn’t be so villainous, or such a blow to Max.
Because it was a blow, even though he found a way to prevent Iggy, Reynolds, and Bloom from being fired. Saving their jobs came at the cost of others in their departments, with Casey being fired from the ED, Gladys being fired from Psychology, and Dr. Baptiste taking Reynolds’ place on the figurative chopping block. Even Agnes was fired despite her position as Chair of Neurology, and Max had to admit that a total of 148 employees were fired from the hospital.
Such a large number does indicate that it was a numbers game instead of just Veronica targeting Max’s people, but considering that Casey and Gladys were among those cut, it’s hard not to wonder if Veronica still insisted on causing some hurt to those in Max’s circle. After all, despite their confrontation, Bloom surely never would have fired Casey, and I can’t fathom Iggy ever firing Gladys. Reynolds objectively had some motivation for potentially wanting to see Baptiste go, but he and Baptiste seemed determined to prove their worth through their skills without doing anything underhanded.
And Max did have some valid reasons for saving his friends’ jobs, since they all proved in “Paid in Full” that they were instrumental to New Amsterdam by pulling off some saves under pressure. Obviously it was a blow for pretty much everybody other than Veronica, but it seemed targeted at Max to force him to make cuts when his motto has been “How can I help?”
As long as Veronica is in charge, it seems unlikely that she’d find money in the budget to want to bring the people she laid off back, even though some of the characters held pretty important places in the show. That, combined with the promo for the next episode of New Amsterdam, gives the impression that Veronica might not actually be in charge much longer. I can't imagine that all of those characters are really going to stay gone!
The next episode of New Amsterdam is called “In A Strange Land,” and it will see Max going to some extremes to protect undocumented immigrants who need sanctuary after the church where they’d been staying was destroyed by a fire. Unsurprisingly, this won’t sit well with Veronica, but this time she might not end up on top. Check out the promo that may be hinting at a future without her at the hospital:
Of course, a promo isn’t going to give away everything that happens in the next episode, and it’s possible that Veronica will somehow find an edge over Brantley and avoid being fired. One possible scenario is that New Amsterdam will only oust Veronica if there’s somebody on hand to take over her spot right away, which could lead to Max staying in New York. After all, New Amsterdam surely can’t be saying goodbye to lead Ryan Eggold not even halfway through the fourth season, right? Maybe New Amsterdam will need somebody in charge after Veronica is fired.
Or maybe Veronica is sticking around for a while longer. Brantley might not be able to muster the support she needs to get Veronica fired, as her budget was popular even if her stance on undocumented immigrants isn’t going to fly with everybody. See what happens next with new episodes of New Amsterdam on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC in the 2021 fall TV lineup.
