Does Max die in New Amsterdam?

The final season of New Amsterdam has come to an end. How did it all wrap up? Did Max Goodwin live or die at the end of the series?

Caution: Only the first two seasons of New Amsterdam are on Netflix. If you haven’t seen the final season yet, there are major spoilers in this post.

If you’ve just started New Amsterdam, you’ll have fallen in love with Max. Mostly for his attitude. Sometimes he is a little near-sighted about problems. He knows what he wants to fix, but he doesn’t see issues that can come up because of his fixes. It’s a recurring problem, but his heart is always in the right place.

We know Season 5 was the last. The series finale aired on Tuesday, Jan. 17. A lot of series finales, especially when it comes to medical dramas, will include a major death. Is that what happened here? Did Max die?

Does Max die from cancer in New Amsterdam?

From the start of the series, New Amsterdam gave Max a big fight ahead of him. He was diagnosed with cancer, and he had to go through rounds of treatment to survive. Helen was by his side, which certainly set up the Sharpwin ship.

Did he survive the fight? The good news is he does. He’s completely cured during the series.

In fact, his cancer comes up in the final two episodes of the series. The hospital is involved in supporting a cancer drug, and it turns out that Helen had ordered very strict parameters to test the drug. It was all to make sure she could see if the drug would work for Max, which was highly unethical but she loved Max even then.

Did Max die in the New Amsterdam series finale?

So, how did the series come to an end? Throughout New Amsterdam’s final season, Max had to figure out where his heart was. He had to choose between Helen, who had come back after leaving him at the rooftop altar, and Elizabeth Wilder, the new oncologist at the hospital.

In the end, he chose Elizabeth. It’s not clear if things worked out between the two of them. At the beginning of the series finale, Max announces that he is leaving New York for Switzerland. It’s a huge, sudden change, all for his daughter Luna.

The very end sees a grownup Luna taking over as Medical Director at the hospital. We can believe Max is still alive at this point, although it’s not confirmed.

New Amsterdam Seasons 1 and 2 are on Netflix. The rest of the series is on Peacock.