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Helen didn’t get on the plane in the New Amsterdam Season 4 finale. What does that mean for Helen and Max? Why did Helen choose to leave?

When the New Amsterdam Season 4 finale aired, we still had a bit of hope. Helen didn’t get on the plane, but there were 13 more episodes to make that right. The series still had its fifth and final season. Then Freema Agyeman announced that she wouldn’t return.

This led to a lot of questions about Max and Helen. Sharpwin had been the big ship that we were rooting for. What would happen to it? More importantly, we needed to understand why Helen didn’t get on the plane.

Why Helen left New Amsterdam

It turned out that the writing had been on the wall for some time. If we look back at many scenes with Helen, we’ll see that she wasn’t fully in. She wanted to be. She loved Max and Luna, but it just wasn’t enough. However, she couldn’t explain it at first.

It was Max who figured it all out. After Iggy told him to look back at all the memories, including the unhappy ones, Max did. He realized that Helen wasn’t happy. She kept telling him this, that something was missing. Max just chose to ignore it and find a way to make her happy with him.

However, Helen had just learned everything she remembered about her dad wasn’t true. She was trying to figure out her life and her place in the world. Everything was on top of her, and she needed to let go of Max to be able to find some sort of stability. As much as Max didn’t like it, he did come to understand it. It wasn’t him…not fully.

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What did you think of Helen’s reasons for leaving? What do you hope to see in the final season? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

New Amsterdam* airs Tuesdays on NBC.