‘The Good Doctor’ Boss on How Premiere Sets Up Shaun Murphy’s Final Season Arc

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Good Doctor Season 7 Episode 1, “Baby, Baby, Baby.”]

The Good Doctor Season 7 kicked off on Tuesday, February 20, on ABC, laying the groundwork for the final season of the medical drama depicting the home and work life of Freddie Highmore‘s Dr. Shaun Murphy, a brilliant surgeon with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Babies were top of mind for everyone in the episode. Shaun returned to work two weeks after the birth of his and Lea’s (Paige Spara) son, Steve, named after his late brother. Shaun and Lea struggled to compromise on whether they should adhere to a strict schedule for Steve, creating stress at work and at home for both of the new parents.

Shaun’s first case was two procedures on two infants in need of the same heart. Baby Eden is the adopted daughter of Dr. Reznick (Fiona Gubelmann), Dr. Park (Will Yun Lee), and Baby Jack. The babies each had a happy ending, but some struggles were elsewhere.

Shaun and Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) still aren’t on speaking terms, but Glassman ends the episode babysitting baby Steve and saying, “I’m grandpa,” in a moving moment. He also unwittingly became the co-president of San Jose St. Bonaventure alongside Dr. Audrey Lim (Christina Chang). They replace Dr. Marcus Andrews (Hill Harper), who stepped down as president in the Season 6 finale (Harper left to run for U.S. Senate).

Additionally, Dr. Jared Kalu (Chuku Modu, a returning cast member from Season 1) harbored resentment for Dr. Jordan Allen’s (Bria Henderson) handling of Dr. Danny Perez’s (Brandon Larracuente) injuries last season, but one serious talk resolved the tension between the two. We’re sensing a possible romance between these two lonely doctors.

Here, executive producer and co-showrunner Liz Friedman answers all of the big-picture questions about The Good Doctor‘s 10-episode final season and how the premiere set up that plan.

What is Dr. Shaun Murphy’s journey in the final season?

Liz Friedman: Well, a lot of it is certainly going to be about being a parent. Baby Steve was born at the end of last season. I have two kids myself. I certainly know that it opens a whole new chapter in your life. It’s seeing Shaun move into that role and also into more of a mentorship, parenting role at work with some new med students. And it’s really just seeing his continuing sort of, I want to say, coming of age, but that’s not quite right. I mean just his journey into adulthood and through life.

Shaun (Freddie Highmore) and Lea (Paige Spara) adjust to life as parents to Baby Steve (ABC/Jeff Weddell)

How does the three-babies storyline set up the final season’s themes?

What we wanted to do in this first episode was explore how Shaun starts the very long process of integrating being a person in your work world and being a parent. One of my sons is 18, and I feel like I’m still figuring it out. Specifically, what I really loved about this story was giving a chance for Shaun to have access to a different level of emotional connection to the patients and to the families of the patients now that he is a parent. I think having a baby makes his life better and richer, but it also makes things a little harder at moments in this case. We see that having a neurotypical emotional reaction has its downsides, or at least has its complications.

And [we] show that this is going to be a journey for Shaun and that hopefully what we’re doing is both very unique to Shaun as an individual, particularly an individual with ASD, and also universal. There really are several stories coming up in the season that are taken from issues that my wife and I had, or other people on the staff had as they had kids, and then figured out how to integrate that with working. So it’s trying to do something that’s both completely specific and also universal.

Shaun is neurodivergent, and Lea is neurotypical. How will those differences affect their home life as they adjust to parenthood?

I think we’re going to see that Shaun and Lea, like so many of us and our partners, do have different [perspectives]. You find somebody who’s great for you, and you agree about so many things, although not everything, of course. And then you have a kid, and you agree that that kid is the most magnificent creature you’ve ever seen, and you’re going to discover so many things that you disagree about. When do they go to bed, do we keep them on a rigid schedule, are we using dairy or non-dairy? There are just a million places of divergence and tension, and I think Shaun and Lea will discover that they have very different approaches to this.

We’ll look at that throughout the season, sometimes on more of a comedic level, and then we’re going to go to some darker, more dramatic places for that.

Regarding the dynamic with Dr. Glassman, how long will it take for Shaun and Dr. Glassman to reconcile? Will this be a season-long struggle?

I think they’re going to find their way back to each other relatively quickly, but it’s not going to be all smooth sailing. Then, there will continue to be some conflicts between them about some different things throughout the season.

Dr. Glassman (Richard Schiff) and Dr. Lim (Christina Chang) receive big news in The Good Doctor Season 7 premiere (ABC/Jeff Weddell)

Dr. Andrews stepped down as the president of the hospital in last season’s finale to explain Hill Harper’s absence from the show. I wonder how his absence could be further explained in the final season, or if you’ve let it be with the Season 6 finale?

I think we’ve had the explanation of that, and we’re now just looking to, OK, if Andrews leaves and that position is open, what exactly is going to happen with that, and what is that going to mean for Lim and Glassman? We’re going to have some fun with that.

Christina and Richard are both fantastic, and they’re really fun and really enjoy working together. I think people are going to really like seeing their evolving dynamic this season.

Chuku Modu’s Dr. Jared Kalu returns as a series regular for this final season. How does bringing back an old character and adding two brand new ones [Kayla Cromer and Wavyy Jonez, who make their debut next week in Episode 2] satisfy the needs of the final arc?

We loved the chance to bring Chuku back and to bring his character, Dr. Kalu, back. He’s just a lovely guy and a great actor. Kalu really did have a special relationship and connection with Shaun, and it felt very satisfying to us to have somebody who’s been away for a while come back and hold up the mirror in a sense of how far Shaun has progressed. And just also then having Kalu get lost a little bit as he’s gone through his path, and having Shaun help somebody reground themself, felt really fun and interesting.

And then we’ve brought on two new med students. We’ve never done med students before. Usually, the new doctors on the show are residents, and residents are already well into being competent doctors. Med students, it’s very interesting. For two years, you go to med school in the classroom exclusively, and then all of a sudden, you are spit out onto a hospital floor, and you’re expected to start the process of learning how to be a doctor in a very practical, boots-on-the-ground sense. But med students don’t know how to bandage a wound. They don’t know how to draw blood; they’ve never done it before.

That’s when we have David Renaud, who’s one of our writers on staff and also a doctor, telling us stories of things that he was baffled by when he was a med student first put on the floor. We thought, well, these are great stories. So to do that, and then also in particular in the case of Charlie Lukaitis [Cromer’s character], to introduce another character with ASD who is, in fact, inspired by Shaun to be a surgeon. The two of them will have a complicated relationship.

Dr. Kalu (Chuku Modu) and Dr. Allen (Bria Henderson) treat a baby in The Good Doctor premiere (ABC/Jeff Weddell)

Dr. Allen is really struggling with Dr. Perez’s absence in the premiere, but I got a feeling that there might be a potential romance between Dr. Kalu and Dr. Allen forming. Did I read that wrong, or is that something we’ll see this season?

I think there’s a little bit of interest there. I think they are still sorting it out, and we’ll see what happens with them.

And could we possibly see Dr. Perez make a brief return, maybe as a guest star?

Yeah, it’s a possibility. We haven’t decided yet.

The Good Doctor, Tuesdays, 10/9c, ABC