Summary
“Righteous Right Hand” asks if the wrong thing can be justified with the right reasons, as the casualties of a bus crash flood New Amsterdam.
This recap of New Amsterdam Season 2, Episode 6, “Righteous Right Hand”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
It never rains but it pours in New Amsterdam Season 2, Episode 6, as an eerily quiet ED is quickly filled to capacity with the casualties of a bus crash. None of the women — all black, all religious, both remarked upon throughout “Righteous Right Hand” — are particularly hurt by the accident, but most of them had pre-existing medical conditions. Lauren (Janet Montgomery), forever the cynic, thinks there might be something to that. And she might be right.
The ED is busy enough that virtually the entire cast is sucked into its gravity. Floyd (Jocko Sims) is paged to follow up on Tamala Robeson (Isabelle Pierre); X-rays reveal a shadow on her chest, which turns out to be a tumor penetrating her heart. Vijay (Anupam Kher) is sent to deal with a soybean farmer with nerve damage and a sense of humor but switches the case with Helen’s (Freema Agyeman), who is tending to Miss Verdine, a diabetic with a lymph node infection who spots the famous “Dr. Helen” and automatically assumes she has cancer.
Iggy’s (Tyler Labine) patient in “Righteous Right Hand” is the most striking: Shauntee, a young woman with Down Syndrome who is pregnant and wants an abortion. The questions are obvious. Did she know she was pregnant? Was she coerced? Does she understand the concept of abortion, what it means? What she knows for certain is that she doesn’t want a baby, and who can blame her? I’ve had two, and to be honest I’m not sure about either of them.
The circumstances of the crash are a big deal in New Amsterdam Season 2, Episode 6. The leader of the spiritual excursion is Ms. Kaye Henry (April Matthis), whom Max (Ryan Eggold) meets and prays with. But her God-bothering isn’t enough to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. With so many of the women benefitting from the crash in unexpected ways, it’s obvious that something is amiss. Max fabricates a story of an amazing woman who loved her friends very much and decided to help them by doing something dangerous, to let Kaye know that he knows. Kaye tells a story in return, one that involves the high cost of medicine and hospital treatment, and the providence of supplemental accident insurance, and you can almost hear the right hand of God clicking its fingers. Or maybe rubbing them together.
We once again return to the theme of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. And potentially doing the wrong thing for misguided religious ones, as Kaye learns of Shauntee’s pregnancy and desire for an abortion, insisting that as her legal guardian she gets to make her decisions for her — including her medical ones. And Kaye insists the baby would be loved and cared for. This family isn’t anyone’s — least of all a white man’s — crusade. But is that really what’s best for Shauntee?
It might not matter. NYPD detectives arrive looking for Kaye, and take her away, despite her not having confessed to anything yet. She believed she was doing the Lord’s work and has since realized that she wasn’t, but if she tells the truth, all her friends who are now receiving care will lose their insurance. Before long she’s back, having experienced a seizure on the way to the precinct, and Max explains that she is diabetic. Her blood sugar spiking could have caused the crash.
New Amsterdam Season 2, Episode 6 ends, as expected, with good news. The courts restore Shauntee’s right to make her own decision about the abortion, and while she’s initially terrified of losing her relationship with Kaye, they’re in it together — even if Kaye is suddenly unsure of whether or not God is with them in the way that she assumed. Perhaps he doesn’t need to be. Floyd’s risky, atypical surgery pays off. Bickering siblings find common ground. Max even admits he’s being unreasonable and allows Helen to try and help him in whatever way she can.
That’s the only real downbeat note of “Righteous Right Hand”. Helen sends a cleaning team to the apartment, already paid and tipped, but Max closes the door in their face. As he cradles baby Luna, we see a bloodstain still on the carpet. All he has left of Georgia besides Luna is her blood, caked into the apartment floor. Maybe he isn’t ready to allow that to be cleaned away just yet. As Helen calls, he holds Luna tighter and sobs.
