New Amsterdam Direction

Context on New Amsterdam
I recently started watching the long running series on Netflix called "New Amsterdam". The series revolves around a new medical director Dr. Max Goodwin (the good guy) who gets appointed to lead the New Amsterdam Hospital in New York (which according to the series is the largest government Hospital in the USA).Max puts together a great team of doctors - an African American cardiologist Dr. Floyd Reynolds (who has conflicting thoughts about being close to his family), an oncologist Dr. Helen Sharpe (who used to be more media facing earlier, but Max rekindles her passion for medicine again), an Indian Neurologist Dr. Vijay Kapoor (our new Anupam Kher), a caucasian ER head Dr. Lauren Bloom (who is trying to kick her drug habit), and a gay psychologist Dr. Iggy Frome (who along with his partner has adopted 4 kids and just loves his craft).

You get the drift. The episodes revolve around episodes at the hospital. Max and this team is forever trying to fight over capitalistic policies and want to do good for the public. Max has a throat cancer and is raising his child by himself - his wife dies in a freak accident right after delivering her baby. Max finds this super hard to cope.

Anyways, the reason for this post. Was watching S2E07 today morning during my walk. What an amazingly well directed episode. The direction, the screenplay, the acting - top notch.

Context on the scene I will describe the scene (and no dont worry there is no suspense reveal or anything). The episode starts with Iggy treating a group of war Veterans - who all have various PTSD issues. One of them, Nate, is always thinking that he left someone in his squadron to die in the battlefield and is unable to get out of it. Iggy asks him to talk about it, but he says he cannot find the words. So Iggy get them all to enact a greek tragedy which talks about similar war scenes and feelings of the soldiers.

The amazing direction At the last minute Nate says he is unable to act in the play - because those words are his words. Vijay steps in and says he wants to act. Iggy interrupts and says it is for army people. Vijay opens up and says he had had a bad situation when he was in the Indian Army as well - this is a story no one (including Iggy) had ever heard.

Anupam Kher does some fantastic acting. He is choking while he is reading out the lines. For every line he is reading, there is a related scene in the hospital that is happening - Floyd operating on a young girl and finding out that she has leukemia, Bloom figuring out an accountability partner to help her take pain killers, Max coping with his loss of his wife. That scene with each line being read by Anupam Kher, and the shot cutting to the various other main characters, and its relevance. Top class direction.

If you are interested in this kind of thing, go watch it. Its nice.