Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for the Doctor Odyssey finale.For a series that started as a long-awaited return to sexy network TV, Doctor Odyssey sails off into the sunset with one of the most confounding season/series finales in recent memory. The crux of the series’ issues is that Ryan Murphy seems to be operating on a multi-season mindset while being trapped within an eighteen-episode order, which leaves storylines feeling rushed and character development wildly disjointed. The back-and-forth of the failed throuple — Max (Joshua Jackson), Avery (Phillipa Soo), and Tristan (Sean Teale) would have made more sense had the series had multiple seasons to twist and turn through the ups and downs of the erstwhile love triangle. It is an erstwhile love triangle because the Season 1 finale makes it clear that Max and Avery were endgame. We just didn’t get seven seasons of waiting for it to happen.
Episode 18 picks up right where the two-part finale left off last week, with Avery preparing to operate on Marcus (Christopher Gorham). Tristan comes in to check on her, and she immediately clocks that he is hungover. He promises her that his relapse had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his need to “de-stress,” but Avery knows better — and so do we. She reminds him that they have too many patients for him to be out of commission, and she makes it clear that his behavior has let her down. She needed him to assist with the surgery, and now she has to find someone else to help her. She turns to Matt (Jonathan Bennett), the psychiatrist — who happens to be the fiancé of Barry (Jim O’Heir), whom Max is on the island with. While Matt did not enjoy his surgery rotation while he was in medical school, he readily agrees to help Avery with the endovascular procedure because he wants to do something to keep himself from worrying about Barry, which Avery understands.
The surgery goes off without a hitch, paving the way for Avery to leave The Odyssey to lead the response team. After he comes out of surgery, Marcus’ fiancée (Natalia Cigliuti) and soon-to-be step-daughter, Riley (Spencer Moss), visit him, and Riley expresses how sorry she is about everything she said to him before he almost died doing something nice for her. This conversation gets to Avery, forcing her to confront how she left things with Max. Tristan finds her crying, and it’s clear at this point that he knows where things are headed, and he’s more or less at peace with it. As he encourages her to go to shore and look for Max, he even tells her to tell Max that he’s glad he’s okay.
‘Doctor Odyssey’s Finale Has Too Many Subplots

Image via ABC

Across Season 1, Doctor Odyssey has had no shortage of episodic subplots with the cruise ship’s passengers, but Episode 18 packs far too many subplots into its final 45 minutes. Only two subplots truly serve the main plotline: Marcus and Matt and Barry. While Marcus’ storyline helps Avery consider her “final” conversation with Max before the storm, Matt and Barry help to motivate both Avery and Max to consider their feelings for each other and each other’s feelings about their potential relationship.
Not only do the other subplots monopolize the limited amount of time left with the series — one of them is just downright bad. In Episode 17, Doctor Odyssey introduced audiences to Blair (Annie Mumolo), a cruel, racist bigot who balked at the idea of the cruise ship rescuing locals and opening its doors to those who were displaced by the tsunami. She continues her warpath throughout the first half of the finale, condemning the Odyssey for offering aid and slagging off about FEMA. Tristan is left to deal with her when she comes into the infirmary demanding antacids and accusing him of hitting on her, when he’s simply offering to ensure there isn’t something worse wrong with her, and there is. She is having a cryptic pregnancy, and she goes into labor shortly after she arrives in the infirmary.
Tristan enlists the help of Celia (Amelia Rico), a kindhearted midwife who is subjected to blatant racism because she doesn’t speak English, but fear not! The power of love that comes with having a child miraculously changes Blair’s heart, and by the end of the episode, she’s singing a new tune and naming her newborn daughter after Celia. Out of all the poorly-implemented storylines in Doctor Odyssey, this was perhaps the worst, and it’s truly heinous that this was one of the stories the series ended with.

Related

I Need ‘Doctor Odyssey’ To Be Renewed for Season 2 so We Can Get a Musical Episode

We have gotten ‘Glee’ alum, a country music star, and a Broadway actress on the ship…

In tandem with this ill-conceived plotline, Captain Massey (Don Johnson) is relieved of his duties as captain for disobeying corporate’s orders, leaving First Officer Monroe (Marcus Emanuel Mitchell) in the captain’s chair. Massey takes the opportunity to enjoy being uninhibited by work, only to quickly learn that he likes keeping busy. He bonds with Julie (Jee Young Han), who has been issued a fate worse than death for a workaholic — 12 weeks without work. Julie’s subplot is that she doesn’t actually love her husband and business partner, Will (Ramón de Ocampo), despite them being in the business of making happily ever afters for other couples. By the end of the episode, the two have happily agreed to divorce after twenty-three years of marriage, and it remains unclear why this was the route Doctor Odyssey chose to take with their story when the entire message of the episode was “following love” even when things get tough.
Unsurprisingly, Max and Avery Are ‘Doctor Odyssey’s Endgame

Image via ABC

While interpersonal drama runs rife aboard the Odyssey, medical drama runs rampant on the island. At the top of the episode, Max and Barry pull themselves out of the debris in the church and set to work rendering aid to residents who were injured during the tsunami and subsequent aftershock. While treating one of the patients, Barry’s head injury takes a turn for the worst, and Barry and Avery arrive just in time for Max to diagnose him with a pretty dangerous brain bleed. Avery jumps straight to work, helping Max locate a drill so they can relieve the pressure in Barry’s brain, proving that they truly are a dynamic duo both inside and outside of the infirmary.
On the way to the village, Avery and Matt have a heart-to-heart about their respective partners, with Matt providing Avery advice about her situation with Max. He pushes her to think about what she really wants, and highlights that she seems like the type of person who can handle difficult situations, so why is she letting long distance stand in the way of something she wants? This advice leads to Avery and Max having several conversations on the island. The first is when she first arrives, with the two holding hands and talking about how happy they are to be together again (treating patients, obviously) and he apologizes for how he handled her response to him on the Odyssey earlier. The second happens while Avery treats Max’s injuries, and he assures her that she will make an excellent doctor, affirming some of her fears that she will have to set that aside.
That evening, Matt and Avery sit up to keep an eye on Barry while he recovers, and Matt reminisces about when he first realized he was in love with Barry. As he talks, Avery realizes that he’s trying to therapy talk her into understanding and addressing her own feelings for Max — and it works. She admits that a big part of her hangup with their potential relationship is that it feels like she’ll have to put herself second, and she’s done that her entire life. Matt points out that you can meet each other halfway without sacrificing anything, and this helps pave the way for the conversation Max and Avery have the following morning. Avery confesses that she lied to Max about her feelings. She does have feelings for him — big feelings — but she’s so close to achieving her dream, she doesn’t want to choose anyone but herself, and Max understands that and supports it. Their conversation is interrupted by Barry crashing, but fortunately, they are able to revive him, and he comes to rambling, which is something Matt loves about him.
‘Doctor Odyssey’ Was Never About the Throuple, Apparently

As the episode draws to an end, everyone returns to the Odyssey worse for wear, but safe. Max and Avery hang back to finish their conversation. He assures her that she should always choose herself, and he’ll be happy so long as he has her in his life, which is enough for Avery to finally bite the bullet and give in to the chemistry the two have been dancing around throughout the season. Tristan watches as the two come aboard, hand-in-hand, and seems content that he was always the second choice. There’s some irony in the fact that Avery was so worried about being second-best in her own story that she’s done that to someone else.
The episode’s ending is relatively rushed. All of the couples who were on the Odyssey get hitched, and Max and Tristan mend their broken bridge as best as they can with a humorous callback to the bro code that Max egregiously violated by going after Avery. Avery misses the wedding ceremony, but shows up to request that the DJ play “Despacito” so she and Max can dance to “their song” one more time. It’s a sweet moment, and there’s no denying that it’s great fun to see the two dancing and kissing. Even if the episode ends with him accepting Max and Avery’s relationship and agreeing that he needs to find love with someone who only wants him, you can’t help but feel bad for Tristan.
Doctor Odyssey ends on a mostly high note, with the crew protesting corporate’s attempt to oust Captain Massey, so he is reinstated as captain. The crew all vow to go wherever he goes, which is a sweet note, given that the crew bond has been one of the series’ strengths. Avery and Max sort out how they’ll handle their new long-distance relationship while she’s in medical school pursuing her dreams, and Tristan supports them. If only Doctor Odyssey could have fulfilled the dreams of a fun throuple in the end, which was one of the series’ best and most surprising selling points. Should the series fail to get a renewal order (which seems likely), I fear this one will sail off into the sunset in relative obscurity as a series that aspired to do big things it was ultimately too gun-shy to commit to.
The entirety of Doctor Odyssey is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu.

Doctor Odyssey

A lackluster ending to a season that started out with an inspired concept.

Release Date

September 26, 2024

Network

ABC

Pros & Cons

The fact that Doctor Odyssey’s season manages to end on a happy note is an impressive feat.
Max and Avery are the heart of the series, so their relationship is a welcome surprise.

The series poorly handles Avery’s storyline, leaving her an underdeveloped character who hardly deserved the developments she had in the finale.
The bait-and-switch with the throuple is a mark against the series as a whole.
The finale feels rushed and underdeveloped, which is odd given the fact that the series was seemingly designed to be a one and done.