Asher was gone but not forgotten during Tuesday’s episode of The Good Doctor.
Season 7, Episode 6 (“M.C.E.”) opened with a memorial service for Noah Galvin‘s dearly departed Dr. Wolke, who was killed in an antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+ attack during the ABC medical drama’s April 2 installment. Asher’s best friend, Dr. Jordan Allen (played by Bria Samoné Henderson), delivered the eulogy.
“Asher and I came from different worlds: I’m a devout Christian from Oakland, and he was an orthodox Jew-turned-atheist from Brooklyn,” she began. “But when we met at St. Bons, he became my closest friend.
“Asher had a way of making you feel like he saw the best version of you, but he still loved you at your worst,” Dr. Allen said. “He was also one of the most courageous people I knew — brave enough to leave behind the people he loved to be the person he knew he was inside. He was stubborn, and opinionated, and he had a strange affinity for grandpa sweaters. He made a crazy good margarita, and he was just so, so much fun.”
Before long, Jordan found herself overcome by anger. The deeply religious doc couldn’t understand why Asher had to die, and the bigots who bludgeoned him to death got to live. That’s when she went off book.
“Asher always did what he thought was right. And now he’s gone because of a couple of ignorant, hateful monsters,” she said. “They knew one thing about Asher — one thing — and they killed him for it. Left him lying there, bleeding off the pavement. And those animals, they get to live, and now he’s dead. And I hate them. I hate them for taking my friend.”
She’d later take her anger out on a patient — a deeply disturbed young man who drove his car into a crowd at a local festival, resulting in a harrowing shift at St. Bonaventure. She eventually came to understand that she was letting her emotions clout her judgement. He was a patient, and it was her duty to treat him as she would any other individual under her care.
Asher’s boyfriend Jerome was also beside himself with grief. He intended to propose to Asher the night that he was killed. This wasn’t meant to be the end of their story.
“My apartment is so empty,” he told Rabbi Benjamin. “His family took him to New York. There isn’t even a grave I can visit.”
Rabbi Benjamin encouraged Jerome to find a place that reminded him of Asher — a place he could visit in his time of mourning, or whenever he wanted to feel connected to his late partner. He wound up at St. Bons, where he sat in front of Asher’s locker. Jordan eventually helped him clean it out.
As the hour drew to a close, the St. Bons crew gathered in Shaun and Park’s office to decompress. Jerome joined them and distributed gifts Asher intended for his colleagues. The first gift was a mug he made for Park, which featured a photo of the two of them shirtless, tripping and singing along to Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” during a memorable company potluck in Season 5 (relive the magic below). The second gift was a pamphlet about a new surgical tool he’d saved for Shaun. It was at that precise moment that Dr. Murphy was overcome with emotion. “I will miss Asher,” he said, as his eyes filled with tears. “He was a good friend.”
Galvin previously marked the end of his stint on The Good Doctor with a heartfelt Instagram post. “I spent the last four years in Vancouver working away from my fiancee [sic] and dog and family. It was hard but these people made it really worth it,” he wrote on April 3, sharing a series of behind-the-scenes photos featuring his fellow castmates. “I love you @TheGoodDoctorABC thank you for everything!!”
