The Good Doctor bosses have opened up on the touching name that Shaun and Lea chose for their daughter.
The Good Doctor season seven finale was very emotional as expected but an important detail wasn’t revealed until after the episode aired.
Shaun Murphy (played by Freddie Highmore) has come a long way since he first started at St Bonaventure Hospital, both personally and professionally.
So when it was announced that season seven would be the ABC medical drama’s last, fans were upset to say goodbye but it was correctly predicted that a heartfelt finale would wrap up his story in the right way.
Of course, it wasn’t all happy tears as it was revealed that Dr Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) had a terminal brain tumour and despite Shaun offering alternative treatments, he knew he was going to die soon.
Fast forward to several years later and Shaun is introducing the Aaron Glassman Neurodiversity in Medicine Foundation in his mentor’s memory.
It’s only after Shaun’s speech that fans see him with his wife Lea Dilallo (Paige Spara), son Steven and a little girl.
She isn’t formally introduced in the finale so viewers have been eager ever since to find out her name and following the episode’s release, it’s been revealed.
Opening up to TV Line, showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman shared that their daughter is called Maddie, in a touching tribute to their late friend and mentor Glassman.
“It’s never mentioned. It’s in the script that it’s Maddie, but it’s never said out loud”, Shore explained.
“Freddie and I were joking about that because Freddie [Highmore] was going: ‘Doesn’t Leah get to name any of the children?”
To this, Friedman jokes: “Lea hasn’t had quite as much trauma as Shaun, so she defaults on getting to name the children.”
Maddie Glassman was Glassman’s daughter who died from a drug overdose before The Good Doctor began.
He carried a lot of guilt with him over her daughter and imagined seeing her and talking about her death back in season two.
It was then in season seven that fans saw Glassman cling onto a young patient who had an opioid addiction, because he thought he could save her, unlike Maddie.
While Glassman’s story is a sad one, Shaun and Lea chose to name their daughter after his own as a way of making sure that their memories live in on in one way or another.
Glassman was also like a father to him so Shaun clearly felt an emotional connection to Maddie, even though they never met.
