TV

Fans Say This Character’s Death in The Good Doctor Is ‘Hardest-Hitting on TV’

Fans Say This Character’s Death in The Good Doctor Is ‘Hardest-Hitting on TV’
Image credit: ABC

Why him, we keep on asking?

When creating a series, one of the writers' main goals is to create characters that make you feel something. And it doesn’t matter whether those are feelings of love or hate, or confusion – everything counts. When a character touches your heartstrings it means the mission is complete.

Sometimes we grow fond of particular characters, and they don’t even need to be titular ones for that. For example, it’s obvious that the most popular and beloved character of ABC’s The Good Doctor will be Shaun Murphy, the autistic but brilliant surgeon at the center of the series. But there are also several side characters who are just as important as the titular character.

Recently, season 7 of the show premiered, and episode 5 called Who At Peace came bearing bad news to the show’s fans. The thing is, one of the most beloved characters, Dr Asher Wolke, ended up tragically dead.

Asher was played by Noah Galvin, who was added to the cast in season 4 and was well-received by the fans of the show. His character was quite controversial. Though, as he was a gay jew, which is not something you usually see on TV.

Fans Say This Character’s Death in The Good Doctor Is ‘Hardest-Hitting on TV’ - image 1

However, the final season of the show had him killed in an unexpected way which caused a lot of discussions among the audience.

“I’ve mourned countless TV characters over many years and moved on pretty quickly. This one is still sitting with me. I’m so mad about the way he was killed off,” Redditor wendz1980 said.

The problem is, his death was supposed to send a powerful message to the world, but instead turned out to be a simply devastating scene. During episode 5, Asher was taking a rabbi home after his patient's wedding, and they saw some guys vandalizing the synagogue.

Asher told them to leave and threatened to call the police, and for a moment he thought everything was under control. When the vandals asked him why he cared, he said it's because he's Jewish and gay. After that, the vandals commit a hate crime and kill him…

Fans Say This Character’s Death in The Good Doctor Is ‘Hardest-Hitting on TV’ - image 2

Asher’s Death in The Good Doctor Now Explained

Many fans were asking why did the writers decide to do this? The answer was given by the show’s writer Adam Scott Weissman.

“We came into this [episode] with the thought that life doesn’t always have happy endings. Sometimes things happen suddenly and in a tragic way,” Weissman said in an interview to TheWrap.

The Good Doctor is available to stream on Hulu.