New Amsterdam ended the first half of Season 4 with a doozy of an episode that shook up just about every character and many relationships, and fans can count on some fallout when the show returns in 2022. One of the biggest shockers of the episode came at the end, when Lyn Malvo dropped a bombshell on Reynolds that will really put his statement that he’s “up for complicated” to the test. She’s pregnant, and the pregnancy will have some repercussions in the rest of Season 4… even though actor Jocko Sims originally thought it was a joke.
I spoke with Jocko Sims about the midseason finale of New Amsterdam and the pregnancy twist that few fans probably thought would actually happen. After all, the Reynolds/Malvo/Baptiste situation is complicated enough already! The actor shared his reaction to finding out about what’s in store for these characters:
What I try to do is I try to catch things at the table read, which we have one today for Episode 12 or 13, and that is exciting for me. You know, to see it the first time written, but somebody on set, Andy Voegeli, our cinematographer, he ruined it for me. And it really ruined the surprise for many reasons. One, I thought he was joking with me. I'll tell you that, I'll give you that. That's a good answer. I thought it was a joke. But I think it's so damn good. I think it's so interesting. I think that we need this on the show, and I think the fans are gonna love it.
It may have seemed like a joke when the cinematographer of all people dropped the spoiler on Jocko Sims, but neither Malvo nor Reynolds were laughing about it when she dropped it on him in the midseason finale! Admittedly, the episode ended before there was time for Reynolds to do much more than look stunned, and it’s hard to blame him.
When he said he was up for complicated, it seems pretty safe to say that this isn’t what he had in mind! When I noted that an unplanned pregnancy is something that you don’t really see coming with three surgeons – one of whom is an OB/GYN – involved, he shared his perspective:
Yeah. [laughs] Three intelligent adults here that have somehow found themselves in this situation. Love is a powerful thing.
Love has certainly been powerful enough between Reynolds, Malvo, and Baptiste that they’ve all tried to navigate this unconventional relationship, but will it be powerful enough now that there are two candidates as the father of her child? It’s clearly early enough in the pregnancy that she’s not showing yet, and an OB/GYN might be in tune with her own body enough to suspect and test herself pretty early, so a question now is how soon it would even be medically possible to test the paternity.
A lot may depend on whether or not there’s a big time jump between the midseason finale and when New Amsterdam returns in the new year, but Jocko Sims confirmed that the question of the father is definitely going to come up. And there will be some “repercussions” for how they handle it, as he explained:
There will be a moment where Reynolds and Baptiste are very interested to know who the father is. And their desire to know this, it's gonna come with a little bit of repercussions. We tend to forget about Lyn and what she's going through in the pregnancy, as there might be some complications.
The actor didn’t specify whether these “complications” will be emotional – which they should all just expect by this point in their three-person relationship – or physical for Malvo. She certainly has a high-stress job, and her life presumably won’t be any less stressful now that she’s dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and two men who are seemingly concerned more about the paternity than her well-being.
Still, only time will tell how the story unfolds. Fans have seen enough of Reynolds over four seasons so far to be confident that he wouldn’t deliberately ignore what she’s going through, so it should be interesting to see what happens and how all three of them will handle it. Although the future is uncertain for the polyamorous trio, Jocko Sims did weigh in on what kind of hypothetical father Reynolds would be:
I think that he'd be a great father. I think it'd be a great storyline for him to have kids, and have a family. If it's with Lyn, or anyone else maybe in the future. We're not sure where this relationship will end up. But I've always wanted Reynolds to have kids. I think that'd be great. I think he'd be a great father.
Will fans get to see Reynolds become a dad? Even if he is the father of Malvo’s future child, she presumably wouldn’t give birth before the end of the season, short of a big time jump. Then again, until we’ve seen what the complications are and what decisions these three doctors make about the pregnancy, we can only speculate about whether fatherhood is in his future soon, eventually, or at all.
New Amsterdam returns for the second half of Season 4 with the midseason premiere on Tuesday, January 4 at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, immediately following the premiere of the sixth and final season of This Is Us. There’s a lot more on the way even beyond Reynolds, Malvo, and Baptiste, with Max and Helen actually leaving New York for London despite Dr. Fuentes seizing control of the hospital. According to showrunner David Schulner, there’s going to be a sense of abandonment among those they left behind, and there is some additional relationship drama on the way due to Leyla finding out the truth about Bloom’s bribe.
