The shocking death of a major character on The Good Doctor made a powerful point but also sent the wrong message in one specific way. The Freddie Highmore-led drama has combined more lighthearted stories with medical drama during its final season, focusing mostly on Shaun’s struggles as he becomes a new father and his professional difficulties as he attempts to teach an autistic medical student. Most of the drama comes from disagreements about medical treatment, making the decision to kill one of The Good Doctor’s most likable characters even more unexpected and impactful.
This is the second time The Good Doctor has made the controversial decision to kill off a popular leading character. At the end of season 3, the series killed Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) after an earthquake. Melendez’s death impacted most of the other doctors, especially Dr. Lim (Christina Chang), who had been secretly dating him. The recent character death in The Good Doctor season 7 has some similarities. However, it also sends a negative message that undermines the series’ focus on acceptance of differences.
Asher Wolke’s Death Explained
The Character Was Murdered Right After Embracing His Jewish Identity
Asher Wolke’s death came at the end of an emotional storyline involving his feelings about his Jewish identity and marriage. He had struggled with even admitting he was Jewish to a religious patient who wanted her fiancé to convert prior to marriage, but when he learned his patient had little time to live he got in touch with a rabbi and helped facilitate the conversion. This was what led to Asher’s death, as he confronted some troublemakers who were vandalizing the temple when he dropped the rabbi off before heading to a local restaurant to meet Jerome.
Asher was in good spirits after confronting the criminals because he had declared to them that he was both gay and a Jew, at last embracing both his identities, but the troublemakers followed him to his car. In the final moments of the episode, one of them hit Asher in the back of the head with a metal object. The rabbi ran to him and prayed over him while Jerome waited in the restaurant. It was not immediately clear that Asher had died, but preview scenes showed the rest of the doctors at his funeral.
Asher’s Death Was Meant to Send a Message About Antisemitism
There Was Very Little Foreshadowing To Demonstrate How Violence Can Erupt Suddenly
The only foreshadowing of Asher’s death was a comment by the rabbi that rejecting his religion would not protect Asher from antisemitism. This choice made his death all the more shocking, but was done to make a point. Asher’s murder came out of a seemingly random encounter, demonstrating that hatred and violence can derail lives without any warning and adding to the tragic and senseless nature of the killing. Additionally, the perpetrator appeared to be retaliating for Asher earlier standing up to them when they sneered at him for being Jewish.
The point of this tragic end was to put a spotlight on hate crimes centered around antisemitism. In real life, these types of crimes have been on the rise recently, and Asher was the character most likely to be affected by this type of hate-based violence. Since The Good Doctor has always been about acceptance of differences, it was logical to address this issue, and the episode followed up these disturbing scenes with a placard telling viewers who had been affected by hate crimes where to reach out. Unfortunately, this important message was diluted by another inadvertently problematic one.
The Timing of Asher’s Death Was Problematic
Asher Died Just Before Getting His Happily Ever After
Asher was the only gay main character on The Good Doctor, and throughout his time on the series his relationship with Jerome, a nurse at the hospital, evolved. Asher’s death occurred while Jerome was waiting to propose to him, robbing them both of their happily ever after. It was a troubling end seen all too often for queer characters: gay characters are often killed on TV to prevent them from getting happy endings. This negative trope, which is known as Bury Your Gays, sends the message that gay people cannot experience happiness and will be killed if they seek it.
On a drama like The Good Doctor, it’s expected that all characters will suffer from time to time, so it would be wrong to exclude Asher and Jerome from that. However, it was unnecessary to kill Asher off right before he experienced that happiness. The writers did this to underscore the tragedy of the killer’s antisemitic behavior, but by doing so they inadvertently reinforced the idea that gay people cannot have happy endings. This is especially true because Asher and Jerome were the only gay couple on The Good Doctor, making them the series’ only representation of a same-sex relationship.
The Good Doctor Could Have Made The Same Point a Different Way
Asher’s Death Was Not The Only Way to Depict Antisemitism
While The Good Doctor season 7 trailer promised heartbreaking episodes, it was not necessary to write Asher out in this shocking and violent manner, especially when he was the only LGBTQ+ main character. It might have been a more powerful story if Asher had not died and instead, for example, navigated his co-workers’ potentially changing attitudes now that he had embraced his Judaism again. Many people who would never be violent have negative ideas about people who are not like them, and more people could relate to the perpetrators of such negativity than to violent criminals, and thus learn from it.
If Asher needed to be written out, it could have been accomplished without killing him off. He might have decided to go home for the first time in ages and visit his father’s grave and Jerome could have gone with him, the both of them taking time off before the wedding. This would have accomplished the goal of writing Asher out of The Good Doctor without perpetuating harmful stereotypes about gay people. It already addressed antisemitism by having the bad guys vandalize the temple, so it was not necessary for the story to kill anyone; even if the show had still wanted to include the attack, he didn’t have to die.
Giving Asher a happy ending would have diluted the impact of the anti-hate message, but it was not worth sacrificing pro-LGBTQ+ messaging to make that point. Despite the writers’ intentions to avoid the negative Bury Your Gays trope, there was no way to kill Asher in this manner without falling into it. The Good Doctor could have written Asher out a different way and still made its point about antisemitism, even if it wouldn’t have been as shocking.
