‘The Good Doctor’: Dr. Glassman Learns His Cancer Returned

In the mid-season finale of The Good Doctor, Dr. Aaron Glassman got some terrible news just before Christmas: His brain cancer has returned.

In “Quarantine,” Lea (Paige Spara) had to take Glassman (Richard Schiff) to an appointment to get another screening because Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) was in quarantine at St. Bonaventure Hospital.

After his screening, Glassman asked the nurse to look at the images, but she initially refused. But Glassman pressed on and said he would like to personally give it to his doctor and would not look at it.

Of course, Glassman did look at it the moment he stepped outside the clinic. He took one look at the test results and murmured, “It’s back.”

During the montage at the very end of the episode set to “Silent Night,” Lea was shown comforting Glassman on the steps in front of the clinic.

Throughout the second season, Glassman has been struggling with the changes cancer has brought to his life. He had surgery to remove the brain tumor, but the impact — including memory loss and not being able to drive — have hurt his outlook on life.

In the powerful “Tough Titmouse” episode, Glassman refused to take medication to help him sleep so he could continue talking to a hallucination of his late daughter, Maddie (Holly Taylor). In last week’s episode, “Empathy,” Shaun convinced Glassman to give up his driver’s license.

The cliffhanger earned a shocked reaction from fans, many of whom thought Glassman’s survival was already guaranteed.

“If Glassman doesn’t make it either by some medical procedure or some miracle, I don’t care which, then I’m out. Give us a miracle @gooddrwriters,” one fan wrote.

“That was blow out episode tonight, all I can say is OMG! Poor everybody, it so awful! I don’t want to lose Dr. Glassman. I can’t put into words how sad everything was,” another wrote.

“Quarantine” left fans with a long list of unfinished storylines. We do not know if Dr. Audrey Lim (Christina Chang) survived being infected by the illness that killed three others in the emergency room. Meanwhile, Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez) has still not revived a leukemia patient who signed a do-not-resuscitate order.

The Good Doctor returns on Monday, Jan. 14 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo Credit: ABC