Noah Wyle says don't worry, you'll get to see Dr. Robby's "rock bottom" next season

“Nope,” is the pretty clear answer on that front from the show’s production team, including creator and writer R. Scott Gemmill, plus Wyle himself. This is per Deadline, which talked to both men about the character’s arc, which has seen him be increasingly erratic toward the various young doctors leaning on him for mentorship and support. “I don’t think he’s hit rock bottom yet,” Gemmill said of where Robby’s at in the finale, noting that, “Robby’s not getting the help he needs. He’s very good at treating other people. He’s very good with patients, but he’s a terrible patient himself.” Wyle, meanwhile, made it clear that the show’s next season will show Robby getting worse before he gets better: “Well, I think we’ll find out what that rock bottom looks like next year… I like to think we are all engaged collectively in a five to six-year mental health journey that takes a character from a place of real brokenness to a place of health.”

Wyle, who also executive produces the series, also dug a bit deeper into Robby’s mindset in the latter half of the season, including why he’s been so hard on characters like Supriya Ganesh’s Dr. Samira Mohan. “It was hard to see weakness in others when you don’t want to see it in yourself,” Wyle suggested. “And I maintain, although it’s not a very popular attitude online I’m told, that Robbie really loves Samira and thinks she’s a rock star doctor and hates that she falls short of her own potential and sabotages her own progress. And yes, his tough love attitude with her is totally inappropriate and unprofessional, but it’s grounded in a desire for her to see herself the way he sees her, which is a lot more talented and a lot more full of potential.”

Which can be a little rough to take, in so far as we all know Ganesh has been announced to not be returning for the show next year; in any case, Wyle expresses his hope that the series will make it to the other end of Robby’s mental health journey with its audience’s souls intact: “Hopefully, we’ll get them there together.”