The Good Doctor boss says 'there is always hope' for Shaun and Lea

Where do Shaun (Freddie Highmore) and Lea (Paige Spara) go from here on The Good Doctor?

That's one of several questions fans were left pondering after the ABC medical drama's midseason finale. Thankfully, answers arrive Monday when the show returns from its lengthy hiatus.

When we last checked in with The Good Doctor, Shaun, Lim (Christina Chang), and Jordan (Bria Samoné Henderson) lost a baby during surgery because the hospital's supply of a life-saving medicine had expired as a result of Salen's (Rachel Bay Jones) new policies. In the aftermath, Shaun had an intense breakdown in the pharmacy, during which he told Lea he could no longer marry her because she altered his patient report card scores without telling him.

"Everybody is reeling from the death of the baby — and of course Shaun is reeling most of all," The Good Doctor showrunner David Shore tells EW. "[Shaun] doesn't simply go, 'I was upset. Let's move on.' He goes, 'I was upset for a reason. You [Lea] let me down. You did wrong, and you have to make it right.' And so can she make it right? Can she correct that?"

Shore continues: "How she responds to his intransigence is also part of the story. She's coming to him apologizing [and asking], 'What more can I do?' And he gives more she can do. Will anything be enough? And what does that say about Shaun, and what does that say about Lea?"

Even though the show's main couple is in a rough patch, Shore doesn't think fans should lose faith that they can survive this.

"We are a show about hope. There is always hope," he says. "We want to deal with real issues and real people and decent people trying to do their best and facing challenges. And sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don't, but we don't always have the happy ending, as evidenced by where we left off. But we want to have the happy ending, and more often than not we will. But those happy endings are made all the sweeter by the sad endings."

Additionally, the surgeons and Salen must find a way forward after the baby's death. Unfortunately, both parties learn the wrong lesson from this tragic event, which puts them at odds.

"[Salen] doesn't distance herself from it. She acknowledges this is a mistake. But mistakes are going to happen is her attitude and we should do everything we can to avoid them. She doesn't view it as an indictment of her approach to the hospital. She views it as a mistake that needs to be remedied. We need to make adjustments," says Shore. "But the rest of our people view it as an indictment of her very approach to running the hospital and are not ready to stand for it, or most of the rest of our people."

Lim is one of the people who makes it her mission to take Salen down, but that proves to be much harder than expected. "They're very good at medicine, they're not good at bureaucracy," Shore warns. "They don't have MBAs, any of them. They're challenging her in her world, and she is very, very good in her world and very, very powerful in her world... It's like a great sprinter has a beef with a great chess player. They are genuinely threatening her livelihood and things she cares about, and she will respond accordingly."

The question then becomes, "How much are they willing to risk in order to bring her down and possibly fail and get the worst of both worlds?" says the producer.

This highly combustible situation will likely put Andrews (Hill Harper) in an awkward position because he just started dating Salen. "He cares about her deeply and believes that she is potentially doing something great," says Shore. "It is kind of silly to pretend that there is no fiscal responsibility attached to running a hospital in America. It's naive to pretend that... It's worse than naive. It's dangerous to ignore that reality. And he believes that she is the type of person who can bring fiscal responsibility to the hospital, which will allow the hospital to do great things. And that attitude gets challenged from both sides as we go forward."

Before The Good Doctor went off the air in the fall, fans were shocked when Osvaldo Benavides — who joined the show as a series regular at the end of season 4 as Dr. Mateo Rendón — suddenly exited without much explanation. While Shore "can't" explain the reason for Benavides surprising exit, he says he hasn't completely closed the door on the character.

"I'm always open to revisiting characters, but we have nothing in the works at this point in time in that regard," he says.

The Good Doctor airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on ABC.

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