- "Mom was out of town. [...] You caught me high for the umpteenth time. [...] The night I'd broke another promise, and you decided to quit the bargaining and the threats and take action. So you dragged me outside and locked the door. I prayed you would come and find me. Why didn't you come and find me?"
- —Maddie Glassman to Aaron Glassman during a hallucination[src]
Madison "Maddie" Glassman was the daughter of Aaron Glassman and a close friend to Jessica Preston.
History[]
Life and Death[]
Maddie was born to Aaron Glassman and Ilana Reeves. Growing up, Maddie was best friends with Jessica Preston and the two both ran track as either a school activity or a hobby.[3] Due to her father's job as president of St. Bonaventure Hospital, he wasn't around much which resulted in a distant relationship between the two. Maddie was also angry a lot and regularly fought with Glassman when she felt that he wasn’t fair to her. This included how she kept getting into fights at school because of a bully that was picking on her, while also becoming annoyed when she thought Glassman was victim blaming her by telling her to move as Maddie didn’t see why she herself had to.
Eventually, Maddie resorted to drugs where Glassman would find her and resort to threats and bargains to stop her. This didn't work which resulted in Glassman throwing her out of the house one night when Ilana was away. Glassman assumed that she would go to Jessica's or her aunt's but she didn't. She killed herself that night from an assumed overdose.[2]
Aftermath[]
Her parents broke up as what is presumed to be the result of the tragedy of losing a daughter. Ilana blamed Glassman for a long time for Maddie's death, and the resentment soured the relationship of her parents to the eventual outcome in divorce.
About two years after Maddie's death, Glassman once met a boy, Shaun Murphy, whom Glassman would come to love as a son. Although he had to deny that he was replacing Maddie with Shaun, Glassman was told by Jessica to be there for Shaun. When it appeared that Glassman was dying of an inoperable brain tumor, he had a lot of regret that he didn't have Maddie with him during what he thought was his dying days.
While Glassman was going through chemotherapy for the tumor, he began having hallucinations of Maddie presumably because of sleep deprivation. The two argued about the events that led up to her death. After a heated argument between the two, they made up and Maddie told Glassman that she loved him. He then drifted off to sleep and when he woke up, she was gone.[2]
When Glassman was angry at Shaun for changing the surgery on Dr. Lim which left her disabled, he remembered his argument with Maddie concerning when she was being picked on and how he didn’t seem to side with her over it. This made Glassman remember that he never got to tell Maddie enough about how much he loved her and he reconciled with Shaun. When Shaun's pregnant wife Lea was worried about becoming a parent, Glassman related to her how he had fears about Maddie who was alright growing up to tell Lea that she would most likely be OK as a parent.
After meeting drug addict Hannah Ayleston, Glassman was reminded of Maddie and desperately tried to help Hannah avoid making the same mistakes that Maddie did, especially after Glassman learned that his brain cancer had returned, and he was dying. Shaun later told Hannah the story and helped to convince her to accept Glassman's offer of treatment for her addiction.
Personality[]
According to Glassman, Maddie always ran everywhere she went. Her default was that she was angry, but also loved dearly. She loved her father, but their constant arguments meant that he didn’t show it enough and she couldn’t help but hate him. Although she apparently died hating him, Glassman's vision of Maddie and Shaun's statement that Glassman never lied indicated that she loved him in the end.
Appearances[]
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Gallery[]
Episode Stills[]
Season 2[]
References[]
- ↑ "Date Night"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Tough Titmouse": Season 2. Episode 4. David Hoselton (writer) & Steven DePaul (director). [October 15, 2018].
- ↑ "Apple": Season 1. Episode 8. David Renaud (writer) & Nestor Carbonell (director). [November 20, 2017].