Antonia Thomas is returning to The Good Doctor this season

Antonia Thomas is checking back into The Good Doctor.

EW has confirmed that the actress, who played Dr. Claire Browne in the ABC medical drama's first four seasons, is returning for two episodes in the fifth and current season this spring. Unfortunately, there aren't any details at the moment about what brings her back into the orbit of St. Bonaventure's finest. Perhaps she's returning to help Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) with his current relationship woes.

When the show began, Claire was one of Shaun's fellow surgical residents and eventually became one of his closest friends and advisors. During her time at St. Bonaventure, Claire started dating surgical attending Dr. Neil Melendez (Nicholas Gonzalez), who died at the end of the third season. In the two-part season 4 finale, Claire decided to stay behind and work at a clinic in Guatemala instead of returning to the states, which is how Thomas was written out off the show.

"The thing that I kept talking about was [that] we put that character through so much over the previous years," showrunner David Shore told EW about Claire's ending in June 2021. "We've had our share of sad endings on this show, and it's an ending so there's a sadness to it, but I also wanted this to be more of a beginning at the same time. I wanted this to be hopeful and positive. So the phrase that we kept using was, 'I didn't want her to be running away from anything. I wanted her to be running to something.' So it was really important that this was a good place for her and we all felt good about it."

"It's very sad that she's leaving, but I respect her choice," Shore added about Thomas' decision to leave the show. "She's done great work for us for four years. She's given us everything we could've asked for. So I wanted to give her a good sendoff and I wanted to make sure she was happy with it."

At this point in the show's run, we're so used to saying goodbye to characters, it's nice to have one return.

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

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