Maggie Lin, Saving Hope

Maggie Lin (Julia Taylor Ross)

In Canadian medical drama Saving Hope, Dr. Maggie Lin is an OB/GYN attending at Hope Zion Hospital. She attended Harvard Medical School, and her father was a well-known doctor who died of a heart attack.

At the start of the series, she dated a man named Joel for some time, before she stared dating a man named Gavin. They were going to have a baby together, but she had a miscarriage towards the end of Season 2.

Season 3

In Season 3 Maggie became involved with Hope Zion’s new doctor, Sydney Katz. Sydney was the new obstetrics and gynecology resident and she and Maggie grew close and kissed in 3×08 “The Heartbreak Kid”. This freaked Sydney out and she gave Maggie a “save the date” card for her engagement to a man named Hershel that she had been dating for 10 weeks.

Later on when Sydney and Maggie talked about the kiss, Sydney revealed that she had been struggling with liking girls her whole life due to her family’s religion and beliefs. Sydney then sought out Maggie and was finally able to admit out loud that she liked girls, the two of them made out and it was implied they had sex. Their relationship status wasn’t revealed on-screen, but it was made clear that the two of them had strong feelings towards each other.

Season 4

Sydney was absent for most of season 4, but made a short guest appearance in episodes 10 and 12. When Sydney was watching Maggie, who had collapsed earlier, from the window, another doctor came up to her and said “You really love her, don’t you?”. That was the first time anyone had noticed or acknowledged Sydney and Maggie’s attraction. Later Sydney and Maggie were joking and enjoying each other’s company. Sydney was then written out of the series to move to Tel Aviv with her new unnamed girlfriend, but before she left, she and Maggie shared a goodbye kiss.

Bury Your Gays and Pledge

In response to the controversy following Lexa’s death on The 100 and the highlighting of the troubling Bury your gays trope that followed, the Saving Hope writers and producers drafted a pledge to the LGBTQ Fandom, outlining how they would treat LGBTQ characters in any current, and future stories, taking an important step toward achieving real change in the quality of LGBTQ representation in the media.

In an interview with The TV Junkies co-executive producer Noelle Carbone explained that the pledge was their way, as industry insiders, to say “We hear you. We acknowledge that we’re not doing right by you. We promise to do better.” She also revealed that the awareness that was being brought to the bury your gays trope made the Saving Hope writers and producers re-think a potential lesbian death they had in the works for a storyline in season 5:

“At the time the controversy started, we had already started breaking a story about a recurring lesbian character who was being treated at Hope Zion. And it seemed like the most dramatic way to tell that story was for that woman to die. We debated whether or not, as a hospital show where patients often die, we were beholden to the same rules as other shows. Is it playing into the Bury Your Gays trope if you kill a lesbian character who was already quite ill when she first showed up? We went back and forth a lot and had many days of spirited debate. And while we were debating we kept reading all of the incredible, detailed coverage in the press about the issue. Ultimately, we came to understand that the underlying issue is actually pretty simple: queer characters are so underrepresented on television that killing off even one makes a tremendous negative impact.” (Source: TheTVJunkies)

Season 5

Sydney came back in the 5th (and final) season, and she and Maggie got a happy ending, leaving the show together in episode 5×12. She came back in episode 5×09, when she showed up at the hospital with her sister who had cancer and was hoping to get into Maggie’s program. Sydney told Maggie she hadn’t stopping thinking of her and kissed her, and asked her if they could try again.

In episode 5×10, Maggie told her she was scared: “it’s like I’ve been waiting 3 years for Christmas and now it’s finally here”. They decided to try for a relationship.

Appearances:

• 67 episodes.

Female love interests:

• Sydney Katz (Stacey Farber, main cast S3, guest S4, S5)

Relationship story arc with a woman: Yes

Male love interests:

• Joel Goran 💀 (Daniel Gillies, main cast, 47 episodes)
• Gavin Murphy (Kristopher Turner, main cast S1-2, recurring S3, 35 episodes)

Relationship story arc with a man: Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

• Female (Regular)

Storyline during sweeps? No

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.
[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.