It has to be the strangest feeling to go back to a job where you used to be the person who looked over everyone and know that you’re starting back out at the bottom of the totem pole. For Amy, this is happening in Doc, Season 1, episode 3 – only she’s got no memory of ever being in charge or any understanding of why everyone is angry.
All she knows is that she wants to be a doctor. It’s all she’s ever wanted to be. She understands that she’s going to have to start again, but the extent to which she’s going to have to start again is what she wasn’t prepared for. After watching the episode, I would also argue that this is also what scares her.
Her coming back is also what I would argue that scares Richard. He’s got a lot of secrets to hide and a lot of things he probably doesn’t want Amy to remember. That’s the beauty of television though… the mystery and the drama. There are always things that you don’t want anyone to know and there are the things that come out.
And I do believe that Richards’s stuff is going to come out. A lot will come out.
FIRST DAY
It’s only natural that someone who has been in charge, coming back to work, and being lower on the totem pole than the people that they’ve overseen is going to cause a lot of questions. For all the people that Amy used to supervise, they are going to have questions.
And Dr. Miller tries to address all of those questions.
We know that Richard has his reasons for not wanting Amy back. He’s tried to cover up the things that he did wrong in someone’s surgery, that could cost him his license and his career.
It’s also not a shock to me that some people have their thoughts as to her coming back. Then again, the way that Richard portrays it shows that he’s not holding back. He wants people to be apprehensive because he doesn’t want them to trust Amy. He wants them to hate her, for her to make mistakes, and then for her to be gone.
THE ASSIGNMENT
It’s Amy’s first day and Miller wants her to shadow Dr. Maitra. He knows that Maitra doesn’t like Amy so if anyone is going to be able to call her out, it’s going to be her.
But Heller doesn’t like that and as the Chief Resident, he puts her with Dr. TJ Coleman.
I think that we all can understand this, but also Coleman doesn’t seem to be able to stand up to Amy and not listen. He doesn’t seem to be able to be in charge and tell her what she can and can not do. Instead when it comes to her suggestions, he takes them and it doesn’t matter if they have the proof behind it.
I think that Amy’s not going to be the only one facing an uphill battle. They all are. Each one of these doctors, they are having to face things that they didn’t know that they would be facing in their careers.
For Coleman – Amy has always shaken his confidence. She’s always made him feel small, so for him, second-guessing everything around her is all he knows. Amy isn’t trying to be that way with him though – she’s trying to prove herself and she feels like that’s what she has to do with every case.
She has been faced with a lot that day and a lot of it is things that she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know why it is that she’s stuck in this or why things have happened to her. I just wish that she would start to see that things aren’t happening to her – when it comes to going back to work – it’s happening because of her.
Because it’s the possibility of all the things that have gone wrong.
THE ACCUSATION
Amy sees some red spots on the patient and is convinced that he’s got psoriasis of the liver. She convinces TJ that they’ve got to get the wife out so that he will open up to them. But when she leaves, he’s mad that they would make such an accusation. I don’t think that any of us can be mad at him for that, because what is most important to an addict is their sobriety and people’s belief in their sobriety.
Amy is very observant and tries to see all of the clues that are there. When he calls her out, she’s not unsteady with her observations. Dr. Coleman is always looking to her and it seems waiting for her to tell him what’s next.
When the patient leaves the hospital without permission, they try to get him back. He’s found outside the hospital, passed out, on the ground. Dr. Miller seems excited to have something to yell at Amy for and that’s sad. That man has nothing to look forward to in his life.
What I thought should show that Amy is changed is when she is sitting steadily in the meeting as everyone is called out. Michael walks in and she admits that Miller is right, she just didn’t see it the same way at the time.
Michael sees that Amy has a different way of looking at things and when he tells her to go home, she listens. That doesn’t mean that she’s going to give up thinking about the case. It’s all that she can think about. When everything that she’s thinking about is something that they’ve all tried, you think that she’s going to let it go.
Amy has changed and we all see that. Her going out of her way to go to the place where the patient works was shocking. That being said though, I think that it was a move that showed her personality when she’s not weighed down by so much pain.
And that’s the thing – she’s feeling everything differently.
THE ENDING
Part of me think that whatever Amy is going to do – she’s doing for herself and to further her own thing. But I truly believe that she just wanted to figure out what was wrong with her patient.
And she does just that. She’s observing everything. Everything is a potential clue and she’s not going to let go of the clues. She’s going to piece them together like a puzzle.
What I think that we’ll see over time is people having to put up their walls to deal with Amy, because there is a large part of them that doesn’t know another way. They see that she’s this really strong person and what’s happened isn’t her fault.
Amy has to deal with everyone having moved forward and she hasn’t. She isn’t with Heller and he wants to be with her. She isn’t with Michael and she wants to be with him.
And all in all, she’s hurting and she’s not speaking up. I think that is in part because she doesn’t know what she’s done to anyone else, but knows that people didn’t like her, so is trying to figure out the line.
I also think that this has to be tricky for Michael because the Amy that he’s getting right now is the Amy that he wanted all along.
In the end, things may have worked out with the case, but the big thing in this episode – the one that I foresee a lot of things not working out because of – is that Amy found her way back into her old email.
When she reads them all… I think that a lot of things for everyone will change. HERE FOR IT.
Doc airs Tuesday nights on Fox.
