Trigger Warning. There should have been a big TRIGGER WARNING for this episode of DOC. I found myself having a panic attack, crying, and left with so much anxiety after watching this episode. Doc Season 1, Episode 7 wasn’t a bad episode – but that trigger warning should have been front and center.
What frustrates me is that I am having a hard time with this episode, because I had no idea what was happening. But when I knew, when I knew that a doctor was needing to treat the man that raped her – I felt sick.
Sick and nauseated.
And I also found myself wanting to apologize to Dr. Maitra. I understood her in a way that I didn’t think I ever would. I just feel bad that she had to show what had made her the way she is. Watching this – I felt bad that someone had taken away her power. They had killed the pieces of her and saw nothing wrong with it.
I know that doctors take an oath, but I wouldn’t and could not blame her for going against that oath. I don’t blame her at all. Watching Dr. Maitra go through everything and have all of the fear and pain replays was a lot. For me it was too much – because I kept closing my eyes to not see it and well, kept seeing my own assault.
Doc Season 1, Episode 7 triggered me and opened a wound. That being said, I still believe it was a story that was worth telling and the way that it was played out – well it was written well. It was written with heart, understanding of the characters, and with care to try to be gracious and understanding of all of the things that sexual assault survivors experience.
But that trigger warning – man, that should have been there.
UNDERSTANDING DR. MILLER
I don’t and won’t ever like Dr. Miller. He’s a man who is manipulative, dismissive, and just as rude as humanly possible. I don’t like him, but after Doc Season 1, Episode 7, I do understand a different part of him. The part that is falling apart no matter what he does.
His home life.
Dr. Miller has a wife and kids (I was shocked too). His oldest son has some issues and doesn’t think twice about screaming, yelling, and “throwing a tantrum.” It seems that the only person that he will listen to is his father.
Miller is distracted, but the rest of his family is afraid. They are afraid of the outbursts and how bad things can get. His son needs inpatient treatment as he is bipolar. Dr. Walker has told Miller this time and time again, but Miller doesn’t want to do that to his son.
He does want him to get the help he needs, but I do believe that Miller feels like a failure, because he can’t do it himself. I do understand that Miller is a doctor, but he’s not equipped to deal with this. Being a parent, all you want is the best for your kids. You want to see them succeed and you don’t want to see them hurt. Millers son definitely needs to be in inpatient treatment while he adjusts to his meds and gets the help that he needs.
MAITRA SEES THE PATIENT
This is where I started to get mad over the lack of a trigger warning. Amy is shadowing Dr. Maitra for the day, and I figured that there would be Dr. Maitra trying to get her to screw up. Even Amy assumed that and it may have been that way had it not been for the patient at hand.
When the two walk into the room, you see all the color leave Dr. Maitra’s face. Her body stiffened. Everything in her body was replaced with fear. I instantly knew what this man had done to her and started shaking for her. I felt ill.
Dr. Maitra hasn’t ever been the type of doctor who lets it be seen when she can’t do something. She had never reported her rape, but it was evident that it was something she had compartmentalized. She had thought that she wouldn’t ever have to come face to face with the man who took everything from her.
No one should ever have to be put in the situation that Dr. Maitra is in. She tried to get out of the situation, but Dr. Miller was nowhere to be found. He wouldn’t answer the phone or texts. Maitra was in a state of panic, and Amy noticed that.
One of the worst feelings in the world is fear. Fear that the worst things can happen to you again. Everything else gets lost in the background when things happen. It truly hurts and destroys.
When Maitra is faced with Dr. Miller being MIA, she tries to convince herself that she can handle it. But she can’t and she shouldn’t have to.
PRINCE & THE MUSIC
It’s the flashbacks to the night that Maitra was assaulted that made me have to pause and take close to four hours to watch Doc Season 1, Episode 7. And no, I am not being dramatic.
I appreciated that they cut up this episode with a different patient. I know it’s the norm, but I just really appreciated it this time. The air around me was choking me, and I needed a second to breathe. I didn’t feel like I had that.
A family is in town to see all of the sights and sounds that relate to Prince. Yes, Minnesota and Prince go hand in hand. I do love fandom, so I definitely appreciated them being there.
The father is sick and no one can figure out what is wrong. Dr. Heller and Dr. Coleman were assigned to him. I couldn’t have been happier with this pairing. Why? Because they are both so different and that was good because you got to see the decisions that doctors have to make and how they do what they have to do in order to be there for their patients.
The man is found to have Cystic Fibrosis. His diagnosis is important because this means that he is sterile. This means that his son isn’t biologically his. The wife begs them to not say anything. They need to make sure that he gets through his surgery and she tells them that after the surgery, she will tell him.
It’s interesting to me to watch Coleman and Heller debate what they should say. Should they lie to their patients? No. But there is this grey space – do you need to say something right now? Is it something that they need to do right at that moment?
Heller has experienced infidelity in his previous marriage and knows how devastating that was. Coleman was raised in a household with no grey area. They both seemed to struggle with what to do and how to react to the situation.
Heller spent the night at the hospital – in the waiting room – with the family to make sure they were okay. Coleman doesn’t. But together the two balance each other out. Ultimately the two did what was best for their patient and the family. Nothing mattered more to the man than his son.
A BREAKDOWN
Amy knows that something is up with Maitra. They were in the room, treating the patient, when he grabbed Maitra’s hand. She freaks out and leaves. Me, I started balling my eyes out. It made me physically ill. However what made me really mad was that Amy went to ask her if the man had ever hurt her and Maitra replied no, it was just a bad breakup.
The way that Amy acted at that moment upset me because it felt like she knew what was happening, but also she was rude about it. She didn’t create a safe space for Maitra.
Time after time – Maitra keeps getting called back to that room and it is definitely the last place she should be. When she had to administer meds, it looked as if she was going to jump out of her own skin.
The rapist (I can’t call him by name, cause honestly, it makes me ill) taunts Maitra. She tells him that he raped her, and he acts like she’s lost her mind. He tells her that she wanted it and says she’s making things up because she was a slut. Yes, I had to turn it off right there and take a walk. As a survivor of sexual assault, I have heard the same thing and I know from therapy so many survivors have heard that same thing.
Had I known what Doc Season 1, Episode 7 was going to be about, I probably would have skipped it. I love the show, but it’s hard to watch when you see your pain written across the screen. We all so often don’t talk about it because there is a feeling of “shame” that comes out. You listen to all of the preconceived notions that people have and question yourself over and over when you talk about it. People have even asked me if I was sure that it happened because he said it was consensual.
Seeing Maitra break was a moment that made me feel like it was okay to break too.
AIR
Maitra having to administer his medication, emptied the syringe and shot air into the IV. She was frozen when Amy walked in asking what had happened. Maitra doesn’t even try to deny it – she tells Amy what she did.
And Amy helps her save the patient. She’s irate, you can see that, but more for Amy it was about the oath. The oath that doctors take. Amy and Maitra manage to save the man before Amy orders Maitra out of the room.
There is no party of me that blames Maitra – I actually feel for her. We’re seeing her break, but we’re also seeing her beg her mind to just get through it. She was having an out-of-body experience – in my opinion – and it was one that she couldn’t recover from.
Maitra doesn’t know what Amy is going to do, and neither does Amy. But she knows that she’s going to be there for Maitra. She isn’t going to let her relive all of this alone.
It’s one thing that I actually admire about Amy is that she’s a girls girl. She doesn’t want this man to win over Dr. Maitra – she shouldn’t have to give up everything. This man has probably done this to other women and they only have to get one other person.
The dude has hepatitis b, so it’s a public health issue.
Amy manages to steal his phone and the two of them manage to find a girl that he had been with and she comes in. Dr. Maitra speaks to her alone and manages to say the words – out loud – that she too had been raped. If the woman would come forward, so would she.
TELLING THE TRUTH & FILING THE CASE
Some would say that you should always tell the truth and you won’t get in trouble if you do. But, speaking from experience, you will say you’re fine until you find that you are going to burst.
Dr. Maitra had thought that she would be able to move past what happened to her, but she hasn’t at all. She instead kept it all in. She’s now in a position where she has support and she’s able to vocalize what happened to her.
She had to do just that in a room with Amy, Michael, and Dr. Miller. She had so much courage to go through so much on her own for so long. Telling these people what happened to her and the other woman, honestly, I was in awe of her strength.
Anya Banerjee, I have to say the way she took on this storyline was nothing short of empowering and with grace. She took this role and Doc Season 1, Episode 7 and you can tell she played it with such care. She took the complexity of the feelings and trauma that come along with being assaulted.
When she stood in that room and gave them her own rape kit that she had stored for five years, I was a mess. Knowing that she had been living with all of this inside, it was a lot. I felt for her in a way that I didn’t ever think that I would.
Up until this episode, I had despised Dr. Maitra’s character. Now, I see why she is the way she is. I can admit when I was wrong about someone and I was definitely wrong with her.
We watched in flashbacks as she did her own rape kit. The way she had to photograph everything he had inflicted on her… it was probably one of the most powerful scenes I had ever watched on television. It was hard to watch. But it was important.
Just like seeing the rapist handcuffed to his bed, was important. People will believe you when you tell them what happened to you. Dr. Maitra and Amy had each other to get through all of this. At one point, they didn’t get along. And now they had a special relationship where they could move forward.
THANK YOU
This entire episode was a lot. It also was a powerful moment in television. The show did the impossible. I understood that Dr. Miller was just trying to be understood. Then there was Dr. Maitra, who was the way she was, because of trauma.
The doctors in this show are starting to realize who they are and that they need to work on themselves too. I appreciated an episode that wasn’t about trying to get Amy fired, but instead, it was about having support. It was about people being there for each other and not judging them.
When Dr. Miller went home, he sat down with his wife and he broke down. He did explain to his wife that he knew that his son needed help, but as a doctor – you could just see that being a doctor made him feel like he should be able to fix it. Then there was the mistake he made in the operating room and it was because he had been so distracted. I became thankful he had his wife to lean on. She was giving him the support he needed.
Look, I don’t like Dr. Miller but I do understand more about him now. He’s going to have to fight his way out of his depression and find a focus. I don’t understand or like him, but hopefully, he’ll become a changed man – somewhere along the line.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- Katie living with Amy – I love that for them both. Seeing them being able to communicate and be there – adore that.
- Amy explaining to Katie what she needs to do to keep herself safe – I loved that scene because you get to see more of them bonding
- Michael is dealing with Katie being with her Mom well
- Jake and Amy – they’re cute.
- I love that Jake took Amy to the boards – it’s like dropping your kid off on the first day of school. It was cute
Thank you for that review! I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pour as much of themselves out onto an entertainment review, especially when it involves trauma. Yes, the episode was difficult to watch at times, but I thought it walked the line in way that was character-driven and not manipulative. It felt honest, and it seems that you reacted the same way. Hope you’re feeling well in the meantime. Thanks again.