DOC Season 2 Finale: A Reset That Was Needed

I never know what to expect when it comes to DOC and I am thankful for that. I love being able to be surprised by every action, every character, and every medical issue. But I never expected all of the things that happened in this super sized season finale. I shouldn’t have been surprised though – DOC knows how to deliver on cliffhangers and season finales.

This one did not disappoint.

What I had not suspected was that it felt like a total reset to the series, which can always go one of two ways. We’ve spent so much time focusing on the love triangle between Amy, Jake, and Michael that sometimes I forget about the other characters and the dynamics of the floor. Besides the love triangle, we often only hear about the Richard of it all.

But with Michael leading the floor now, we are seeing a different side to the floor. We’re also seeing storylines wrap up, and an exciting new start for Amy. That being said though, change is never easy and the changes that we get from this may not be what everyone wants, but it is what the show needed. We need a reset.

We need to remember what DOC is about. Yes, it’s about Amy Larsen and her accident, relationships, as well as her second chance, but it’s more. It is about Michael and Gina and Richard and everyone on the sixth floor. It’s about how life changes and people grow.

And we’ve come back around to that.

The season finale moves the series forward, feeling like a movie that did not let up. The episode was first and foremost bout the medicine. This is where DOC excels – when complex medical cases are at the forefront. When it is about the medicine, the entire team comes together and they shine.

What starts as thinking that it will be an episode that is about Amy doubting Richard and thinking he murdered another patient. She is following up on a hunch and finds that the patient had a highly contagious disease – triggering a lockdown on the floor.

What happens before you know it – the issues that they think are there – it’s bigger than it is. It’s a disease that is highly communicable and what happens at that moment is that the season finale of DOC turns into a reminder of just what front line workers go through and how they should be respected. It was a love letter to the doctors and nurses of the show.

I have this issue with the show – the way that it let Liz down over what occurred with Dr. Miller. While I have no respect for him and I think he is one of the worst characters on television, this episode went on to show that second chances are important and there is redemption available for everyone. Even the worst of the worst.

Richard has been a manipulative character – one that gaslights everyone and showed no grace for Liz and the road she had to navigate with her emotions. But maybe it is what Richard did and Liz pushing back, as well as Richard getting sick – it is what is needed to get Richard to wake up and get out.

There has to be an understanding as to why Liz didn’t open up before – though I do think that it took Sonya to say it to Michael for him to stop and think. Telling on a man in a position of authority is a terrifying and scary. The vulnerability that one must have to do that is hard.

Yes, Liz could have gone to her union, but she didn’t. The issue is that the want to take RIchard down is taking precedence over the oath that Liz and Amy took to serve others. For me, that is where they fail. Yes, taking down Richard is something that needs to be done, but doing that can be terrifying.

Seeing Liz get sick was hard, but also seeing her blame herself for the outbreak. She thinks that because she filed charges against Richard that he didn’t catch the disease. But it wasn’t Richard that caught it – it was Amy.

And if you think we weren’t going to get to Amy, you were missing what we’re saying. Sometimes I think that amy is a savant. She has a way of diagnosing cases that impresses me. It also means that I know that with something like this we can always expect that Amy will be at the center somehow.

We’re supposed to have said goodbye to Joan, but she’s stuck here. She’s stuck on the floor with everyone being quarantined. She dives in to help – first with contact tracing and then when Amy needs surgery. It’s Joans last hurrah to save her best friend.

Her last thing as a doctor.

We find out that Gina can’t get infected due to something genetic. We find out that Richards blood is what can save people. There are lots of miracles that are happening even in the chaos. The biggest miracle of all may be that Richard decides to leave Westside.

In Richard knowing it is time for him to move on, I find some redemption in him. The man who has literally been the devil has seen that staying at Westside isn’t good for him or anyone else.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing – this show has been a lot of second chances and maybe his third is finding a space where he can truly start over and in that he gives others the space for them to start over. The people of Westside that is.

Rachel and Jake grew closer in the chaos, him consistently making time for her. But it wasn’t as if he didn’t try to make time for Amy. Amy just pushed everyone away. She didn’t want to take responsibility for her own actions. She didn’t know how to say that she was having memories.

I will say that it’s been obvious that Jake loves her and he loves Rachel. Just as it’s been obvious that Amy loves Jake and Michael. Finding the balance between all their feelings is hard. But Amy – she makes that choice. She makes the choice to not be with Jake. She makes the choice to not be with Michael. Amy makes the decision that she needs to stop living in the past and move forward.

Does that mean that she won’t be with Michael or Jake one day? Who knows. Whatever happens next, we shall see.

I think that after her accident Amy was tossed into a world where she was trying to remember and everyone around her remembered her, but she didn’t. She never gave herself a chance to just really define the new Amy after her accident. Instead she’s been what she needed to be for everyone else.

And now she’s putting herself first. Right now she just wants to devote herself to service – to helping those that need her. I am just praying with this want she doesn’t loose track of what is really important to her and doesn’t become as closed off as she was before.