‘Doc’ Boss Breaks Down Shocking Finale & Teases Love Triangle, Who’s Returning in Season 2

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Doc Season 1 Finale “… Must Come Down.”]

It looks like the love triangle is going to continue in a major way in Doc Season 2 after that finale!

Season 1 ended with Jake (Jon Ecker) spotting Amy (Molly Parker) and Michael (Omar Metwally) together through the CMO’s (chief medical officer) office door. Meanwhile, after trying to place the blame of what happened to Dixon on Amy, Richard (Scott Wolf) came clean about accidentally giving him the wrong medication (leading to his death) and lost his job as chief.

Below, executive producer Barbie Kligman breaks down the finale and teases what’s to come in Season 2 (which has received a 22-episode order).

Amy and Michael keep getting drawn back to each other. She was in an emotional place when they kiss in the elevator. He’s seeing an Amy that he fell in love with before the accident. But then there’s also the real feelings on Amy’s side for Jake, it’s all so complicated. So where would you say that Amy stands when it comes to her love life at the end of the season?

Barbie Kligman: I don’t want to give any spoilers in terms of what was discussed in that room between Amy and Michael, which I think is an important piece that maybe you’ll get to see later. But I think she’s truly torn, right? She woke up, and it’s a little like Castaway. It’s, for Michael at least, my wife was gone and now she’s back. And for her, it’s the other side of it, which is, I was away, but now I’m back and I don’t remember that I was away. She is in love with him. She has those feelings, but somewhere around [Episode] 5, 6, she knows she has to — well, she knows earlier that he’s married, they discuss it in [Episode] 2, but it’s sort of, can you fight the energy and the pull of what we had for 20 some odd years?

And I think over the course of the season, she’s really trying to push away, especially when she knows he’s having a baby and she’s drawn to Jake because it really is sort of in the DNA. It explores the notion of, if you have these feelings for someone, will you always have these feelings for someone, whether or not you remember them or whether or not you’re behaving the same way you did back then? And she clearly does, but at her most vulnerable when faced with the love of her life who she has all this history with the comfort of his arms and his kiss, you just can’t beat it really. She does really strong feelings for Jake, but she’s torn.

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What can you tease about the love triangle in Season 2?

I think there’s an ebb and flow to this love triangle, and while Amy feels strongly about both of them, the back and forth is a constant thing that we’re continuing to explore through Season 2. Whether it’s two people physically being together or yearning for each other, it will go on.

Can she make that choice when there’s so much uncertainty involving whether her memory will come back?

Well, that’s funny. I mean, the heart wants what the heart wants, which is a little bit of what was interesting with her and Jake right now. Obviously if her memory were to come back, it would give her a different prism through which to see all of these things. So then she would have a front row seat to how she legit felt about Jake, but she would also have a front row seat to what went down in her marriage with Michael. But it’s interesting, even though if you want your memory back, you can’t behave as if [you do] because you don’t have it. So you can only go with what your heart and your brain, somewhat less, are telling you to do.

What did you want to do with the scene where Richard is confronted?

Well, I have to say it was really interesting. We went back and forth about myriad ways to do this and how we were going to do it and what it was going to look like and then the room, but in particular, one of the writers, Katie Varney, was like, what if he gaslights her? And I remember at first being like, I’m not sure.

And there was also some back and forth about the kiss because I’d always imagined the kiss was going to be in 10 between Michael and Amy, so it was moving pieces, but there was something so genius and Hank [Steinberg] responded to it really well as well because he was like, how great to turn it all on her memory, which is the thing that has been missing, and to use that against her. I think we quickly saw it was the way to do it. I think in earlier incarnations, I had wondered if perhaps if it came out differently and Amy finding out that it was because of Richard’s issues with his son, we had talked about, well, she understands firsthand about forgiving someone for what they’ve gone through, understanding what someone’s gone through with their child. But then when we went to the gaslighting, then it just became, that’s pretty much unforgivable.

Will Scott be back in Season 2?

I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of Dr. Miller.

Will everyone else be back in Season 2?

Yes.

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Jake told Sonya (Anya Banerjee) they were done because he didn’t believe her, but what did you want to do with that relationship? Because there was a little bit of pining on Sonya’s end, but she was going through enough this season…

There was pining on Sonya’s end. Jake never knew that; they were just sort of best buddies at work. And until about, I don’t know, maybe two years ago, Jake was married, so the crush couldn’t even be real until after his divorce. But I think she had a crush on him. But I think the “we’re done,” obviously, from his part, is, I can’t hang out with you, I can’t be your friend.

What’s interesting when we come back is not only will he be still angry at her for her behavior, but he will be angry at her for being right. So you feel like an idiot after something like that. And so it’s really tough to navigate your way back. The beginning of the season, there’s a lot of friction to go around — Amy and Jake, Amy and Sonya, Amy and Gina [Amirah Vann], remains to be seen where Amy and Michael are. Certainly Nora’s [Sarah Allen] not a fan, but I will say that Amy and Katie [Charlotte Fountain-Jardim] are good, which was a really important part of the season and Katie being the one to get her through that. And Amy and TJ [Patrick Walker] are good.

You brought up Amy and Gina. Gina had been there for Amy all season then when it was time for the reverse, it just didn’t really happen and they ended on that really rough note. Why did you want to leave that relationship like that?

I felt it was time for Gina to stand up for herself. Now, she’s a strong woman with agency, but because of her empathy, especially the last seven years of everything Amy was going through, it’s hard to not just let things go. So when Amy was focused on Amy or when Amy was not there for her in the right ways, it’s like, “Well, she lost her son. What am I going to do? Right? She’s been my best friend for 20 years, what am I going to do?” But I think what Gina went through in the finale was so horrific and possibly the worst thing — she’s a neuropsychiatrist — a psychiatrist could go through and exponentially worse because what her patient did impacted all those other people, that when Amy finally, now granted Amy didn’t know what happened, but still it was sort of emblematic or symptomatic of what it’d been like, right? Just the minute she starts to tell her and then Michael or whatever distract [her], and it was like, no, no, right now I needed my best friend. And she didn’t see the sign, she didn’t see the signals because she was focused on Amy, and it’s not okay anymore.

What is coming up for them in Season 2?

Well, these are obviously two people that will find their way back to each other because a friendship that long, they are effectively family. That said, they’ve got to get through some real truths and some ugliness before they can get there.

I did like the moment you had for Gina and Michael in the finale because there’s history there. You can’t forget about that even with the Amy of it. And that didn’t matter in that moment, and that’s what Gina needed.

When we discovered that, it made me really happy that Michael could be the person. It made sense as the chief medical officer, but it also made sense when you are best friends with someone for over 20 years, you’re very close to their husband. So that didn’t stop. That didn’t go away. We played some of it over the season. But for Gina to be able to lean on him and in that way, I was really proud of that scene.

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Who’s going to be chief in Season 2?

That’ll be someone new and exciting. I can’t tell you anything about them yet. But yes, we will have a new chief at some point in Season 2 — might not be right off the bat, but we definitely will. And that’ll be an interesting dynamic to explore how they are with Amy, how they are with the other doctors. Because first there was Amy and then there was Richard. And obviously when he hopefully returns or if he returns, it’s not as chief.

Is this chief someone completely new? Richard already had those existing relationships when he replaced Amy…

Maybe not new to everyone.

You do have 22 episodes for Season 2, so broadly, what can you say about what that means when it comes to stories and arcs compared to Season 1? There was the through line of the Dixon of it. Are you looking at another season-long arc or multiple arcs?

We’re looking at multiple arcs. I think the central focus of the show will always be Amy, right? But Season 2 in its 22 episodes really allows us room to explore the other characters in much more depth, and so meeting Jake’s ex-wife, meeting Jake’s kid, getting more of a sense of Sonya because we did the very special episode, but getting more of a sense of her. Maybe seeing some romance for one or another of the other characters. And we love Julie [Claire Armstrong] and we love Liz [Conni Miu], and I think all the nurses really were pretty great. So being able to see more of them and more of the characters who got less screen time, I think that’ll be really fun.

Is there anything else you can tease about Season 2?

Well, I do think similarly to the first season, some of our favorite things about this are some of the flashbacks that shed light on the missing eight years and playing with stuff that Amy doesn’t remember from those eight years. We will continue to unpack things and show mysteries of things and really get to know everyone. And Amy will continue to try to get her memory back and where she does or doesn’t succeed with that will be another thing that we can play with over the season. And the love triangle will continue, as I said, but also some love for some other people and obstacles for other people and I think it’ll be fun to really be able to really get to expand on the time we spend with some of the others because it’ll just make the show even richer.

Will we get the answer as to whether she’ll get her memory back in Season 2? 

I can say we’re going to explore it.

Doc, Season 2, TBA, Fox