‘Doc’s Scott Wolf on Richard’s Protocols for Amy: ‘Everything’s Thrown Into Question’

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Doc Season 1 Episode 4 “One Small Step.”]

Richard (Scott Wolf) is not making it a secret that he’s nervous around Amy (Molly Parker) on Doc. She may have lost eight years of memories after a car accident, but at any moment, she can remember that she was investigating him for his actions with a patient who died.

And now, Amy’s back at work, albeit on strict protocols, and Richard is keeping a very close eye on her. Take, for instance, his reaction upon seeing her talking to Dr. Franco from pathology, worried that Amy could find out about the autopsy report she ordered on the aforementioned patient. (Amy was asking if she performed an autopsy on her son who died. She hadn’t.) After, he emails Dr. Franco and tells her that since Amy’s not currently a licensed physician, any requests for information should be approved by him. After, he puts his face in his hands, and he doesn’t look happy. Wolf confirms it is hard for him to do things like that, especially given Richard and Amy’s past friendship; they were close friends.

“So much of Dr. Richard Miller’s life is incredibly complicated right now, unfortunately, for him.  There’s been a lot of conversation about, is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? And ultimately, I’ve always seen him as a very good person who’s in a terrible situation, and not just because he has made a mistake and seems to be doing things, betraying himself and betraying other people in ways that he never imagined he’d be capable of in order to protect himself,” Wolf tells TV Insider.

That’s where the tension comes into play between Richard and Amy — on his side. For what she remembers, they’re still friends. But he does still remember what that was like for them.

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“I’m having to work against this person who deep down I have a real affection for and respect for. At every stage of Richard’s journey here, as each domino sort of tips over and he has to do another thing that is a betrayal of Amy or himself, it’s an incredibly painful thing for him because in his guts, at the root of their relationship is real affection,” Wolf explains. “And one of the really complicated things about Amy coming back from this accident, almost having been reset eight years, is that Richard, along with everyone else, is experiencing this version of Amy that he loves. And so it’s a really, really complicated thing for Richard to have to do anything that could in any way hurt Amy, even though he is in a position where he’s seeking first to protect himself.”

However, there’s also the professional side: These protocols are in place for a reason, and as interim chief, he is supposed to enforce them. And Amy is overstepping protocols.

“There’s definitely a side to what Richard is doing and saying and enforcing that is legitimate and that Amy has kind of pushed through and past and given her nature, which is to charge toward her instincts with abandon at all costs. In this current situation, she doesn’t really have the authority to be doing that. And so while Richard is holding her feet to the fire in a way that is legitimate and is his job as the interim chief to uphold these protocols and make sure that the patients are protected and that she isn’t overstepping her bounds, at the same time, it seems as though he has an interest in her not being on balance,” admits Wolf.

“And so in certain cases, she is playing into Richard’s attempts at protecting himself and potentially being critical of her by overstepping her bounds here and there and by breaking protocols that have been established to protect her and the patients she’s part of looking after,” he continues. “So yeah, it’s really complicated because there is an on the surface legitimate side to everything that Richard is doing, but because we know that he is in some ways protecting himself and maybe working against her, everything’s thrown into question.”

Doc, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox