‘Doc’ Boss Breaks Down Season 2 Premiere: Amy-Michael-Jake Love Triangle, Setting up Felicity Huffman’s Debut & More

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoiler for the Doc Season 2 premiere “Her Heart.”]

That look between Amy (Molly Parker) and her ex-husband, Michael (Omar Metwally), is certainly loaded at the end of the Doc Season 2 premiere, so even though they’ve said goodbye to each other, it’s clear why executive producer Barbie Kligman tells TV Insider, “The love triangle [which also includes Jon Ecker‘s Jake] is very much alive.” Jake, however, is separating himself from Amy after seeing the moment she and Michael shared in his office at the end of the Season 1 finale; as he sees it, she still sees Michael as her home.

Meanwhile, Amy’s past comes back to haunt her and the rest of the staff when a patient she recommended not receive a heart transplant six years earlier, right after losing her son, is admitted, and a series of events transpire that mean she cannot get one now. Her father takes Amy, Sonya (Anya Banerjee), and nurse Julie (Claire Armstrong) hostage and accidentally shoots TJ (Patrick Walker) during a struggle. Amy does have flashes of memories about that patient, and that leads her to go to Gina (Amirah Vann) and insist on using the sensory deprivation tank to trigger more.

Below, executive producer Barbie Kligman breaks down the Season 2 premiere and teases what’s ahead for the Amy-Michael-Jake love triangle, Amy’s attempts to get her memories back, Felicity Huffman‘s introduction as Dr. Joan Ridley, and more.

When I spoke with Hank Steinberg, he had said that there was a series of events in the premiere that led to Michael offering chief to Joan. Is it what he did to get the heart?

Barbie Kligman: I do suppose that being torn in a million directions and having to deal with something that perhaps had there been a chief in place, he would not have been in a position to know, Amy’s being held hostage, and what do I do about the heart? And yes, I think that, and also, look, it’s important to have a chief of internal medicine. He has a whole hospital to run, so he can’t be forced to litigate things every time something happens in internal medicine. And by the way, usually when Amy’s involved, something happens, right? So yeah, I think it’s a combination of factors, but yes, that would’ve been sort of the worst version of things that could go wrong without having someone in place there.

Amy and Michael share a look near the end of the episode, and it feels like a combination of goodbye, trying to and wanting to say goodbye but not being ready to let go of each other, and something else. What can you say about what that means?

I think it means even more than that. I think on its first, most surface level, it’s Michael’s got a new baby boy, and there’s so much in there, which is, he gets to have a new baby boy. So it’s, I think, bittersweet on certain level. And Amy is of course happy for him, but probably gutted as well. But it’s also, he’s glad she’s OK because he was scared for her and he did what needed to be done and then he’s got a new baby and then they did already say goodbye, we can’t do this, which is the stuff we showed from what happened at the end of the finale, but now it’s, “Wow, this is really real. You’ve got a new baby and your wife is calling you back into that other room,” and there’s a finality to it, which I think really comes in that look. But at the same time, yes, they will always love each other, they will always be linked to each other, so, it’s still the push and pull that we’ve always had. But there’s something more. “Michael!”

After those flashes of memories, Amy insists on going into the tank. How much has she thought that through in the way that she should?

There is a spontaneity to it, for sure. There is, “This has happened and I need to move forward. I need to continue to do what needs to be done.” But I think it’s one of those things also that up until that moment, up until being in the ICU with Alex, there were no memories. And right now it’s like, her brain is amenable or her brain is squishy or her brain is vulnerable. So this would be the time to try whatever they have in their bag of tricks, and there’s something where you’re particularly open to it to go into the sensory deprivation tank and allow your brain to just do what it might do. What’s fun about that is you can push and you can be determined and you can be proactive, but the brain is also the brain. It’s going to do what it wants to do.

What can you say about what that tank is going to do for her? Is she going to get the memories back? How is she going to use it?

Right. I think it’s a process, and it’s an interesting process. Amy will do things proactively to try to get her memories back. She will instant results. Like anything else, results are not always instant, and like I said, with the brain, you can’t dictate, it does. So, I think she’ll be surprised along the way to see that maybe she doesn’t remember anything initially, but then the brain can surprise you when you least expect it and go, “Here’s something.” So, I think the whole season will be an exploration of pieces of memory and what the reasons are for them, why a particular memory is coming at a particular time, and is her brain being deliberate about it? Is it trying to warn her about something? Is it trying to make sure she has a certain amount of knowledge so that she can protect herself or go forth having that ammunition? So, that’s really interesting about it, that it’s a process.

What can you say about any side effects?

Depending on what the treatments are, right? There are no side effects to a sensory deprivation tank. You’re just lying in a sensory deprivation tank and giving your brain sort of the optimum conditions to do what it does, relaxing to such a degree that it would allow something to come out. But the TMS, the trans-magnetic stimulation, that has effects depending on the levels. Everyone is different obviously, but Amy does start to experience headaches and nosebleeds and that is detrimental, as Joan will later say, to someone who’s trying to be a doctor. If you’re just sitting at home trying to get your memory back, then you can probably withstand the headache and nosebleeds for what you want for it. But if you’re trying to be a physician while these things are happening, that’s not great. And I think what’s interesting is that it becomes a question of, Amy believes that she needs her memories to be the doctor that she was during those missing eight years, but in her quest to get those memories, she experiences side effects and distractions that one could argue would prevent her from being the best doctor she can be, and therein lies the conundrum.

How’s Gina feeling about what Amy’s doing? Because she has to come at this both as a doctor and a friend.

It’s complicated on several levels. In Season 1 Episode 6, they sort of decided, we shouldn’t do this because I’d rather be your friend than your doctor. But there’s so much wrapped up in what Amy’s going through that is personal as well as professional and medical that especially when she does have a memory, of course Gina’s going to jump in to help her in those moments. And I think they get to a place where you see the complication again, because Amy’s not going to necessarily be completely forthcoming about what’s going on because Gina would obviously worry about her and Amy wouldn’t want to stop. So, you get all the same issues, although later it has partially to do with the treatments and Gina’s plan and partially to do with something that Gina goes through that ultimately Amy is forced to have another doctor.

Jake’s “I really miss her” was heartbreaking. It feels like Jake’s trying hard to protect himself with Amy still figuring things out. Amy seems to want to be with him, but then there are her memories and what she gets back, what she remembers about how she felt about him, how she feels about him now, who she is, that is all so wrapped up together and complicated. How does that affect their dynamic both on and off the clock? Because we also can’t forget that he’s very much on her side when it comes to her being a doctor, and we see that in the premiere.

Yeah, look, he’s torn, he’s conflicted. He absolutely loves Amy. There’s no question. But he really has to be short here before he lets himself go further into it. He had a wife who cheated on him, which we discussed in Season 1. So what is it? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…. And so this has an effect on him, but it’s not even just, woe is me, she kissed Michael.” It’s bigger than that. It’s looking at it from 10,000 feet and going, “The woman woke up and was still in love with her husband and even though there’s something drawing us together, there are about 20 years of history that I’m competing with,” and I think Jake also feels she needs to get to a place where she’s not living in two periods or where she’s not torn between two men. Jake wants to be with her, but he wants to be with her if he knows that she’s with him and there’s no sort of ambiguity about it.

But yes, he absolutely is on her side about being a doctor, but he wants to make sure she takes care of herself as well because when she goes through these treatments and does experience these side effects, it’s a lot, and he cares about her and as much as he wants her to remember them, so they could pick up where they left off basically before the accident, he doesn’t want it to the detriment of her health and he doesn’t want her to lose what she wants, which is being a doctor. So, there’s also a selflessness to him in all this, I’d say.

It also feels like they can grow closer again as this is all going on. If he’s there for her, I feel like lines can become blurred. Is that what we’re going to see?

Yeah, I think, look, it’s really tough. He’s going to obviously try to move on and she’s going to try to let him go, knowing that all of this is happening because of her predicament. It’s not his fault, none of it is his fault. That said, those things are easier said than done.

How’s TJ’s recovery going to go?

Well, at first it’s complicated. It’s not easygoing. TJ is vital and young and strong and doesn’t like to feel powerless or like he can’t do things on his own, and so that is a complicated arc for him that we see through Episodes 2 and 3. And then he continues his recovery for a little while and then he’s back, but he’s still healing and he will be healing for a while.

There’s the Jake and Sonya of it, and they seem to have patched things up by the end of the premiere because of what happened. But then there’s the question of her feelings for him, which does come up again in the premiere. You said Jake is moving on. Is Jake moving on, possibly with Sonya? What can you say about what’s going on with that dynamic?

Well, here’s what’s interesting. Sonya is optimistic that perhaps something can happen and we do throughout [Episodes] 2 and 3 sort of play it a little more — we service that a little more in terms of what we think she’s thinking, what he’s thinking, and where it is or isn’t going.

What can you say about seeing Richard (Scott Wolf) again, and if we’ll hear about him before he pops up? What happened with him is also looming large in general over the hospital.

Yeah, I think the people in the hospital know that he was let go, or that he’s gone. Let’s say most people probably don’t know the details. Some do, some don’t. There is a gossip mill. But I can absolutely say that the finale of Season 1 is not the last we’ve seen of Richard Miller. I’m not going to tell you when.

Can you say if we’ll hear about him, what’s going on with him?

Probably not early on. Not right away, for sure.

There’s Amy and Sonya’s dynamic, one of my favorites last season, because it’s so complicated with what was in the past and what’s going on now. And while Amy’s trying to get her memories back and being told that people do miss who she used to be, which is someone that Sonya did not like, what does that mean for their dynamic? Especially if, say, glimpses of that could come through. You never know what happens if someone gets their memory back.

That is interesting, and I think what you’re going to see is in Episode 2, you’re going to see fallout from sort of how much Sonya considers Amy responsible for what happened to Jake in Episode 1 and what happened to TJ in Episode 1. Because if Amy remembered, if Alex hadn’t felt the way he felt about it, none of that would’ve happened, right? It might’ve all been different. So there’s some interesting Sonya Amy drama in [Episode] 2, and I’ll just say a little more as far as memories in 3.

What else can you say about what’s coming up? Especially anything for the family because the new baby at home and then there’s Katie (Charlotte Fountain-Jardim) to consider, and trying to figure out, can this family all be in the same place without it being awkward, without constantly avoiding each other?

I think they can, I think there’ll be grownups about it. I mean, it’s safe to say Nora [Sarah Allen] does not love Amy and Amy doesn’t want to braid her hair either. So that we’ll get to see a little bit in [Episode] 2, and we’ll get to feel some of that dynamic in [Episode] 3, when Katie is over at the house with them and the new baby and there’s some talk about Amy and the discomfort that comes with that. So you’ll definitely get to see going forward how Michael was pulled in both directions, and Jake is pulled towards Amy in a way. The love triangle is very much alive.

Doc, Regular Time Period Premiere, Tuesday, September 23, 9/8c, Fox