‘Doc’ Boss & Blair Underwood Break Down Amy & Ben Premiere Mystery

What exactly happened between Amy (Molly Parker) and Ben (Blair Underwood) in the past that she can’t remember as a result of losing eight years of memories after a car accident? It’s more than just a romance, as the Doc Season 3 premiere reveals. TV Insider spoke with Underwood and executive producer Hank Steinberg about that and more. Warning: Spoilers for the Doc Season 3 premiere ahead! 

Ben officially pitches himself to take over the surgical department — and successfully — but as intriguing as his clinical trial and the new dynamics that will result from his presence are, it’s the reveal in the final moments that has us hooked. A flashback shows Ben trying to reach Amy (she hasn’t answered several calls) to talk about what they did and the trouble they may be in. So, what’s going on there?

“It will be rolled out slowly,” Underwood tells us in the video interview above. “What I can say is that there was some compromising that went down in terms of morals, in terms of integrity, in terms of maybe even the law. And you have to weigh that in juxtaposition to what is the upside worth? If you can make history, if you can quite literally save and prolong thousands of lives, if what you’re talking about is that, whatever the compromise may be, is it worth it?”

While that is separate from their romantic relationship, “it’s all entangled,” he continues. And Ben and Amy weren’t “too good” about keeping the personal and professional separate “because it all became personal.”

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Adds Steinberg, “There’s obviously something from their past. Clearly, I think to the audience, it certainly feels like it’s personal, but there’s probably something bigger than that. It’s probably something professional that has real stakes to it. And so that’s where we’ll be going is this intrigue from the past that we wanted to do something this year that really got into her professional life and her being involved in something that she doesn’t remember. And it’s entangled with this romantic situation with Ben. So, that felt really fun and intriguing to us and very grounded in [that] she was a brilliant doctor and the head of this department, a renowned doctor. It made sense to us that in this seven, eight years that she doesn’t remember, she had many interactions, including outside of the hospital with other doctors and whatnot, that broadens out the scope of her life during that period.”

He teases, “You’ll start to get the sense that for Ben, there’s some issue with his trial that is potentially problematic and the romantic relationship is a gateway for her to learn about that. And that’s more ominous for him [than her learning about their romance].”

Steinberg also notes the drastic difference in the Ben we see throughout the premiere with the board, pitching himself — someone “who’s very smart, very confident, very coveted and smooth and clever and how’s manipulating the politics and situations” — and the one in that flashback at the end. “He looked quite troubled in that last shot. He’s probably worried about: Is Amy going to get her memories back? Can I roll the dice on that or not?”

The premiere also reveals that Amy and Jake (Jon Ecker), whose relationship was shaky at the end of Season 2, broke up. They’ve been together and separated in the past, so what’s different this time? What does this mean for them going forward?

“She seems pretty definitive. She’s got a very strong life plan,” says Steinberg. “I think he seems, by the end of that, not sure if he wants to go back and do this again. I don’t know if he wants to go on that roller coaster with her again.”

We also get a look at how being co-chief residents is going to go for Amy and Sonya (Anya Banerjee), who have different approaches to teaching the new interns. Amy’s using the flashes she has of what she used to be as a “what not to do” guide, while Sonya’s a bit reminiscent of the old Amy, with tough love but no snark.

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“One of the interesting things about them, and it’s kind of generational, is in some ways, Amy’s a reflection of Joan [Felicity Huffman], and in some ways, Sonya’s a reflection of Amy, and it’s that teaching model that goes from the generations. And so I think Amy and Sonya are very alike, strong-willed, very ambitious, a bit of difficulty getting vulnerable, having a hard time being vulnerable with other people, with romantic people, and very driven,” according to Steinberg. “And so it’s interesting for Amy to see Sonya as sort of an extension of her, and Sonya thinking that I hated the way I was raised, but then doing some similar things. Although she’s aware, so she’s telling Jake, ‘My style is going to be tough love without the snark,’ but one of the things that she may realize is that that line of where tough love ends and snark begins can be a little bit fuzzy, especially when it’s being put onto a new generation.”

He adds, “But that new generation, they’re not used to being treated like that, and they may not take it that well. And so that’s what’s, I think, potentially interesting and interesting to explore. How does one be a good teacher in a life-and-death situation? It’s not teaching someone how to do a marketing report, and when you make a mistake, it could cost someone their life.” He likens it to Whiplash. “It’s very interesting, the nature of how to be tough on someone and to be demanding, and where is that line? And Amy may come to find out that if she’s too soft and overcompensates too much, it could cause her just as many problems as going in the other direction.”

Watch the video interview above for more from Blair Underwood about the premiere.

Doc, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox