[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Doc Season 2 Episode 3 “New Blood.”]
Dr. Joan Ridley (Felicity Huffman) is officially head Doc with the episode on Tuesday, October 7, and she plans for the future – even if her own remains uncertain.
She gathers her team at the end of the episode and says she aims to make everyone better. In two months there will be an official assessment, and some may not survive it. But what she doesn’t tell anyone, including Amy (Molly Parker), who doesn’t remember knowing, is that she has health problems; she worries about leukemia in a flashback and she receives an email with the results in the present.
Below, Felicity Huffman opens up about Joan’s health issues, her relationship, and her thoughts on the new Amy without her memories, the love triangle, and more.
We see in the flashback that Joan was concerned about the possibility of leukemia and now in the present she gets these results that she is reluctant to read and then Amy and Gina enter. So we don’t see what they are. So what can you say about his health? Because I guess this isn’t a good news email.
Felicity Huffman: Because why would they have a good news email? What’s funny about that? What I can say about her health is that it will be revealed that she is dealing with a serious health issue. And you find out that Amy found out about it before the accident but has no memory of it. And I think what this illness does for Joan, particularly now that she’s chief of internal medicine, is it raises a question: What are you going to do with the time you have left?
And screenwriters Barbie Kligman and Hank Steinberg introduced this character at a pivotal moment in his life, which of course is the mark of great storytelling. And before meeting Joan, his whole life was scattered, made up of travel, Doctors Without Borders and a very itinerant lifestyle. But dealing with this illness and having this job, accepting this job, allowed her to stop and focus on what she’s best at: making other people great. And this is how she makes this potentially fatal disease manageable. She grounded him in a greater purpose than whether or not she was sick. She anchored it in the question: “What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I’m going to make this hospital great. There are talented people here. There are people with a lot of heart. This could be the best hospital in the country.” So this is a golden opportunity.
John Medland / Fox
She had confided in Amy in the past, but how does she feel about confiding in Amy who Amy is with now without her memories and all?
I don’t think the reason Joan is keeping it a secret is because she didn’t trust the old Amy or she didn’t trust the new Amy. I think the reason Joan wants to keep this a secret is because it doesn’t further her larger cause, which is to bring excellence, and people will treat her differently. She wants to lead people and I’m not sure they’ll follow if they just say, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” It’s harder to take a stoic approach and she wants to get the job done.
In the flashback, Amy had received this warning that Joan would no longer be able to perform surgery if she fell ill. And we know what being in the OR means to Joan because she had this: “I need a day of dedicated OR time,” she told Michael (Omar Metwally) –
Oh, you really paid attention when you looked. Yes!
So I don’t think Joan would ever put a patient in danger, but is she the type of person to find a way around this problem that may not be the smartest so that she can operate in the safest way?
No, 100% no. Joan would never put a patient in danger. She lives and breathes for the patient. And actually, that’s a great question because that’s been her problem with Amy since Episode 2, which is Amy’s incessant search for memories of her past – personal memories, not of the doctor’s knowledge, but personal memories – is endangering her ability to be a good doctor, which means she’s putting her patients in danger, and that can’t fly.
Joan puts everyone on the clock two months before the official evaluation and warns that some of them will not survive it. How serious is she about this and how much is she trying to use this almost as a motivational tool to make sure they do their best?
I don’t think Joan is that delicate. “I’m going to say this to get this result.” I think she’s direct and I think actually this illness has made her even more direct – not because she’s badass, but because it’s results, results, results and telling the truth. It’s always the easiest thing to remember. And how serious is she? I think she’s as serious, no pun intended, as a heart attack because she turns to your team and says, “We’re going to the Super Bowl and for everyone to go, for us to go to the Super Bowl, everyone brings their A+ game. And if you can’t bring your A+ game for whatever reason, whether you don’t have the talent or you don’t like Amy, if you’re more involved in finding your personal memories, so God bless you, but you can’t.” be part of the team.
Amy tries to regain her memories using TMS and the tank. We see the side effects. Does Joan miss the old Amy more than she loves the new Amy?
Wow. No one has ever asked for this. That’s a great question. Oh dear. I don’t know. I think Joan believes that Amy lives and breathes as a brilliant doctor. She is the Steve Jobs of the medical field and when you have that kind of talent that God gave you, you have to use it or it will eat you away. And so I think she wants Amy to go back to the Ph.D. I think what she would say is that I wish Amy had been before she lost her son, because then Amy wouldn’t suffer. If she had to choose an Amy, it was before her child died. And I think Amy would choose that too.
We know how Gina feels about Joan and that she never trusted her and never will, but she recognizes the good things Joan did for Amy. What does Joan think of Gina?
Well, Gina is not under Joan’s jurisdiction. Gina is not part of the internal medicine staff. I think she appreciates his love for Amy and she wants them to be on the same side. And I don’t think she plans to fight Gina. It’s like, “Look, I don’t need to take up arms against you. You can hate me or not hate me. It’s okay. Whatever you want to do, it’s okay.”
We know what Joan thought about Amy and Michael’s relationship and that he held her back because of that dinner flashback we had when Amy was regaining her memory. And we also know that Joan knew about Amy and Jake’s (Jon Ecker) relationship before Amy lost her memory. What would Joan think of the way Amy and Jake seem to start things over again in such a complicated way at the end of this episode? What does she think of James for Amy?
Joan didn’t tell Amy to leave Michael because he was holding her back. Joan told Amy to leave Michael because she can’t forgive him for their son’s death and you can’t marry that. So it’s already dead. And what do I think Joan thinks of Jake and this union? If they want to sneak out and have sex in a closet somewhere, that’s no problem. I think Joan has probably been doing this for years. But when it hinders Amy’s ability to become a doctor, then it’s a problem. And that includes getting along with other staff, that includes being distracted, which is why it would be a problem.
Then there’s also what Joan sees in Jake as a doctor, as we see her giving him more responsibility in interviewing the interns in this episode. What does she want to see in him by doing this? And what is she looking for in this new intern? Because he would also be the first person she would appoint as leader.
Well, part of getting everyone to bring their A game is giving them the opportunity to flaunt it. So that’s what she does with Jake, which is take the reins, take the responsibility, let’s see how you do. And he’s the one who hires Hannah [Emma Pfitzer Price]. I mean, from what I’ve read, good leadership empowers people. You don’t give people a job and then micromanage it. You leave, you get the job, you make the choice, it’s up to you. We will therefore see who his new recruit will be. I know she’s a wonderful young actress, that’s for sure.
Richard (Scott Wolf) will return later in the season. What do you know about what his dynamic will be with Joan and what it has been like in the past?
Joan would only know what Amy told her. And Richard was quite harmful in season 1 and quite diverted. I mean, he finally got up, and good for him. So I think Joan is going to be a little worried about Richard coming back and I think she’s going to want to make sure that Amy is safe.
John Medland / Fox
Who is Joan outside the hospital? What can you say about his personal life?
Joan married and then divorced. She has a son who lives in the middle of the countryside and from whom she is estranged because he chose not to reach out. He chose to cut his mother off. And I think she’s pragmatic, which means it breaks her heart. And I also think that she respects what he has to do, which is to say, at best, move away from his mother and at worst cut off ties with her. And I think she lives for her work. I think she probably has a few old friends that she worked with in the medical field that she meets up with and has a scotch with and gets up to. And then she lives for her work, especially since her diagnosis.
Who, besides Amy, does Joan have the most important conversation with in the upcoming episodes?
I think it will be Michael. Michael played brilliantly by Omar Metwally.
What can you preview about this? Because I love that dynamic of the first scene with the two of them, I have to say.
I know, I love that scene where he came to offer her the job. I love this scene. I think she respects Michael. I think she really respects that Michael knows his limits. I mean, I don’t think Michael was a great surgeon, so he leaned into the administrative side of it, which he’s brilliant at. I think she knows that Michael loves Amy and she knows that Amy loves Michael. And I don’t know if I was personally a betting girl, I would bet on Michael and Amy. I don’t know if I have the right to say that.
I think so.
I don’t know. Who are you rooting for?
I feel like it almost depends on the episode and what’s going on with the characters, because none of them are bad choices.
Yeah, that’s true.
DocTuesdays, 9/8c, Fox
