A common occurrence with episodes that follow a series premiere is that it feels a certain need to replicate the beats of said premiere for viewers so that they can become familiar with the rhythms of the show. Doc's "Try Try Again" is no exception to that but not necessarily to its detriment.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for Doc Season 1, Episode 2
A rough adjustment in Doc episode 2
We pick back up with Amy as she attempts to adjust to both being a patient and the uncertainty of her future as a doctor. One is easier for her to deal with than the other. While she is still healing, her CMO/ex-husband Michael — along with others in charge at the hospital — are hesitant to give her job back. It doesn't help that in the last few years, she has received enough complaints to give administrators pause. The implication made in this episode that strays just on the edge of subtext is that a less talented doctor than herself would have been let go a long time ago.
Also not working in her favor is the growing impatience she feels and acts upon. She wants to immediately make her case at the board meeting but, instead of receiving approval to do so, crashes the meeting and pleads for her position back. This does nothing to engender good will to her and she is ultimately ruled against for all of the reasons previously stated.
One thing the episode doesn't directly bring up but merely hints at is that there can't be an easy way back for her. She has a wild disadvantage in that she has missed out on almost a decade's worth of medical advancements. These are things that doctors currently working have to tirelessly stay up-to-date on every year — let alone someone who has an eight-year deficit.
Also, Doc has yet to make a reference to COVID-19 yet, but if that is canonical to this show then that would make her even more behind. Any doctor will tell you that countless procedures and methods were adjusted in the wake of quarantine and the five years past that. Given that, it actually might be the show's benefit to pretend it never happened.
Amy’s new roommate
Meanwhile, Amy receives a new roommate in her hospital room: a woman named Simone (played by Alexandra Castillo) suffering from lupus that Amy clocks immediately because, of course, she's still got it. Over the course of the episode, Simone's condition deteriorates and no one is exactly sure why.
Simone, like a lot of patients in medical dramas, exists mainly to serve as a reflection back at Amy. The similarity is skin-deep but that's all that is needed. Firstly, they are two women who do not have amazing relationships with their daughters. We see Amy dealing with a distance between her daughter Katie and herself that both is and isn't her fault; a distance that she doesn't know how to bridge now.
Likewise, Simone also has a daughter Grace who have become estranged from each other. Similar to Katie, Grace is there for her mom at news of her sickness and also like her has to deal with not being able to bridge the gap in spite of the illness. They are two relationships that clearly still have love and affection but are now suffering from years of disuse and neglect.
At the same time, Simone represents this validation for Amy’s skill as a doctor. If she can prove by helping this roommate of hers that she does, indeed, still have it then it provides a way forward for her. The reality, of course, is more complicated than that. Medicine is tricky, even for doctors at the top of their game. She makes mistakes proposing treatments partly because she does want it too much.
This is the the same thing that tripped Amy up as Chief: a reluctance to see other patients and doctors as people with interiority and emotions and not solely vehicles for medicine.
Amy’s struggle with grief in Doc
Elsewhere, we get more of a glimpse into the events following the death of Amy’s son.
What begins as self-isolation at her home and being encouraged to return to work quickly morphs into a coping mechanism. That in and of itself is fine enough but even that evolves into shifting that inner pain to outer via other patients and doctors.
It all serves to illustrate the way she drifted away from and shut out most of the people in her life but, first and foremost, how her relationship with Katie deteriorated. Like everything else in this episode, it’s all viewed through that lens.
We see the way it broke but is there a way to put themselves back together so many years later? That seems to be one of the biggest questions at work here and time will tell if that is possible.
Doc airs on Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX. Catch up the following day on Hulu.
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