Doc season 3 opens, not at the hospital but at a high school where drama students are rehearsing for the school production of Romeo and Juliet, which quickly goes awry when one of the students suffers a seizure and requires medical attention.
We cut to the hospital with Amy getting a scan, which shows her brain is healing and she’s healing fast. This moment plays opposite a conversation between Amy and Gina in which Amy makes it clear she’s done chasing the ghosts of her past. She’s determined to honor Joan by moving forward by teaching the new intern class alongside Sonya as co-chief residents.
Elsewhere at the hospital, Ben arrives at the hospital for a job interview, and he’s not the only one looking for a change of pace. Jake wants to transition from pediatrics to cardiology, which Michael is supportive of but it doesn’t go over well with the department’s head, Margaret.
From there, we meet our intern class, and it’s quite a large one, though it becomes clear that there are four interns in particular who will play a pivotal role in the season. There’s Graham Barker, who is related to one of the hospital’s wealthiest donors; overachiever Nikki De Silva; empathetic yet easily frazzled Ruth; and the youngest intern in the class, Kyle Ferguson, who was home schooled before med school.
After meeting our primary interns, Amy and Sonya address the class. Amy notes that this intern class is here because Joan chose them as one of the last things she did before she passed away, and they’re here to carry on her legacy. As Sonya walks through the assignments for the day, Amy gets a flash of a memory from what was presumably Sonya’s first day as an intern, and Amy was far from supportive in the moment.
Amy, Graham, and Ruth break off to check out their patient, who happens to be the young girl named Torey, from the opening scene who had a seizure and has been brought in for treatment. Torey begins to walk the group through the moments before her seizure during rehearsal, but when Torey mentions the prop gun being fired off, she begins to seize again, suggesting that it could be the trigger to the episodes.
We flashback to a moment from the past in which Sonya is meeting with Michael about concerns she had with Amy’s patient conduct as he encourages her to give things a few months. We then cut to the present day as Sonya walks Kyle and Nikki through their patient’s chart and discusses the symptoms being displayed by the drama teacher, Mr. Galvin, who seems to be suffering from chest pains and now symptoms that mimic migraine pains. Nikki and Kyle are both a little too eager to jump in, but Kyle ends up suggesting they run a test to give them further information.
Amy and Gina bump into Ben, and he offers his condolences to Amy for the loss of her friend, and we also learn in this moment that Richard has left the hospital to get a fresh start at another nearby hospital—hinting we could see Scott Wolf pop up again down the line. After he excuses himself, Gina quickly seems to pick up on some flirtation between the two, but Amy assures her there is nothing between them as she steps away to check on Torey.
While running a test, Amy notices that Ruth is in her head about not knowing where the crash cart was and assures her everyone makes mistakes on their first day. It’s a very different approach than the one that she took with Sonya, as we see another flashback to Amy lashing at her over a mistake back in the day. It’s clear that Amy is learning from her past mistakes and trying to take a different approach with this new intern class.
Following their discussion with Michael earlier in the day, Margaret makes it clear to Jake that she won’t have him joining her department and doing things half-heartedly. She confirms they have the budget for him to join her department, but they’ll start with a three-month trial and then reassess. Before she walks away, she assigns him to shadow Dr. Peter Douglas, who he joins in performing an angio on the drama teacher to map out his arteries. Things start smoothly with his arteries looking clean, which is good, but it doesn’t explain his symptoms. As they inform him of this, Mr. Galvin begins to have a seizure, which Michael informs Amy and Gina of, noting that it can’t be a coincidence by something triggered by something in the theater and others could be coming.
We flashback to the past as Amy complains to Jake about Sonya complaining about her as she invites him over for the night. She’s ready to tell Katie about him and ready to introduce him to her as she tells him she loves him before Sonya enters and she ends the call.
Back in the present day, Amy questions Jake about his shift to cardiology, but things are tense between the two as he notices her having a memory. As they chat, Michael calls the school to speak with the school administrator and requests he contact the parents of the drama department to have them brought in for examination, hinting something bigger is going on.
Additional students are brought in as Amy, Sonya, and the interns begin to get tested as they look for commonalities between the patients. As another boy is brought in to be checked, Torey is rolled by having had another seizure, suggesting there is something bigger going on.
Ben meets with the board about joining the team. He grew up here, and his sister has had some health problems, and he’d like to move back and help build the hospital’s surgical department.
Cutting back to the memory from Amy’s past in which she confronted Sonya about reporting her to Michael, as Sonya informs Amy she’ll be putting in her two weeks' notice, as she doesn’t want to work under Amy. Rather than
Sonya takes Dr. Galvin for an MRI, and Jake asks how she’s doing. Sonya admits it was interesting seeing Amy take a different approach from the one she took when she was an intern as she asks how things are going for him. He admits he and Amy broke up, and he’s struggling to get used to cardiology as Sonya encourages him to hang in there.
Amy, Michael, Gina, and Jake gather to review the tests, and something is not adding up. Outside, parents begin pressuring Nikki about answers, and Sonya steps in to help assure them they’re waiting for information, sensing that Nikki was overwhelmed by the questions. Meanwhile, the teenage boy whose mom dragged him into bed and who says his symptoms are intensifying is checked out. Amy steps away to speak with one of the other patients, who mentions the group chat and notices that everyone in the chat had begun to spiral after what happened to Torey. That’s when she’s paged to the room of the other boy who was just admitted and is not having a seizure, as Amy pieces together that this seems to be mass hysteria.
Returning to the past, we see Amy bumping into TJ in the elevator asking about a patient. Amy makes it clear that he’s the one person she can always count on as he mentions Sonya leaving, with Amy doubling down on being unfazed by the decision. She asks TJ about nightmares he was having as their conversation is interrupted by a call from Ben.
Back to the present day, Amy pieces together that this seems to be conversion disorder, which amplified into mass hysteria, with their minds manifesting symptoms similar to those Torey suffered. It’s a reaction to shared stress among the group. Jake and Peter meet with Mr. Galvin to see if they can identify what might be the trigger, as he assures them nothing is overly stressful as he presses them for how it could be nothing if Torey was taken into the OR for surgery.
Torey’s surgery is a success, but Ben isn’t sure about the approach. As he explains this, the hospital board member invites him to take their offer by answering all of his requests as well as asking him to move his ongoing drug trial. As Gina and Amy go over Torey’s day, she mentions the school performing an active shooter drill, and she recalls how during the last one, there was a girl who had a panic attack during the drill, and a video of it went viral. Gina suspects that hearing the gunshot on stage likely brought up all those emotions to the surface.
Torey asks about the surgery, and they explain that Torey had an underlying blood clotting disorder, and the acute stress led to its manifestation. While the others will need therapy, this disorder is something that Torey will need ongoing medication and treatment for.
As they debrief following the case, Jake admits to Amy that while he was cramming for pediatrics, it was making his daughter look like a patient, which prompted him to change to cardiology. He congratulates her on her first day as she steps away.
Sonya checks in with Nikki and gives her a long list of all she did wrong throughout the day and asks her what she’s going to do differently to grow from here. Amy questions her style after, but Sonya seems unbothered, noting that it was what was needed.
Kyle is shocked about the active shooter drills; Nikki and Graham compare notes about Amy and Sonya hinting that they knew they were both vying for the job.
TJ asks Sonya how it went, and she mentions not wanting the interns to know she and Amy didn’t get along or that she almost left before Amy’s accident. Meanwhile, Amy asks Michael if he observed Sonya, noting that she observed shades of old Amy. Amy flashes back to a memory of Michael telling Amy that being a great physician wasn't enough to protect her, as she pulls back on pressing Michael in their conversation.
As the day comes to an end, Amy goes to see Gina and questions how she can do this when all the memories are rushing back throughout the day. Gina admits this could be the new normal, even though there is nothing normal about her brain. Amy might be done with the past, but the past didn't end with her. Speaking of the past not being done with her, in the closing moment, we see Ben on his way home as he flashes back to a conversation with Amy about them being in big trouble with what they did. It seems this is a mystery we’ll be unpacking throughout the season ahead!
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