[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Doc Season 1 Episode 7 “Secrets and Lies.”]
Doc reveals one other facet of Richard (Scott Wolf), the hospital’s interim chief since Amy’s (Molly Parker) accident that took eight years of her reminiscences from her, and it does clarify what he was going by way of when he made the deadly mistake that price a affected person his life.
Because the episode reveals, Richard has been hiding the truth that his son has bipolar and schizotypal problems. Gina (Amirah Vann) reiterates what she’s informed him earlier than: He wants in-patient behavioral remedy. However as a substitute, Richard and his spouse have saved him at house. And now, Richard takes day off, ignoring a name from Sonya (Anya Banerjee) simply as she reaches out to take day off after realizing her affected person is the person who raped her. On the finish of the episode, with their son packing for in-patient therapy, Richard and his spouse sit down, and he reveals to her that he made a mistake and killed a affected person and the one purpose he nonetheless has a job is Amy’s accident. He looks like he doesn’t even need to be a health care provider.
“This episode was clearly extremely significant for Richard. He’s been carrying loads and hiding loads over the course of those first episodes,” Wolf tells TV Insider. “I knew ultimately we have been going to be taught extra about what was happening behind the scenes in Richard’s private life and the way that affected the whole lot that had occurred and that he was presently doing to guard himself. After I learn the script for the episode, I used to be simply blown away and I used to be so grateful. And it felt like an opportunity to actually confront the viewers in a extremely enjoyable, difficult method, which is, you suppose this man, you suppose type of why he operates the way in which he does. Even in the event you don’t know all the main points, you virtually can’t think about what you come to seek out out on this episode.”
As he sees it, the episode exhibits that whereas it’s simple to make presumptions about anybody — these in our lives and those that are strangers — “none of us actually know the whole lot that individuals are coping with. And so this was an opportunity to take this man who had been offered because the villain, the antagonist, the disturber of issues, the holder of secrets and techniques, the harmer of individuals, and also you see a flawed, wounded, terrified husband, father, human being who’s doing the whole lot he can to carry his household collectively, to guard his son, who’s coping with a extremely sophisticated psychological well being situation,” says Wolf.
Fox
Now that we all know what he’s been coping with, the viewers has to ask in the event that they’re keen to provide him a second likelihood (the theme of the present). “It felt redemptive in a method and simply so fantastically, totally human that whether or not it’s individuals in your life or characters you’re watching on display, you by no means actually know the entire story till the entire story, and even then there’s extra to be taught,” he provides.
By the tip of the episode, Richard is aware of the assault however not that Amy helped Sonya cowl up a mistake she made, that when her rapist taunted her and refused to name what he did to her rape, she injected air, not meds, into his central line. (Amy helped her repair it.) How would he have reacted if he’d been informed?
“I do know I might inform you how Scott reacted. Scott was like, whats up, not the one coverup individual round right here,” Wolf says with amusing. He does suppose that Richard “would’ve had compassion given what he’s experiencing but in addition what she went by way of.”
It does really feel like Richard ought to have taken day off sooner or later between his son’s prognosis and now, however Wolf notes that is “a reasonably tragic story of an individual who he takes his work very severely. He all the time has.” That’s much more true now that he’s interim chief.
“For Richard, the holding collectively of his life and his world for himself, for his household and at work for the sufferers and these different docs is so essential to him that I don’t know that he can actually even see clearly what he wants,” he continues. “It’s simple from the skin typically to go, wow, this can be a man who must step away and take a second, take care of his household life and step away from this work setting as a result of he’s weak. It’s actually exhausting for an individual who’s in the course of that storm to see it as clearly. And so in some ways this does change into a tragic story of what occurs to an in any other case excellent one who will get so overwhelmed and makes selections within the second that aren’t actually in his finest curiosity or their finest curiosity to try to defend themselves or keep on this setting the place they’re being counted on.”
Wolf is trying ahead to followers’ reactions and their responses asking themselves, “If I used to be ever pushed to the brink like that, would I be capable of see it? Would I be capable of step away or would I get caught [up in it], like he does?”
Wolf additionally praises Sonya’s story and Banerjee on this episode. “Sonya’s story is extremely highly effective and essential. Anya was breathtaking in that efficiency,” he says. “So the way in which this present has dealt with actually sophisticated points, issues that individuals on the earth are actually coping with has been respectful to the very best diploma, but in addition fantastically distinctive. I’m proud to be a part of it.”
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Doc, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox
For those who or somebody is the sufferer of sexual assault, contact the Rape, Abuse & Incest Nationwide Community‘s Nationwide Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). For those who or a beloved one are in quick hazard, name 911.