Doc’s Shocking Revelation About Felicity Huffman’s Joan Explained

Felicity Huffman‘s introduction on Doc featured a surprising twist about her character — so where does the show go from here?

During season 2, episode 2 of the show on Tuesday, September 30, Joan (Huffman) is introduced as Amy’s (Molly Parker) former mentor who has elicited mixed reactions from those around her. Amy’s loved ones hint that they didn’t like how Joan influenced Amy to be so devoted to her career — but it isn’t until the end of the episode that viewers get the full picture.

Amy experienced several brief glimpses at a memory and then the last scene revealed her at a dinner with Joan years prior. After going through issues in her marriage with Michael (Omar Metwally), Amy was told by Joan to end the relationship.

“By the end of episode 2, Amy has a whole memory of a conversation that she had with Joan about her marriage. There’s so many things to unpack there but it leaves Amy incredibly unsettled,” Parker, 53, exclusively told Us Weekly. “She doesn’t know if she can trust Joan, not knowing why Joan would say that and not knowing what that means.”

The confusion surrounding Joan’s influence in her life will continue to “motivate” Amy.

“[She now wants] to do everything she can to recover her memories. She wants to do everything that she can do including some treatments that are potentially unhealthy for her,” Parker teased. “The truth is, Amy doesn’t know what any of these things mean. She doesn’t even know if they have any meaning at all. What she really doesn’t know is the context.”

Inspired by a true story, Fox’s Doc follows the chief of internal medicine at Minneapolis’ fictional Westside Hospital, who suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident that causes her to lose her memory of the last eight years. Amy not only has to remember her medical career and build a new life, she also comes to terms with a shocking divorce from her husband and a death that changes the course of her future.

“What the audience knows is that Amy was not able to forgive Michael for the role he played in their son Danny’s death — in the fact that he didn’t foresee what was happening. He didn’t intuit that there was something more than car sickness going on. Amy could never let go so eventually the marriage fell apart because she couldn’t get past that,” Parker explained. “At this point, Joan may be just reiterating what is true for Amy — something that Amy has already said.”

Parker highlighted what the new memory will mean for Amy.

“It tells us less about Amy and more about Joan. She is a character for whom work is the most important thing. It’s not just that it’s work — it is that this work is so important,” she continued. “Joan believes that Amy is incredibly fair and special and an important doctor.”

Parker concluded: “Joan really just thinks that’s the most important thing and should be the focus of Amy’s life. Amy was somebody who wanted family and wanted to be a wife and wanted all these other things. What we see is that Joan is a character who really encouraged Amy to put her work above everything else.”

Doc airs on Fox Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.