On the surface, it’s easy to write off an hour like this, one that takes us away from many of the things we love.
But when it comes to an hour like Doc Season 2 Episode 18, I’m in it for the lore.
And we revisit many things that we already know, but it’s the little things that it unlocks that make it worthwhile to hold on to as we move forward.
After a hiatus, being hit with “Orientation” feels like a bit of a respite or a pulse check before we dive into other big things. I can see why it’s a solid transition episode after the Joan events and before we jump into the next big thing.
It’s a fairly simple concept.
The Larsen-Hamda family gears up to drive Katie to her college orientation.
The setup is ripe for familial and other forms of tension and conflict, as it’s rare that we get all three of these characters in the same space for too long.
And a six-hour car ride will bring out the absolute most in everyone. But the hour derails that rather quickly, and honestly, I’m grateful for many reasons.
The first one being that Katie was just downright obnoxious to watch for those moments before the cabin detour.
I really have tried to defend the poor girl because she gets a raw deal and is often treated as if she should somehow be erased from this narrative, because many are more interested in Amy’s professional life and romance than the familial element.
It seems like I’m calling out, but I’ll get to my point in a bit.
However, Katie was genuinely obnoxious in that car, largely because Doc often writes her so inconsistently that she gives me whiplash. There are moments when she behaves like she’s significantly younger than she is.
And then just when it seems like she and Amy or Michael have worked through some issues, especially with Amy, she’ll circle back around to lobbing things at her mother or shooting down Amy’s genuine attempts to be the mom she knew that she wasn’t.
Many times, it’s like Amy and Michael can’t figure out whether to treat her like a wise-beyond-her-years teenager or like a petulant child, and it doesn’t help when she doesn’t know if she’s either of those things herself.
So it’s hard when things are supposed to be comical, “Oh, teenagers being teenagers” bit with Katie, which is what I imagine the car ride scene was meant to be, because Katie’s “typical teen” behavior doesn’t read that way, given all the other baggage and background.
And forgive me, truly, but I couldn’t stop gritting my teeth when I saw Katie had a brief anxiety attack after getting lost when she was the one swearing to the high heavens that she could handle running miles to the truck to get help.
Are we sure she’s a Hamda or Larsen? The poor girl can’t handle anything that resembles a crisis, and both her parents can hold their own in that regard.
But alas, we got to the cabin because it was a place where the family had their happy memories.
And from that, we had more conversations about how Katie might still have been holding out hope that her parents would reunite after she copped an attitude upon learning about Jake.
The whole Bluetooth reveal about Amy and Jake dating made me chuckle.
And then I realized that Katie never knew anything about Jake, so bless her heart, she’s had all these strong feelings, and she wasn’t even subjected to half of what we were.
I’m not even taking away from Katie on being frustrated that her mother was dating a whole other person for damn near a year and some change now, and just never said anything to her at any stage, pre-accident or post.
It goes back to that frustrating thing of them treating her too much like a child, but also to how they make her behave like one.
And Katie was judgmental as hell about the entire scenario. But it’s also just odd that she’d have a strong reaction to her mother dating at all, given that her father remarried.
What did she think her mother would be doing? Sitting on standby until things blew up with Nora, untouched and unloved?
I do wish there were better ways for them to have these conversations.
And I know I always catch flak for this, but I still think there has to be a better way to merge Amy’s work and love life, where we don’t keep getting sold this idea that Jake is her “something good,” which often implies that everything else sucks.
I’m never asking for less of the romance, but more exploration of why it has to be framed like an either/or thing — but, see, that’s where we get episodes like these that may finally lead us down the exploration a girl like me craves.
The medical component was great because we got to see Amy and Michael both be badass in the field with what they had, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of thing.
But mostly Casey, or was it Cody, oof, and Rina were just this sweet, young, interracial couple paralleling Michael and Amy and making them both reflect.
For Amy, they made her reflect on her marriage with Michael, the early days when they met, their engagement, and her approach to relationships — and surely hearing about Michael selling the house and Katie preparing to leave for college prompted things, too.
And for Michael, it did a bit of the same, but I was also more intrigued by his practice of medicine and by how he missed it.
We’ve never had the chance to really see Michael in action as a doctor, and so much of the series has framed him around what is likely his insecurity in that worst moment when his son died at the museum.
There’s an inadequacy about him not being great — but it’s that he’s not Amy great, which never means he isn’t good.
He kicked butt in the field, and he was great with Rina. Michael also did a great job assessing things, draining that blood, and he was quick on his feet and innovative with the sports drink syrup thing.
He’s miserable in this field that he’s in now, and half the time it seems like he’s lost sight of why he got into the administrative component of medicine in the first place.
He thought he could do the most good there, but it’s not working.
I’m fascinated by the idea of Michael wanting to return to medicine instead, especially since he’s stuck right now, professionally and personally, and may need a fresh start.
Yes, they used the hour to tease and play into that sexual tension and feelings between Michael and Amy, and that surely bugs people.
It’s clear that he is still in love with her, and Amy can never quite shake Michael fully. Off the cuff, she still refers to him as her “husband.”
But even with flashbacks to when they met, the proposal, and so forth, there was a broader story at play here that didn’t feel solely indulgent in dragging out love triangle angst.
Those flashbacks were interesting. As a purely superficial sidenote, Michael was hot as hell during this episode, and so was young Michael.
The casting for the younger versions of Michael, Amy, and Gina was nice! I loved seeing Baby Amy and Gina, too!
What we got was the first meeting, and I’m choosing to reserve judgment for now, but I know it’ll be widely discussed, so let’s talk about the Gina thing.
It was interesting to see that Amy had been scoping Michael out, but Gina thought he was hot, too. The number of jokes she cracked implied that she had a crush on Michael herself, even though she was also working on setting up Amy with Michael.
And asking him which of them he was interested in was a fascinating scene because Gina did look towards Amy after she said that, so it could have been a setup for Michael to make his move on Amy, especially after her “my work here is done” kind of thing.
She always has that wingwoman quality with both characters. Still, it also could’ve been a genuine question at that time.
I’ve always been fond of the sibling dynamic they gave off as Gina and Michael.
But I know that the flashback scene alone will lead to further reexamination of their dynamic, as well as of Amy and Gina’s friendship, particularly during those harder years when Gina cops it often for being more supportive of Michael.
Anyway, we also got the proposal scene at the hospital after Amy found out she wasn’t pregnant. She and Michael’s different demeanors made their connection make sense.
After six months, he was committed to her, fell fast and hard, and was definitely proposing marriage because it was the right thing to do, assuming she was pregnant.
But he also just genuinely seemed into her.
Whereas the flashback showed that Amy immediately shut that down — being the more logical, rational sort — it made me smile. That one flashback really captured their dynamic — right down to Amy doing things on her own terms.
Her mixed feelings regarding parenthood intrigued me.
It’s like Amy wanted to be a mother, but because of her own experiences with hers, she’s been terrified of motherhood. And they’ve established that when Amy is scared, she either runs away or runs towards something else.
I’ve always been fascinated by how motherhood figures into Amy’s story, something she desires but struggles to navigate. It’s one of the most compelling angles to explore with Amy.
It’s so uncommon to see onscreen — a woman who isn’t naturally great at being a mom, but on a show that leans into complexity rather than vilification.
The hour keeps hitting these notes, and at first, it was frustrating to keep rehashing the same points. However, if it’s to dig into Amy’s background before she started her own family, I welcome it.
She’s an enigma when it comes to that aspect of her character. And whether we like it or not, our past and childhood do inform so much of how we function in adulthood.
Given the end, how it already seemed like she was pulling away from Jake, potentially repeating some of the same mistakes she made with loved ones before, I’m excited at the prospect of addressing that in broader terms.
This time, it didn’t feel like Amy was allowing her feelings for Michael to affect her relationship with Jake. Even with the reminiscing, spending time together, and the plans they have to pack up Danny’s room.
Instead, it feels like the unresolved issues and fears she harbored her whole life could be causing issues.
It also potentially does a reverse for her and Michael, with him potentially getting the fresh start he never really had before, especially by letting go of the house that (I don’t care what he says) he held on to for personal reasons.
And Amy may be reconciling with parts of her past that go far beyond these immediate relationships in her life, but still somehow impact those connections.
And that’s far more interesting to explore than Amy having second thoughts about Michael, or even Katie’s reaction.
Yeah, give me that. I’m all-in on Amy Lore and origins.
I know you guys have a lot of thoughts about this one, so let me know what you’re thinking down below. Or share this with fellow Doc Fanatics. Love you, mean it! Thank you.
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