‘Doc’ Season 2 Fall Finale Explained: What Happens After [Spoiler]’s Kiss?

Doc gave fans more than a few surprising twists and turns during the season 2 fall finale — but where does the show go from here after that kiss?

During the Tuesday, November 25, episode of the hit Fox series, Jake (Jon Ecker) was mourning his father’s death as people from the hospital attended the funeral. Hannah’s (Emma Pfitzer Price) brother decided to use the day as a way to wreck havoc for Amy (Molly Parker) by sending audio where she gushed over her kiss with ex Michael (Omar Metwally).

Michael’s wife, Nora (Sarah Allen), wasn’t thrilled by the revelation and left him. Jake, the other recipient, reacted in a surprising way — after spending most of the first half of the season denying his feelings for Amy, his father’s death and a conversation with his sister made him look at his future differently.

Jake visited Amy’s apartment where they ultimately shared a passionate kiss, which made Us question what this “new normal” will mean for the pair when the show returns for the second half of the season on January 6.

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“Jake is dealing with a big loss. Going through that type of tragedy always makes you reassess your life. It brings you closer to your idea of mortality and you know that life is this finite thing. So you think about what you want to do with life,” Ecker, 42, exclusively told Us Weekly about the fall finale. “Jake wants to stop dilly dallying. Even if that implies an inherent risk professionally that he might get in trouble at work for.”

While Jake previously “put his love life” on hold for “the sake of his professional career,” he now has a new lease on life. “This episode helps push him over the edge and have a reassessment and realignment of priorities,” Ecker noted.

The decision might come as a surprise to some fans, considering Jake made the decision after hearing Amy discuss her feelings for her ex-husband.

“That goes back to his level of empathy. He has this very high level of objectivity when it comes to even something that’s so personal. When he hears the recording, technically it is infidelity. But Jake has this understanding of what is in her head — especially with the lack of eight years of memory,” he shared. “It would be very naive to think that there wouldn’t be some type of feelings. So to understand she doesn’t want to be there but she still has feelings that she’s fighting against … Jake has a high level of emotional intelligence to work through the instinct.”

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 (Parker) 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.

Season 1 introduced fans to Amy’s romance with Jake, which only he remembered. She ultimately started to connect the dots though and the fictional couple explored their connection, but Amy wasn’t able to shake her old feelings for now-ex-husband Michael. In the season 1 finale, which aired in March, Jake saw Amy and Michael sharing an intimate moment.

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“For Jake and Amy, it’s just a complicated relationship. They are always complicated — especially here you’re dealing with two people that are divorced and whose exes are in their lives,” Ecker told Us about the couple’s onscreen ups and downs. “On top of it, we work together. On top of it, Amy doesn’t remember the last eight years of her life and falling in love with Jake.”

Ecker called it “impossible” for their romance to be “easy” for them.

“There’s going to be some bumps in the road. On top of it, it just makes for a better story,” he continued. “We’re not that many episodes ahead of the fall finale. But obviously things at this moment feel very lovey dovey and we’re in a happy place. But it’s still a very complicated situation in a complicated relationship. I would be surprised if there aren’t some bumps in the road ahead.”

As of right now though, Amy and Jake are “in a really good place.”

“An ongoing theme for Jake is empathy — both in his professional life and also in dealing with his relationships and the people around him. Whether it be with his father, his ex wife, with Amy or with his daughter,” he concluded. “An ongoing thing is dealing with what he wants in life but also wanting to give other people in his life what he thinks that they want. It’s a struggle between being somewhat selfish but also being selfless. It’s an ongoing thing and I think that got discovered in season 1 with him as a doctor. But now we’re just seeing it all on the personal side.”

Doc returns to Fox on January 6 at 9 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.