'Doc' Season 2 finale drops devastating news on future of Felicity Huffman's Dr. Joan Ridley
This story contains spoilers.
Season 2 of 'Doc' recently concluded with a dramatic finale. With the end of the sophomore season, the Fox show bid farewell to actress Felicity Huffman, who played the character of Dr. Joan Ridley. Huffman's appearance on the Season 2 finale, which aired on Tuesday, marked the end of her journey on the show. The finale explained Huffman's on-screen departure by making it clear that Joan had finally succumbed to the prolonged battle with cancer, which she had been shouldering all by herself for a while now.
Although Huffman's departure might be a rather heartbreaking development for the fans, her character's arc had been limited right from the outset. The character was initially supposed to appear in just one season of 'Doc,' but the show has since deliberately expanded her across the 22-episode set. Executive producer Barbie Kligman explained in an interview with TVInsider, "It wasn’t a situation where you’re like, 'Felicity’s got to go.' It was literally the character of Joan was going to come in, have a tremendous impact, and then I think as soon as we decided she was sick, you want to play that off."
Joan died after using up her last bit of energy in a bid to save the life of Molly Parker's Amy. In this sense, it can be surmised that she practically sacrificed herself for the sake of saving Amy. Huffman praised the show's commendable writing. “It’s a fantastic twist," the 63-year-old actress remarked in another interview with TVInsider, "It’s a huge surgery on Amy. It saves her life and ultimately costs Joan her life. It’s a wonderful, mythic sort of Greek tragedy kind of ending." Huffman further revealed that she prepared for the scene where Joan saved Amy's life with her husband, William H. Macy, "I was like, ‘It doesn’t exactly make sense because if you save Amy, she’s going to save hundreds, if not thousands, throughout her career.’ So had it been me, I would have put my finger on the scale, which is probably why I’m not a doctor."
Huffman also expressed her gratitude for having such a "beautiful farewell". Despite her character dying off-screen, Huffman might still be up for a future opportunity to return on 'Doc' Season 3. Kligman noted in this regard, "While the plan is Joan was a series regular for one year, I would imagine, and it depends on where we go in the room and what story feels right to tell, but I would hope we would be seeing Felicity again, now and again." Huffman has most importantly conceded that she's had conversations about Joan "coming back and being the ghost that haunts the halls of Westside."
