Hannah Clark is an undeniably tragic character.
If you tuned in to Doc Season 2 Episode 11, you witnessed an emotionally challenging hour in which the walls started closing in on Hannah, leading to more tragedy.
We caught up with her portrayer, Emma Pfitzer Price, to chat about this polarizing character.
(John Medland/FOX)
This arc has brought to mind the quote “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” And by the end of the hour, that may be the case for one of the Clark siblings.
One of the most shocking moments of the hour was when Doc showed us the exact moment that Hannah and her brother, Charlie, found her father.
Up until this point, we know a lot about Hannah and her background, or at least enough to piece things together, but actually seeing this traumatic event unfold via flashbacks adds more context to Hannah’s state of mind.
Doc’s intention is surely to prompt viewers to reexamine their outlook on Hannah at that time. Hannah goes from a standard villain in our eyes to maybe something else.
Well, depending on who you ask.
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“It’s fun as an actor. I’ve gotten to have that information all the way, all the way through. So I’m curious.
Once the audience gets to see that, yeah, I’m curious how they’ll react,” she admits. “I actually have no idea how they’ll react.”
Price is definitely aware that Hannah’s background may not move the needle on sympathy with much of the audience, and it’s an astute observation, given some of the reactions I’ve already seen to this revelation.
“I certainly don’t expect them to suddenly have empathy,” she shares.
“I hope they do, because I feel like Hannah’s story is one of, look, this is what happens when you don’t choose to sit in the discomfort.
“There’s that scene with Amy after Hannah finds out the information from HR. They’re in the locker room.
Hannah, she almost … her back is turned.
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“You can almost see that if she just turns around and says, ‘Hey, HR told me this thing last night. I’m really hurt and confused by it. Can we … I know you lost this part of your memory, but can we talk about it? Do you remember anything about my dad?
“But it’s too hard for Hannah to sit in that discomfort, so she chooses what seems like the easier thing, which is to get revenge.”
And as we see in the hour, it’s evident that Hannah’s plan for revenge has backfired drastically. From the episode, it only further confirms that Hannah serves as a cautionary tale for those who are battling unhealed grief and trauma and who haven’t learned how to process and regulate it.
And it’s something that doesn’t just extend to Hannah but to her brother, too. There’s a fascinating element regarding cycles — and Price and I speak about how the hour comes full circle.
We start with seeing what it’s like when Hannah discovers her father, and then it ends with Hannah discovering her brother in a similar state.
(John Medland/FOX)
It’s a shocking cliffhanger, which Price agrees. And we wondered where things could possibly go from here for Hannah.
“Yeah, I mean, she needs her brother. That’s the only other person in her life. And they’ve actually really bonded.
“I think when Hannah gave him the mission of, ‘Hey, I need you to help me figure out what happened with dad,’ it sort of gave Charlie, who previously was drifting and wasn’t really texting me back, — I hadn’t heard from him in months — It gave him a sense of purpose and a clear goal.
“So when I take that away from him and when I kick him out of my apartment, you can see how he just spirals into doing what he does. And yeah, you see the cycles of trauma. All three of us, Dad, me, and Charlie, are clearly struggling with a lot of mental health issues.”
What was interesting about the hour was that Hannah was genuinely the only one of the three who seemed willing to seek help for those mental health issues.
She took the necessary steps, then just … threw in the towel and decided revenge was the better option. I asked Price about her thoughts on that.
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“She, and I think this is true for a lot of, I’m sure, for a lot of health care workers and doctors, you see these brilliant medical scientists who are really good at helping other people. But when it comes to helping themselves, they don’t teach you that in med school.
“I’m sure they do, but it’s easier said than done. We see Hannah really, really struggling with that.”
It’s a lot of dark content, and it was worth asking how Price fared with getting into that mindset and dealing with heavier material.
After all, it was also Hannah’s most prominent hour.
“I think everyone has a different process, but this was the first TV show I’ve worked on where I got very, very close and had time to get very close with the crew and with the rest of the cast. And I’m a very social, chatty person,” she shared.
(John Medland/FOX)
And we can certainly attest to that, as she was a bright ball of energy throughout our entire discussion.
“I think it really helped me in between these takes to laugh and to have inside jokes and to be able to kind of have humor and levity so that you can find the tail end of that.
“I feel like all of my favorite comedians use humor as a defense mechanism, or they have a lot of darkness underneath all of that.
“And I feel like that helps my process. But, you know, other actors maybe they need to listen to a song, or I find it helpful to just keep engaging with humans because that’s what I’m doing as an actor.”
It was a huge cliffhanger that left us reeling, and now we can’t help but wonder what’s in store for Hannah moving forward.
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How does this young woman process her brother’s actions, and what will it mean for her quest against Amy?
“It shocked me,” she said regarding the final moments.
“Her first instinct is to get — she’s very angry. The last line of Episode 11 is ‘What did you do?’ And I think in that moment, she needs him. And this is her only person. It’s almost selfish, what Charlie has done. I think what we can expect is that the consequences for all of this clearly come to a head,” Price teases.
If we were uncomfortable in Episode 11, I think we can just expect to feel more uncomfortable. We’re a TV show. We can’t make it easy. We can’t be easy!
“That’s the great thing about — coming back to your first question about playing an antagonist or playing a villain — it just allows you to kind of sit in that discomfort.
“Ultimately, this is a story about Amy having the choice after this accident of ‘Can I be a more compassionate, better human?’ And I think that quest brings along with it this notion of forgiveness. So we’ll see if Hannah can forgive herself.
“Can others forgive her? Or has this reached a point that is beyond that? We’ll see.”
Interviews like this take time and care — and we hope it shows.
If you liked hearing from me, please comment or share the article. That’s how we keep conversations like this going.
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