NameDr. Zoe Hart
CompanyFamily Doctors: Dr. Brick Breeland & Associates
CategoryThe Merlin Award
Executive SummaryDr. Zoe Hart-Kinsella is the protagonist and titular character. She is a girl with a plan. That plan is focused around her dedication to become a doctor - more specifically, a heart surgeon like her father, Dr. Ethan Hart. As she told Dr. Harley Wilkes, who sought her out at her graduation from medical school to offer her a position in his medical practice, "Our last name is Hart so it's pre-destined" (Pilot) . She thinks her life is perfect - until four years later, it all comes crashing down.
Zoe and father, Ethan Hart were close, growing up, sharing his dream to become a doctor, and determined to follow in his footsteps and become a cardio-thoracic surgeon - even performing her residency at New York Hospital, the same hospital where he had done his, while her mother, Candice Hart tried to sway her daughter toward another direction.
At the age of 28, after moving to Bluebell, Alabama Zoe was given a photograph of Harley Wilkes and her mother together, and discovered her real father was Harley Wilkes, whom her mother, Candice Hart had an affair with on a cruise while engaged to another man.
After living in Bluebell for a time, and with the knowledge that Harley Wilkes was her real father, Zoe discovered she had an uncle - Jacob Wilkes (though deceased)- as well as an aunt - Maureen Wilkes (it is unclear whether Maureen was Harley and Jacob's sister, or Jacob's wife), and her grandmother, was named Claire Wilkes. (Claire's second husband was a French-Canadian named Guy, though it is unclear whether he or Claire's first husband is Zoe's grandfather.) Also, Zoe has a living pseudo uncle/second cousin in the form of Olin, who Claire Wilkes took in when he was a child and raised alongside her own children.
Neighbors, Zoe and Wade have an obvious attraction to one another- an attraction that nearly turned into more during the 2011 heat wave (In Havoc & In Heat). Though Zoe passed him off early on, she's continually seeing different sides of him she hadn't expected, and their relationship continues to evolve. Wade was able to make Zoe smile after the incident with Judson and Gigi (Homecoming & Coming Home) and later asks to buy her a drink, to which Zoe smiles and asks for a rain check (Hairdos & Holidays). Wade later discovers Zoe on a date with his estranged brother, Jesse, much to his dismay. However, he tries to deny his feelings for Zoe, and tells his brother he's free to date her because they're both snobbish and superior and would be perfect together.
DescriptionEpisode 1 In the fallout, her boyfriend, who did his residency at the same hospital, New York Hospital, as Zoe (as well as Zoe's father, previously), dumps her because she would rather talk about work than his day. Also, she fails to get the heart fellowship. To Zoe's indignation, her Chief of Surgery recommends she spend the woo next twelve months as a general practitioner and warns her she needs to improve her bedside manner, to see people as people, not puzzles to solve. Unfortunately for Zoe, there are no general practitioner positions available in New York City. Out of viable options, Zoe stumbles across a postcard from Harley Wilkes - who had continually sent her offers for a position at his medical practice over the last four years since his initial offer at her graduation from medical school and decides to accept.
Upon arriving in Bluebell, Alabama, she discovers Dr. Harley Wilkes died four months previously, and that he had mysteriously left his practice to her. But this wasn't without its complications - Harley had only left Zoe his half of the practice, which he shared with Dr. Brick Breeland, who had long been eager to have the whole practice to himself. After a rough start in Bluebell, rubbing nearly all the residents the wrong way, drunkenly making out with Wade Kinsella after faultily signing off on Old Man Jackson's eye exam (resulting in his running over George Tucker), and butting heads with the Breeland clan, Zoe is ready to return to New York with her mother, Mrs. Hart, and leave behind Bluebell when Emmeline Hattenbarger reveals the answer to the mystery of why Harley Wilkes would have left Zoe his practice - he was her father.
After confronting her mother about this information, and learning the truth, Zoe decides to stay in Bluebell, living in the carriage house on the Mayor's Plantation. She's determined to make the town see that she could be one of them, and so, to hang on to the medical practice her father had for 45 years.