"The Pitt" thoughts/takes!

I honestly just made this to blurt out some of my personal thoughts about the Pitt + it's fandom, ranging anywhere from maybe too over analytical to not deep at all. I would say what characters I am going to focus on, but the list is too long. Who am I without word vomit!

[doctormohansamira]

I still can’t believe they had no intention of ever exploring the Robby-Samira-Langdon-Santos nexus. They had:

A male authority figure who is specifically harder on one female subordinate than he is on anyone else despite demonstrating the same traits himself and other characters also demonstrating the traits he objects to. (x2)

A female character that steps up to take the blame for something that fundamentally did not deserve any blame on anyone because there was no actual error made in defence of another female character, knowing a male authority figure will lash out at her for it.

A second male authority figure who lashes out horrifically at a female subordinate and humiliates her in public.

The first male authority figure recognizing that that's an entirely inappropriate way to treat a subordinate and immediately chastising him for it.

The two female characters having a conversation about what happened, featuring the more senior one reassuring the junior one about her place in the environment.

The more senior of the female characters being arguably the only authority figure that simultaneously holds this subordinate to high standards, is fair and open to changing her own perspective, and results in reflection on the part of the junior.

Ongoing tension because of the public lashing out in season two an entire ten months later.

A male and a female character who had opposite journeys in season one in terms of the main character's esteem now being on the same level.

That first male authority that had managed to keep his dickishness just on the one side of the professionalism line, with his belittling far more subtle, throws himself into full asshole mode in season two and has his turn to publicly humiliate the female subordinate he's harder on than everyone else.

The other male character present during this event.

Both female characters having perfectly good professional relationships with the male character the other has huge problems with.

And this doesn't even get into the way Santos is the most outgoing and social character, heavily defined by at least trying to connect with basically everyone, while Samira is reserved, lonely, deeply aware of the importance of community but completely lacking one of her own!

It's really freaking weird. There were a million ways they could have taken this story that would have been interesting. But they didn't delve into the implications of any of this. Santos and Samira exchange, what, half a sentence in the entire season? Santos doesn't observe Robby yelling at Samira? She doesn't either have a moment of being thrown by that in any way? Neither one where it shakes her faith in Robby nor one where she rationalizes why this situation is different from and not as bad her own with Langdon so her Robby pedestal doesn't break? Samira doesn't have any reaction to the way Robby treats Langdon better than he treats her even when Langdon is back from rehab after diverting meds?

Ultimately, when I look at what they did, it feels more like an outline than an actual story! The Samira-Santos interactions in season one were so significant, and yet none of these pieces connected to each other in season two, and I'm left wondering, what parts of this story did the writers actually think were essential and how did none of this factor in?

[jadiehi]

re your post about mel being inexperienced in some fics, i don’t think it has to do with her being neurodivergent but has to do with her needing to put her life on hold to help her family. since her mom was the only parent (dad died when mel was young) when she got sick while mel was in college, it was probably on mel to take care of that especially if she was already leaning towards medicine. and then after her mom died she became her sister’s primary caregiver. so it’s probably likely that she didn’t have the opportunity like many people do to have experiences in college or to do anything for herself after finishing med school because her focus has been on taking care of her family

I think you definitely do have a good point, her situation does drastically affect her way of life/the experiences she's been able to have.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that everyone once in a while I'll read a fic written in Mel's POV that diminishes how smart she really is. Like her social skills are exaggeratedly horrible as well as her intelligence being diminished.

Also, in cannon, when she's talking to criminal guy, she recognizes she was being hit on, and reacts in a pretty standard way.

But really this all comes back to me thinking too much about fanfiction, and both points makes sense. Who knows!

[jadiehi]

A Santos and Ogilvie parallel

In season 1 episode 4 of the Pitt, Santos decides to put a patient on BiPaP, resulting in a life threatening tension pneumothorax, without presenting to Langdon (or another senior resident or attending).

In season 2 episode 4, Ogilvie pulls a piece of glass out of a patient's back, which removes the block of an arterial bleed, without waiting for permission.

These both are very similar situations from characters with (kind of) similar behavioral trends (ambition, overconfidence, ect.). But their differences, I feel, are especially highlighted: Santos acts overconfident and is brash with her coworkers early on, but it stems from a want to be liked and be seen as capable. She is also shown to learn from her mistakes, and have noble intentions. Right after this, she takes the blame for Samira even if it means more hostility from Langdon. Ogilvie, after making his mistake, is taken aback, but he is shown to continuously act pretentious, and fights to look highly competent. He still tries to undercut both Joy and Javadi, and his reaction to his mistake seems to stem from disappointment with the fact he has made a very public error in front of an attending, not remorse for the patient.

The reaction to these two mistakes are also different: Santos (very famously) gets a large amount of antagonism from Langdon because of this, while the doctor around Ogilvie gave him a much calmer reprimanding.

It's Interesting to see two character's reactions to a very similar situation. Especially when the characters could be perceived to be similar, but the situation reveals there differences.

[jadiehi]

A question on how Mel King is often portrayed in fanfiction (specifically kingdon)

I've noticed a trend in kingdon fics where Mel is very often written as inexperienced and her feelings for Frank as naive/almost childlike? And Frank is written as experienced and very aware of his feelings for Mel. I was wondering (as someone who is not on the autism spectrum) is this a realistic/relatable portrayal of how a neurodivergent person (and specifically Mel as a character) would experience a relationship?

To me it seems like the power dynamic typically associated with a R2/R3 and a senior resident is lessened in these fics, and they're made to seem like equals in that regard. But that power dynamic is replaced with one where Langdon is hyperaware of his feelings for Mel while she is the exact opposite, and he is hyper experienced while she often has little to none. Or, Mel is almost slighted of her maturity/intellectuality.

Just to clarify: I won't say I've read an enormous amount of kingdon fics, but I've read most of the more well-known ones (I always sort by kudos on ao3).

Also (I cannot emphasize this enough), this is not a criticism of the writers of these fanfics! These are simply my thoughts on the topic. I would love to hear thoughts on this.