i keep wondering why grief wasn’t explored more deeply in the pitt, or why dr. adamson’s shadow didn’t stay central in S2.
his death is clearly the starting point of robby’s distress in S1. he can’t process his grief, he feels guilty, and it completely shifts the dynamic of the department. obviously that’s on top of the already exhausting reality of being an ER health worker, but robby’s grief and guilt are really the core of his arc in S1.
so where did all of that go in S2 ? it feels completely absent.
people will probably argue that it was "resolved" at the end of S1 thanks to his conversations with dana and abbot, and sure, that would’ve worked if the show had only 1 season. given the constraints of the format, we would’ve accepted that they couldn’t push it further without breaking the "realistic" frame.
but the problem is : the show was planned to have multiple seasons, which radically changes the narrative expectations. and in S2, dr. adamson basically disappears, even though his absence is the core of robby’s distress. yes, other factors feed into it, but adamson’s death was presented as the root of the problem. so why isn’t it the focus anymore ? why isn’t robby’s grieving process more central to his path toward getting better ? why don’t we feel the weight of adamson’s absence ?
and more broadly, why isn’t grief more central in general ?
mohan and her father, santos and her friend, whitaker and his first patient, collins and her pregnancies, mel and her parents, jake and his girlfriend, the patients who had to face loss, abbot and his wife in S2, … grief was clearly woven into the show, partly because it’s an ER setting, but also because it shaped the characters’ arcs. and again, especially robby’s.
so why on earth does S2 portray robby as spiraling "into nothing" ? nothing’s addressed anymore. he’s just falling apart because he "works too much". and yes, that’s a valid reason.. but it wasn’t the one originally presented. at least not the main one. it was adamson’s death and the covid pstd.
where did that narrative thread go, the one about characters marked by different forms of grief, shaping how they work and how they relate to each other ?
not very structured or developed but it was on my mind
