getting fixated on something is funny because the first like week i have an insatiable need to tell everyone i know about it and spread the good word but by weeks 2 and 3 it becomes so intense and personal that even hearing it mentioned in public makes me sweat as if a dark secret was alluded to
"character deserved better" (but they were never going to get it that's the stuff great tragedies are made of) vs "character deserved better" (but the writers really blew it)
ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to deny location sharing and turn off personalized ads and reject all non-essential cookies and not set up siri and face ID
(long post about all the ways this season's writing failed samira mohan)
i gave the writers the benefit of the doubt all season that samira's characterization this season was off for a reason and that it would make sense and be resolved next season, but now i'm just disappointed in what they did to a beloved character for no reason.
samira's season 1 arc is about her finding her confidence and thriving under pressure. she pushes back against robby's criticism of her multiple times, telling him she wants to be here and can handle the job. she's a good teacher if a little blunt, providing both constructive criticism and encouragement to whitaker and santos. she's reminded by collins to listen to her patients because that's her superpower. she is a fearless patient advocate who is so aware of the structural issues her patients face. she comes alive during the MCI. she does a burr hole with an ez-io! she pulls the pigtail catheter! she's full of enthusiasm and passion for her work and ends the season being reminded that this job can't be her life and she has to learn to find balance.
and then season 2 gave us samira who is inexplicably back to being lost. despite being a senior resident, we don't see her teaching the way we see langdon, ellis, and others teaching. she barely interacts with the interns besides working with joy on orlando's case and signing off on ogilvie's triple a patient. samira doesn't call out ogilvie's behavior the way she would have. she neither picks up nor gets pulled in on cases that make sense for her - the woman with bulimia, the woman with pcos, howard knox.
we get her on orlando's case and that would make sense for her, but she seems to be completely unaware of the insurance issues which is so out-of-character for samira. it would have made more sense if the show presented it as tension with samira's own grief - that she can't see another girl lose her father, that she's determined to find a way to make the insurance work, that she will fight for her patients so spare them her own grief just as she fought for so many of her patients last season - but instead we just see samira being confused and not being able to connect with the diaz family in the way she did so easily with her patients last season.
we see her suggest the incarcerated patient, gus, find access to a blender. we don't see her involved in advocating for their patient detained by ice. we don't see any real reaction to ice from her despite her outburst at the cops and their treatment of a black woman last season.
when things get intense and orlando returns, i expected we would see her find her fire again. that she would once again thrive under pressure with that intense love for her patients, work herself to the bone trying to do everything to save him. instead she taps out and refuses to step in to help, despite robby and ellis pushing her to. but we know samira doesn't crack under pressure, she thrives under it!
season 1 samira tells us she's conducting research on racial disparities in the er; season 2 samira was just "part of a study" rather than having agency or being a lead. season 1 samira loves emergency medicine and complex cases; season 2 samira is considering a sports medicine fellowship that makes no sense for her. season 1 samira is "the smartest one here" and so committed to learning more and pushing herself; season 2 samira has apparently not considered any outside research or opportunities the way crus henderson has.
season 2 samira is full of missed opportunities. she could have been teaching the med students, she could have connected with javadi on the pressure from their mothers, she could have connected with roxie's sons about grief (or even again with javadi on the complexity of grief and parent relationships). she could have advocated for gus or parnita. she could have shut down ogilvie's comments about howard knox.
season 2 could have explored her anxiety in the context of her lack of balance. we could see her burned out from working too many doubles and still trying to give more, pouring from an empty cup, giving everything she has and still losing patients. she could still be struggling with her mother moving and selling the house and realizing she has no community to lean on, that she's lonely. robby could still be riding her because he fails to see she's moving faster or doing better the way he's got tunnel vision about so much of the ed.
instead. we get a version of samira who has lost what made her unique in the first place because the writers didn't know what to do with her. a verison of samira who barely gets screentime, and even when she does we don't get to go deep like we do our other characters. unless you're religiously watching interviews and reading behind-the-scenes, we don't get to explore and understand that she thought her panic attack was the same heart condition that killed her father. we don't get to understand she's mourning losing the house because it's the last place her father was alive. we don't get to even see her break down after orlando and the triple a patient. she gets no connection, no community, no attention.
and what felt like clumsy writing now feels intentional in the worst way. planning to push her out and write her off as just a shadow of the character we fell in love with season 1.
samira mohan you deserved better. (and so do you supriya ganesh)
the great thing about the pitt is that it's a show of infinite nuance where every character has moments in the right and in the wrong and no one is irredeemable but also no one is unassailable. the terrible thing about the pitt is that you have to watch people raised by the bad faith no nuance everything-contains-a-moral-failing social media landscape of the 2020s interact with it and enough of that will make you want to join robby and abbot on the roof
so fucking humbling to be like “no I like that character a normal amount” and then you can literally feel your heart rate spike at a mention of them like a dog that just heard the word “treat”
why go to the grocery store or to a restaurant when you can just get food delivered why go to the mall when you can get same day shipping on amazon why go to the library when you have kindle why make art when there’s ai why go to the cinema when you can stay at home and watch netflix. we are in a loneliness epidemic btw
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