Hey can I ask what do u like about Yolanda and do you think we going get more background story in s3 for her ? 🥰.
absolutely, you can! i love getting to love on yolanda garcia.
a few things i like about everyone’s favorite trauma surgery fellow:
1) her competence and her confidence
yolanda garcia is skilled and aware of it. she makes others aware of it, makes even her superiors respect and revere her. as she should!!
even when she turns out to be wrong—which season 2 leaned somewhat heavily into for all other disciplines, as if to prove the supposed superiority of emergency medicine—she retains that confidence. she doesn’t doubt, doesn’t let it delay or affect patient care.
2) her regard for her patients
say what you want about her ribbing with other doctors and flirting with santos as she works—yolanda garcia puts her patients first. she introduces herself to conscious patients, seeks to reassure them when appropriate, advocates for pain management, and acts. i think she is very procedure-oriented, going by the book, and sometimes that approach is limiting, but it is what is proven. she only wants what she thinks—and what evidence suggests—is best for those she treats.
3) that she knows what she wants and stands by it
yolanda garcia wants what she considers the best course of action or treatment, and she doesn’t back down from it. she keeps advocating for it, even as the ER cowboys advocate for what are often riskier or less supported alternatives.
she also seemingly wants to stay out of workplace drama. she maintains this across seasons with santos and langdon, only really engaging with it when—as far as she understands, as she did not know the validity of santos’ suspicions—patient safety and comfort are on the line.
of course, yolanda garcia also wants trinity santos. even after scalpelgate. even after many months of a situationship.
4) her boundary setting
yolanda garcia sets boundaries in an environment where boundaries are not welcome. does she set and emphasize these boundaries in the kindest, most productive way? no, absolutely not. we all watched stairwellgate. but i do think choosing to set a boundary and sticking to it, even when faced with repeated resistance, is admirable. and incredibly important in a profession where boundaries hardly exist and one already takes on immense responsibility for others’ well-being.
5) her care for santos
whether her and trinity’s arrangement is truly just casual sex or there’s some conflict of undiscussed or unrealized feelings, yolanda garcia cares for trinity santos. as a person, personally—not just as a body for sex or as a coworker. throughout season 2, she repeatedly brings up trinity unprompted, addresses her in an uncharacteristically soft voice, and immediately answers when trinity addresses her (though she might continue to avoid eye contact while doing so). subtext suggests that yolanda has perhaps tried to show such care directly and been rejected— “you know, you can call me just to say hi sometimes,” “we’re just keeping it casual, right?”, etc.
and, when trinity shares some of her troubles with whitaker, his first counterargument is “garcia likes you.” season 2 episode 1 suggests that man has witnessed more than his fair share of garsantos interactions, so this isn’t an unfounded claim. it also does not fit his character to simply offer garcia’s name up for the sake of it.
the stairwell scene is painful. to watch and for trinity to hear. nonetheless, i do not think it is evidence of yolanda not caring. i think her very procedure-based, evidence-based, solution-seeking approach leads her to automatically dismiss feelings in favor of what she believes to be facts (trinity being a pariah because she reported langdon vs. because she doesn’t “play well with others”). trinity putting on her “big girl panties” and “call[ing] a therapist” are then yolanda’s proposed solutions—ones that are delivered poorly but still indicate a degree of care for trinity’s personal and professional success and well-being—when she cannot offer trinity the support she seeks.
6) that she is a little bit of an asshole, sometimes
it’s attractive and entertaining, and yolanda garcia has earned the right to be a little bit of an asshole, sometimes. undergrad, med school, three to seven years of residency, securing a fellowship, being damn good at her job… she deserves to be an asshole. i love women in male dominated fields!!!
7) her use of nicknames
“ER ken,” “odds,” “noob,” “farm boy,” “white chocolate,” “rabbit-bitch,” “dr. wishful thinking,” “sadness,” the list goes on and on… all iconic. even “nepo baby” was funny, though the context may have rendered it somewhat cruel.
the nicknames also reveal commonality with trinity. yolanda also seeks connection through teasing and banter, perhaps not knowing how to otherwise do so.
8) her little quips and general nerd status
yolanda garcia walks into a room with the express purpose of delivering an iconic one-liner. “what’s up, party people?” “and i might have a three-way with madonna” and so on. her patterns of speech and the metaphors she employs are nerdy, too. a non-nerd doesn’t regularly address their coworkers—medical professionals, mind you—as “party people,” make references to macgyver, and say “still bleeding like a stuck pig.” nerd. yolanda garcia is a nerd, despite whatever air of superiority she assumes.
9) that she is inconsistent and flawed
consistency is boring. perfection is impossible to achieve. yolanda garcia is neither, and so she is human. real.
(i do chalk many of these inconsistencies and flaws up to season 2’s writing, which itself was inconsistent and flawed and reflected many biases—so i do not agree with or appreciate all of them individually, nor do i think they were all intentional. yolanda garcia deserved more care and better writing, but that is a belief that can coexist with appreciation for the fact that she is flawed.)
there is much more i love about her character, but these are some of the main things. thank you for the excuse to talk about my favorite.
as for whether or not we’ll get more of her backstory in season 3, i do not think so. yolanda garcia exists on the periphery of the show and that doesn’t lend itself to revealing her history, her feelings, her intentions, etc. maybe we’ll get a line or two with a new fun fact, like the implied knife collection, but i doubt there will be anything more.
I’m trying remember if only Commander Up and Boy Jerry were sliced in half like a hot dog and not a hamburger or were there other characters in Starkid musicals that were also split into two symmetrical halves. Because I need to know how many nickels I get.
origamiaround
stormborns
gummygunk
izzy806
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
