Okay bear with me, because I am still working through this whole thought and the implications of it.
When s1 of The Pitt ended, I took the ending of Jack Abbot's arc to be a positive one.
The man was going through an existential crisis, he started the season saying he struggled to remember why he was coming back to his work. The man ended the season with what looked like clarity, a new found sense of purpose, a reaffirmation in the foundation of his world view. How can that be anything but positive?
He has turned a corner in his on going mental health journey, that is progress right?
I feel now, after s2, that I bought into the same narrative that Jack Abbot has sold to himself and have been chewing on that ever since.
Because, actually, the MCI at the end of s1 might not have been good for Jack either.
Look at his speech to Robby.
Yes I know it has been analysed to death and beyond, but bear with me, because this is not going to be a line by line deconstruction.
What is the vibe of that speech?
To me it comes off as strongly militaristic.
Which, sure, Jack is a veteran, it makes sense for him to fall back onto military words and framing, but the more I think about it and the more the militaristic vibe of it becomes one that does not jive with the civilian life he is supposed to be currently leading.
He does not talk about falling back on medicine when people are dying around you, he talks about falling back on medicine when the world has gone mad and people are killing each other around you.
He talks about himself and Robby being "the bees that protect the hive" but that metaphor (as much as I do love it) is a far more aggressive / warrior image than I think applies to them.
They are not combat medics in active action, they are the hospital behind the metaphorical safe lines that focuses on saving / healing thr wounded of the hive, they are not frontline troops. They are brought people after things have happened and while they are, of course, in the thick of it they are there in a different way.
If they had been EMTs on scene, or doctors pulling a shift at a medical tent at the festival getting conscripted / offering themselves up to triage patients, with gunshot wounds going on in the back of the scenes and people being brought to them after getting stampeded on, the speech would have been the same.
Might have even been more appropriate too.
But this is not me saying the writing is bad or that Jack is wrong. This is me saying that those sort of circumstances is where Jack's brain went during the MCI.
Back to military, back to war, back to being where the bullet were whizzing past him as he went to grab soldiers and apply what first aid he could before sending them upstairs / medevaced to where other doctors could finish the job he started.
Possibly, and of course this is all speculation on my part, back to when he personally last felt for sure he had clarity and purpose, back when the world had gone mad but in a way that made sense to him, where the world narrowed down to just the medicine and the medicine saw him through, helped him keep his sanity.
So is it a surprise to find that he has joined SWAT / TEMS in s2?
It kinda was, to me, but that was because I had, as mentioned above, bought Jack's own narrative to himself and saw him as doing better than he was. To be fair to me and him, the man is clearly good at performing socially in a way that makes him look like he has his shit perfectly together.
He masks like the best of us, I will give him that.
This does not mean that SWAT / TEMS is good for him or a good choice.
Especially for a man who is an amputee and, given the general state and mindset I have seen and been told exists in the american police institution, had to pass some thoroughly vigorous physical testing to qualify but qualify he did.
That is bound to feel good, both in terms of feeling able bodied and in terms of endorphines from all the gym activity and in terms of his self image of himself and self esteem.
I am sure the superficial comraderie that is for sure happening between him and the teams (military style bantering, training together, feeling part of the unit, going out for beers or drinks after a good shift) he works with also feels good to him.
It harken back to when he was in the army, it feels a bit like being in there still, like having an unit. He has his nightcrawlers in the hospital and his battle buddies outside of it.
The world is still going mad, but now it is in a way that is familiar, he is acting on and against it in a way that feels purposeful, that Jack probably sees as not only socially acceptable but also as praise worthy in a community sense.
But what it also is doing is taking him back to his younger days and the Army, via putting himself directly in arms way to cart the wounded out and back to the protected area. He is now a bee that protects the hive.
He could have done something similar but (relatively, when compared to going in with the SWAT) less dangerously by taking up EMT shifts, but I think him choosing to either take an offer (they saw him in action during the MCI, someone might have thought it worth it to extend an offer) or put himself up for this reflects what his mental state is and what he is, possibly subconsciously, chasing.
He can say he has dealt with his demons, but he hasn't not really. If anything, he has done the opposite of that and has embraced some of them and invited them back in his own life.
I do appreciate Robby, even in the middle of his own crisis, silently calling fucking bullshit on that and Jack relenting to acknowledge "It's a process", but that Jack thought he could come out and say so with his full chest also tells me that that is a lie he has sold himself.
He has not only stalled in his mental health journey but possibly even backtracked on it and taken some steps back.
And this is very interesting to me and worth chewing on.
