been turning the decision to have this season take place on the 4th of july of all days around in my head. the pitt is not a show that does anything incidentally; it is exacting in its precision. if they wanted summer-specific storylines they could have chosen any other day, but they picked the 4th in particular—and it becomes the lens through which everything else is filtered.
because what is it, exactly, that 4th of july represents as a holiday—what’s really being celebrated?
it’s a celebration of america at its most idealized: freedom, opportunity, the belief that this is a place where you can make something of yourself—where you are given the chance to build and to belong. and that belief matters; it’s one people have taken seriously enough to stake their lives—and their families’ futures—on.
america the brave. america the beautiful. america the free. america the great.
the pitt takes that promise—this myth of america—and holds it up to the light, and refuses to let you look away from all the truths it reveals.
the 4th celebrates the unalienable right to liberty; orlando diaz represents what it costs. brought in following an injury at his construction job, he is ultimately diagnosed with diabetic ketoacidosis. diaz is a working man who provides for his family, who has done everything ‘right.’ it’s revealed that he lost his job during the pandemic, and with it, his insurance; without coverage, he began rationing his insulin—which is what ultimately landed him in the ER this day.
he and his wife both work—together, they earn just enough to be disqualified from medicaid, and not nearly enough to afford treatment. he is urged to stay until his labs normalize; the hospital works to reduce costs, offers what it can, but it isn't enough. he is already drowning in medical debt, and he has another job to get to, so he leaves against medical advice.
diaz returns later in the season—unconscious, with a severe skull fracture, and brain swelling from an unwitnessed fall at his security job; it is heavily implied he tried to take his own life. diaz does not exist outside the american promise—he exists inside it, at the point where it breaks down. and that is what makes his story so pointed: on a day meant to celebrate liberty, he is forced into decisions shaped entirely by cost, revealing how that liberty is structured in practice.
america has also defined itself as a nation of immigrants—a place of sanctuary, a refuge for those who arrive with nary but a hope for a better life. it is a claim the pitt does not let go unexamined.
pranita is brought into the hospital by two ICE agents, her shoulder injured and her movement controlled. from the moment she enters the ED, she is not simply a patient but a body under supervision: monitored during examination, denied privacy, and repeatedly refused contact with her family despite her requests. even care comes with conditions—medical attention and surveillance occupying the same space.
in a similar vein, the augustin siblings show what remains after ICE has already passed through. their parents were deported after a routine immigration hearing, leaving an older sister to care for her younger brother while trying to balance school and work. what is left is a family broken into pieces—life reorganized around absence: a household where a child is forced into adult responsibilities without the space to grieve, and survival has become constant improvisation. the damage doesn't end at the point of enforcement; it extends into every day that follows. what does it mean for a country to celebrate its purported immigrant origins while actively criminalizing its immigrants in the same breath?
the pursuit of happiness is another promise woven into the declaration; in america, it has come to mean something very specific: the protestant work ethic, the american dream, the idea that hard work leads somewhere. that sacrifice, endurance, and consistency will eventually translate into stability, reward—a life that becomes livable. in its modern form, this becomes hustle culture: productivity as virtue, rest as laziness, work as something that should extend beyond the limits of the body itself. the grind never stops.
debbie cohen is what that promise looks like operationalized. an overworked waitress, seen and discharged—sent back to a job that has no room for her absence. rest itself becomes a kind of risk. she returns only when the damage has become irreversible: necrotizing fasciitis spreading from her foot to her leg. even then, the calculus that governs her life does not pause. before she has even been told the full truth of what is happening to her body, her boss calls; the implication is clear: come back or lose your job.
there is something almost too deliberate about the symmetry—the body consumed internally by infection while externally still being claimed by labor. the system cannot afford her humanity, only her output. debbie cohen is not an aberration within this logic. she is its endpoint—and still, the pitt has more to say.
in one of the final scenes, some of the hospital staff gather on the roof as fireworks begin over the city. chairs are pulled out and beers are opened—for many, it’s likely one of the first times they’ve been able to breathe fresh air, a moment of stillness after a day structured entirely by urgency.
earlier grief remains present without resolution—patients like louie, whose presence is folded into memory through something as simple as his love of fireworks. the roof does not function as escape from the system; it is simply another vantage point within it.
when perlah begins to cry and dana holds her, the gesture doesn’t resolve anything. it is recognition—of what was lost today, and of what will be waiting again tomorrow. for them, this day is not exceptional. it is just another shift.
but here is the celebration anyway! the fireworks, the music, america staging itself—watched by people who know, criminally well, exactly how much its systems fail the ones who need them most. all that noise, all that color, the spectacle of 'greatness' america is known for—and still, none of it loud enough to drown out the hollowness underneath.
a holiday about freedom placed directly above systems where freedom is conditional—on insurance, on documentation, on whether you can afford to be sick, on whether your body can afford to stop.
the pitt doesn't need to explicitly reject the holiday; it simply places the conditions of care alongside the language of celebration and leaves them there, unreconciled. what the season makes visible is not simply that america's promise is broken—but that it continues to be performed in full view of its own failures.
listen I love the wha girls they’re amazing and wonderful and they will grow up to do amazing things however, unfortunately I believe that there is no way in hell they are properly taking care of brushbuddy he is being kept alive through the sheer force of will of a parent Qifrey actually reading up on the animal his new daughter haphazardly brought in and figuring out a nutritional and habitat set up to keep him healthy and (mostly) mentally sane yk
i feel like the entire premise of veilguard is such a... flop in comparison to the setup of trespasser, haha
like ok. you end trespasser with either:
high approval solas is grimly going "ough. i must destroy your world, but i would treasure the chance to be wrong again :/" and seems to at least somewhat hope the inquisitor can find another way to do [whatever magic bullshit he's doing] that's less destructive. so you get the sense that the solution to this will involve finding something solas doesn't know. he gives you a decent amount of information on his plans, and genuinely seems to regret what he sees as the necessity of them.
OR
solas is pretty cold and unflinching, and fucks off with only a vague hint of his plans that he's going to destroy the world. and now you know that he has very little sympathy for mortal people, and he's got his huge pervasive spy network, and massive magical power. so he's a threat! a huge, scary threat, bc he has all these fingers in every organization, and clearly has very few moral compunctions beyond a kind of bare minimum "eh, i don't want this world to suffer unnecessarily before i have to destroy and rebuild it :/" type of mindset.
but then they don't... deliver on either of these?
like the opening showdown at solas' ritual is such a "we tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!" type of situation lmao. after 10 Whole Years, nobody in the inquisition learned anything new about solas' plans or motives? the entire double blight thing and the purpose of his ritual is a complete surprise to them bc they never... managed to find ANY information on this? if "archdemons are sealing the black city and it opens after the blights" was a common fan theory and implied in previous games even before being confirmed, and the entire premise of the inquisition post-trespasser was "we're going to turn over every stone and figure out what this guy is planning" then how did they not find anything actually useful to bring to bear against him, besides varric's somewhat unconvincing ted talk?
and i don't think this is a "well, solas is just SO secretive and SO great at hiding info, that no one ever guessed what was going on😌" type of thing, bc... the entire point of inquisition was showing that "divinity" is a construct, and everyone is fallible? so it's actually counterproductive to that theme to show him as having this infallible knowledge that no one else in the world has? no one else in thedas ever thought "hm, there are 7 gates to the black city, in the well known chant of light that i read every day, and there are 7 archdemons! why do these numbers match?" even as a conspiracy theory? no one in the inquisition went "hm, weird that solas got so upset about the archdemons when he was with us! what was he thinking about?" to investigate as a lead? the grey wardens have never looked into "hey, what does happen after we run out of blights?" as a question? obviously blackwall would not know if they had, but they're not stupid, they should have been curious? the elves and the dwarves know absolutely nothing useful about their own divine/historical figures that are locked in the black city/generating blight?
and solas is SUCH a dick to grey wardens and dwarves and dalish and tons of other people! and the entire point of his character is to show that his wisdom is limited by his prejudices and ego and isolation! and it is likely for the wardens and dwarves and dalish to have actually useful information that he never had access to, but the inquisition could get to, if it looked. bc these factions are far more layered and important than what solas sees them as. but now the conclusion is... well.... no one but solas knew jack shit about these topics. so, was he technically correct in dismissing everyone else from the start(?) low approval and xenophobia win(?) never listen to anybody if you think they're lesser than you, bc they don't actually know anything useful(?) 😭
and the entire premise of the high approval inquisitor/solas relationship is them proving a lot of his biases wrong! they're not intentionally setting out on a mission of "i am going to force this 10 000 year old sunk cost fallacy immortal to reckon with the fact that i'm a person with equal rights to him", but they do so regardless! varric nearly wins the whole "what if you were a lone survivor on a desert island" argument, without even understanding what they were arguing about! so, if they're actually setting out with the goal to change his mind, and with knowledge of who he actually is besides "weird hermit with bad opinions on every race including his own," then... they should continue that thread and have the inquisition make a genuinely compelling attempt to show him information he doesn't have?
and also, i don't think this necessarily has to work! if they need to keep him as a villain, it would be interesting if solas, even if given some new info - still tragically refused, became as prideful in his own ideology as the evanuris, and continued on his same antagonistic course, and then had to be stopped by force. and it would be EXTREMELY heartwrenching if he killed varric after that genuine attempt! but the fact that it's never even tried is such a ???. why even dangle the option in previous games, then?
but ok! let's say they wanted to get rid of the high approval "prove me wrong" vibe entirely, and just make solas a straight out villain.
he has no agents! no schemes! no terrifying dream sequences! his only crime onscreen is... accidentally killing varric in a somewhat dumb way that makes both of them look bad? tfw varric, an extremely charming, eloquent guy from the most mugging-prone city in thedas, decides to do a "your plans are bad, bc even the ones that were successful and objectively decent, sucked. stop doing anything" ted talk, to his friend that he otherwise has good success in arguing with. and then wanders into melee range. and then solas, 10 000 year old magical being who doesn't even want to exist in a physical form, while holding a priceless mystical artifact, decides to stab him with the artifact. instead of casting Any Spell. i would totally buy it if solas blasted varric into a wall and broke his neck, or turned him into a statue, but knife fighting each other like level 2 rogues is.... cringe for both of them 😔
and then the only scheme solas has is luring rook into a prison that... they escape within weeks? he doesn't even give them fucked up nightmares or anything? for some reason, despite making them hallucinate varric while he's trying to foment regret in them, he has varric be... fairly nice to them? why? make fake varric guilt trip them constantly instead to intensify their regrets, if that's his angle? guilt trip them about releasing the blights, and then he could even parallel their regret about that, with his regret for destroying arlathan? if he's supposed to be cold-bloodedly manipulating rook to escape, then commit to it! he's SO useless in general!
i was expecting some horrible, galaxy brain schemes of making the tevinter and qunari armies fight each other to cover for his agents. assassinations, blackmail, court intrigue, idk. stuff that really makes you think about how brutal he must have been during his rebellion, and how easy it is for him to slip from "arguing with iron bull that people shouldn't relish in killing bc it's wrong to devalue anyone's life" to "welp. time to get my hands bloody again to do the job :/" dread wolf mode. but instead he's just in a shitty fade terrarium for most of the game? what was the point of hyping him up as this ruthless mastermind with tons of hidden followers, then?
and at the end, rook can... punch him out? the guy who was turning people to stone by looking at them, before? this is just boring fjdhdjdjsf. my boy should at least get a boss battle 😭
i believe one of the most frustrating parts of being a swiftie is that there is no ‘safe space’. no escape from the snark, hate, etc. because no one online (and irl) has any boundaries and always wants to spoil our enjoyment.
I never even really thought about it when the finale first dropped and I became a little hater and all but I’ve been thinking lately and like. What did Abolish even DO bro 😭 “my job is to help good vampires and put a stop to the evil ones” and throughout the entire series the only vampires he targets are Shelby and Pyro while the only vampires he helped were Owen and Scott 😭 go back to doing paperwork man 😭
Hey. Pitt writers. You can't explore how a character's suicidal ideation causes him to disregard others by having the show itself disregard them.
This season felt like a lot of navel gazing from Robby, not because of what he himself did (centering his own perspective, being abrasive to his colleagues, etc.--which WOULD be interesting to explore!) but because of how the show on a meta level did the exact same thing. Samira's last spoken scene was her apologizing to Robby; we didn't get to see her decide on her future plans, or even privately process her emotions about her future/how Robby treated her, which makes her apology feel less like evidence that she's been beaten down and more like the narrative forgiving Robby's treatment of her. Baran's last spoken scene was Robby threatening her career, and then her call to her husband, which would have explored HER, and the effects Robby/the job had on her, was cut. Langdon's last scene was telling Robby that he needed to get help, rather than expressing his own feelings or getting closure--or even choosing to let go because Robby (in his current state) isn't healthy for him to interact with. Abbot and Duke and Dana and Cassie and Caleb all pretty much only existed to express how much they cared about Robby; Cassie and Dana get almost no resolution for the arcs they do have. (Not to mention those who aren't connected with him, like Digby or the man who died in chairs, being used as tone-deaf attempts at comedic relief.)
The final scene literally has Robby holding an abandoned baby and saying he wishes someone would swaddle him--the show being seemingly unaware that he has in fact been swaddled all season. It could be interesting if they had critiqued his perceived abandonment--and even drawn a parallel with Trinity!--but instead this moment of further self-pity and self-centeredness is framed as a genuinely touching resolution that parallels Robby with the baby (like, I'm sorry, but this 50-year-old man who's been horrible to people all season is not the equivalent of an innocent abandoned infant). But the show doesn't remotely feel that this connection is too much, because it overly identifies itself with Robby, leaving an unbalanced and poorly paced story that feels saturated with pity for an extremely flawed main character. And that's just not something you can write a season around.
why did it have to be totk that i hate more than i have ever hated a piece of media and WHY is it also the thing that just cant stop getting new shit to reheat my hatred >:(((((
sometimes I get so accustomed to these little online circles like tumblr where genAI is widely considered a problem that I forget that your Average Joe is completely enamored with the slop, and then some little thing will happen that reminds me of that fact like a slap in the face.
"but I need ChatGPT to do this and do that! I need it to write emails fast and summarize everything and give me suggestions for where to go and what to read and to write my papers and do my research and—" NO!!! NO YOU DON'T!!! YOU HAVE YOUR OWN HUMAN BRAIN FOR THAT YOU DO NOT NEED A GLORIFIED AUTOCOMPLETE MACHINE TO RUN YOUR LIFE PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU
