You know, it’s odd. Everyone is hating on Robbie. Which is expected, I think, but it isn’t until just now that I realized that everything about the structure of Season 2 is designed to make us do that.
Season 1 we opened with the premise that this was an anniversary of him taking his mentor off of life support. It permeated every decision he made, every patient he saw, every bit of advice he gave. He was probably so cognizant of the fact that he was the mentor now, that he was alone. We watched him pass on Ho’oponopono, taught to him by Anderson, but his mentor was probably in a dozen or more small things he taught that day as well. That’s the way it works. We see it in Whitaker this season. He will probably pass on things that were from Robbie for his whole career, not knowing that Robbie got them from Anderson, who got them from his mentor, and so on. The legacy continues, and we saw Robbie building that last season.
We saw his PTSD, heard the tinnitus when he had a flashback, saw how unsettled pedes made him, saw exactly what he saw when he looked at the little animals. We were inside his head, seeing how much he cared, seeing how frustrated and worn out he was. We saw a deeply flawed but still good person, who made up for his shortcomings however he could, and ran a tight enough ship that it handled a MCI pretty darn well. We saw him lean on Dana, and lift her up as the smartest and wisest person and the reason the ED could function. We saw him say to always listen to nurses. We saw him mentor effectively most of the time, and try to fix his mistakes when he made them.
This season, we ride into the ED with Robbie and find out he’s leaving. This is his last day before sabbatical. And we see his discomfort with Al-Hashimi, his anger at Langdon, we see him react, but we are crucially missing his perspective. We don’t know how the last 10 months have been for him.
What happened with Jake? Jake, who was his friend, practically a stepson, someone he went to concerts with, who would come into the ER and hang out with the nurses while Robbie worked? Jake, whose girlfriend died, and Robbie was unable to save her? Jake, who lashed out in his grief and told Robbie that they weren’t friends, and they weren’t father and son, and that he didn’t want to see him? Ten months isn’t very long. It’s possible that Jake still won’t speak to him, and it was Jake’s condemnation that originally sent Robbie to the roof in Season 1.
Robbie found out he’d lost a chance to be a father, lost a relationship with someone he considered a son, suffered through a horribly traumatic MCI, and suffered a deep betrayal from someone he mentored, all on the anniversary of the worst day of his life. And we went through that with him. We saw how hard it hit.
Season 2 has us on the outside. We don’t know his life recently, only that it has been bad and he wants a sabbatical. Robbie, the workaholic? Gone for three months? Fishy, but okay. We’ve only known him for a day, after all.
But everyone else shares the disbelief. They ask him about it constantly. They ask about his motorcycle. They ask about his mental health. And he rebuffs every one of them.
Remember, he rebuffed their concern in Season 1 as well, but we saw his flashbacks. The audience was the one trusted person that saw the inside of Dr. Michael Robinovitch’s head.
But in season 2 we are outsiders just like everyone else. We don’t see his thoughts, we don’t feel as much empathy because we aren’t being shown what he is thinking, we can’t hear the ringing during a flashback or the thumping of his heart as he hears someone get asked if they have ever thought of hurting themselves.
We can sympathize if we are paying attention, but it is still so easy to feel angry at how despicable he is acting as he burns bridge after bridge, as he can’t seem to stop himself from making painful digs at people who deserve nurturing and kindness, as he keeps acting aloof and annoyed at things that he should care about.
I guess what I’m saying is that we are angry at Dr. Robby, and that is the entire point of the way that the show has been framed this season. Dr. Robbie has shut everyone out to a level so far beyond where he was at last season, and the narrative is showing us that by shutting us out in the same way. Dr. Robbie is so shut down that not even the audience is allowed in.
