I really love The Pitt. Finally, a show that portraits people as they are. Flawed and containing multitudes.
The more I'm side-eyeing some fandom takes, that have crossed my various socials. "Robby is so bad" this, "Langdon doesn't deserve to come back" that, "Santos is a fragile snowflake", "Mohan's character is not recurring in season 3 because her actress is a POC". etc.
I've got some thoughts...
For me Robby is a man in is fifties on the edge. It cannot even be spelt out more openly in the show. He wants to leave on sabbatical, but even he doesn't know if he'll come back.
Yes, he's got suicidal ideation. Yes, he never got over that trauma of having to switch of the ECMO for his mentor and predecessor. Or the trauma of not being able to save his pseudo-stepson's girlfriend on the anniversary of Adamson's death. He's got PTSD in spades. Yes, he doesn't want to feel this way anymore. But he also has this extreme sense of responsibility, that now pulls at him. And I don't think he really actively wants to die.
At the beginning of the season, I was clearly in the camp "Robby in a motorcycle accident in the last 3 hours for 1000, Alex". Now, I’m no longer so sure.
He'll want to be there for Duke, that's why he pushed so hard for immediate treatment.
He sees the cracks in Al-Hashimi. And doesn’t know if he can entrust the Pitt to her.
He knows Dana is one more incident away from becoming a big problem for the hospital.
He is scared for Langdon and a possible relapse, even if he can't forgive him yet for becoming an addict in the first place - and stealing the drugs from the hospital. And this dichotomy is why he can't stand to be in the same room with him.
He sees the brilliancy in Mohan's work, but also that she has never been a good fit for the fast-paced specialty of emergency medicine.
And I really truly believe, that in his heart of heart, he loves his job. He is a brilliant doctor, and a great teacher. He has just been through too much shit to handle on his own, and he doesn't know how to ask for and accept help offered.
Which he also is aware off, or he would be able to meet Abbot's eyes straight on and lie to his face. Who, I think will play a crucial role in whatever happens at the end of this long shift to Robby - and as stills have shown, in season 3 Robby (to the surprise of no one, because honestly he is the closest this ensemble show has to THE main character) will be there.
I think Langdon is at risk of relapse. Not because he might have pulled a muscle during that one transfer, but because he is 10 months sober and back in the environment, that first let to him taking Benzos. Which anyone, who ever heard anything about addiction, would know, is not a good place to be.
Additionally, I think there is something going on in his private life. Ten months of rehab and no income might have put a major strain on his marriage. The way Langdon is seen to check his phone kind of gives me that vibe.
Still I hope that he manages to go on without a relapse. And that he starts getting back into the groove without the self-doubt and hesitation. But to that end Santos AND Al-Hashimi need to back off.
Especially since I don’t think that he simply got away with it. He went to rehab, put in the work (still does), and was on unpaid leave for 10 months, and while Robby did not call the cops on him, you can't tell me that there is no way, that the upper echelon of the hospital doesn’t know why a resident suddenly pauses their residency. And there are programs in place for staff with addiction, as told by Robby when he confronted Langdon, including mandatory drug testing, that I’m sure he has now to adhere to.
Which neatly brings me to Santos. She throws stones while sitting in the glass house herself. Self-harm triggers the same center in the brain as addiction. And she took that scalpel not for use on a patient, or she wouldn't have been secretive about it.
Is she right to criticize the way Langdon talked to her during that first shift. Yes, without a doubt. But speaking from a place in the real world here, he wasn't as demeaning as she makes it out to have been. Especially when taking into account, that she came to her first shift a bit like Ogilvie - with a check list of cool things she really wanted to do. Langdon as her assigned senior was the one who had to wrangle that. Like any other senior would have done in his stead. Again, not saying that he couldn’t have done so in a different way.
Hell, even Abbot had a moment of "you should never have done that" with her. But since it was an inventive thing in a high-stakes situation during the MCI it was only an add-on to a compliment by him, who as a combat medic probably had to be a hell of a lot inventive too.
She is still thrill-seeking the interesting cases with the most interesting procedures. And I would not be surprised if we eventually learn that she originally wanted a residency in surgery, but was matched with her second choice. Which also would explain her latching onto Garcia the way she has from the first moment. Apart from physical attraction.
Santos has fixated on her problems with Langdon. Even Garcia calls her out on her talking about it again and again during Langdon's ten-month absence.
So, I guess, what I'm saying is, her problem with Langdon is not so much that he got away with it – which again, he didn't. It's her not dealing with problems in a healthy manner, and him kind of mirroring that.
Leaves the news of Supriyah Ganesh not returning for season 3 and thus the exit of her character Samira Mohan. Which is not, because she happens to be a person of color, but because that was always the way her character was going.
This fixation is a problem. Her inability with time management is a problem too. It’s not an accident the show told us repeatedly that she is behind in her charting.
Mohan is an R4, her residency will end during the hiatus. The show has shown her looking to find a field she wants to apply for a fellowship in. And the show has been very clear about her not be the right fit for emergency medicine. She is thorough with her patients in a way that an ED doctor cannot be. It makes her an exceptional doctor, but in a different field. As have Al-Hashimi and Robby independently from each other confirmed, she would do well in geriatrics. The application she puts in the shredder was for radiology and is only discarded because there is too much competition. Initially she had planned to move East to live with her mother and work there, so her leaving was always a forgone conclusion.
Does Mohan’s actress happen to be a POC, and thus the second POC of the main ensemble cast to leave the show. Yes. But that is happenstance, not method.
Heather Collins too was an R4. Thus, her residency also just came to an end, and in universe she moved to Portland to work there and adopted a child. Representatives of the actress as well as former co-stars have debunked rumors as to other reasons of her leaving the show, thusly I will accept the stated reason of Tracy Ifeachor not returning due to the story line.
So, I guess, I just want to reiterate that this show is a show that shows people. The good, the bad, the ugly. Our favs are flawed, as they should be, because people are complex beings.
This show was developed to highlight the stress of working in an emergency department and what it does to the health care professionals as realistically as possible in a TV format. That’s exactly what it does. And I love it and its creators for it.
