FRANK LANGDON THE MAN THAT YOU ARE.
This is essentially my own case study on Frank Langdon, the EDâs golden boy fallen from grace.
In the first season weâre introduced to Frank, and he immediately reads as this quite cocky, quite handsome senior resident. Heâs extremely sure of himself, which honestly he should be, heâs a great doctor and a surprisingly great teacher, even if he comes off abrasive to some. Frank acts like your typical golden boy, and itâs easy to assume that itâs been like this his whole life. The nurses joke about him being an asshole, Collins makes a comment about him being an asshole, and he does in fact make quite a few assholish remarks to his peers. He says thanks princess for her âbeautiful blessingâ and says namaste, he makes a comment about how Collins was supposed to be the genius so why doesn't she know more languages, and it's very clear he thinks highly of himself the way he tells Santos and Whitiker to parse through the 77 languages from Pakistan because he's busy... saving lives.
All this to say, Frank makes these comments in jest. Which is highlighted most obviously when he verbally spars with Yoyo, who seems to volley them right back at him. You can tell that hes having fun with this dynamic, and is very comfortable with his place in the ER as the sarcastic, over achieving senior resident who is really fucking good at what he does. The only moment he breaks from this mold is when he notices post crike, that Mel seems uncomfortable. She makes a comment when he asks if she's okay, and she responds with "as long as you two are done fighting." Yoyo laughs it off and mentions they're not fighting, just playing, and continues to needle Mel later into the shift in a similar way, despite her outright saying it made her uncomfy. Frank, on the other hand, picks up Mel's discomfort and immediately shifts his demeanor around her, not once going after her the way he does with the others, even the day one med students. Even the joke he does make around her, the infamous captain scurvy line which he does see through to the end, he takes a beat for her to understand the joke while maintaining his usual air of confidence. She ends up rewarding him with the "another joke? its a good one," comment, and I think in that moment Frank is like a dog with a new treat, not fully understanding why this particular praise hits so differfent. But from that point on, he is nothing but tender with her.
Franks general demeanor to me is extremely recognizable, and I think its fair to deduce, especially with his comment to Mohan about how the average ED doc gets bounced around to a new task every three minutes, and they all stay because they have ADHD holds more truth than even he knows. It seems very clear to me that all of season one, Frank is masking in a way that has clearly kept his head afloat his whole life. I believe that Frank learned at a young age what things worked for him and what things didn't. He's a good looking white man, and its been insinuated he played sports in school. Even if he was a bit nerdy, and didn't necessarily "get with girls" (I subscribe to this mostly because I believe he was raised fairly strictly catholic, that man oozes catholic guilt to me.) I think he adapted fairly quickly as a kid when it came to what norms were socially acceptable. Most ADHD kids who aren't diagnosed young do this exact thing, quickly learn to adapt and perform for others around them, and any positive feedback gets run through our system as an automatic coping mechanism that works. Pair this with Franks naturally good looks, and I think he learned to be the handsome charming golden boy at a pretty young age.
I think in many ways we're all performers, but its this performance of his that landed him so squarely in the roll of the classic nuclear family. The timeline we're working with suggests that he and Abby got pregnant for the first time during covid, and between that Hell and working in an ER unmedicated I cannot imagine the wedge that was driven between them. This along with the fact that it seems like Frank has never really unmasked before, leads me to believe that that man has almost no idea who he is *without* the mask. This has been fine for him his whole life, because the job he works and the pace he moves at seldom leaves him time to deal with any of it. Then, his life crumbles around him
Enter dr. Melissa King. Mel had to grow up extremely fast, which is ironic for how much she gets infantalized. But in a similar way to Frank, shes giving undiagnosed neurotypical child who shape shifted to survive. In her case, losing her parents at 20 and becoming a full time caregiver, her objectives were less about fitting in and more about making sure her sisters needs were taken care of, resulting in a very different personality, one that seems much more unmasked than Franks (not necessarily for a lack of trying.) When he meets her for the first time, and picks up on Mels energy, its like he is instantly captivated with her and trying to understand how she works. She's not like anyone hes ever met, and it seems she has no problem bluntly saying how she feels. I think this is so earth shattering to Frank, because its something he never even considered he could do, let alone experienced in this setting. There is something real and raw about Mel King, there is no mask in place, even if she gets left in the lurch because of it.
He spends the beginning of the day gathering bits of pieces of information on her, after quickly deciding that she's talented enough and eager enough to take under his wing. He asks her questions about her time at the VA, about her sister, about how she know how to talk to their autistic patient, all in what seem like attempts to figure out if this earnestness is authentic or not. This brings us to the scene on the breakroom floor, after Frank forces her to take a break after the screaming woman. They discuss how the drowned girl was particularly hard for her, and he empathizes with her, saying she's not alone in having this moment, the "am I cut out for this" moment, and he stresses to her that having people like her in the ED is very rare, and they need them BADLY. It seems that by this point, Frank has drawn his conclusions about Mel and no doubt sees her as someone special to have around. Add this to the fact that he immediately identifies that picking 1000 pieces of gravel out of a wound would be a "zen exercise," to her, and it almost feels like Frank is recognizing a piece of himself in her, even if its subconscious.
Now, even after Frank gets caught diverting meds, he ends up returning to the ED against robbys wishes and helping with the shooting. And even in this chaotic setting, Frank returns to his default: cocky and loud, with an edge of humor, even as his world is falling apart around him. It does highlight that this is where Frank feels the most safe, in the fray of the ED during what would surely be extremely overstimulating and awful for someone else. We get a glimspe of this after, when he essentially begs Dana to have his back, because without this job, he's terrified of what he'll find. Not only because of his addiction, but because he hasn't ever sat with himself before, and he has no idea where to start with that.
Its also pretty widely known that ADHD and addiction can go hand in hand. Our brains love dopamine, and the faster we can get it the better. Frank was essentially thrown into the perfect storm, coming up during something as traumatizing as covid, having a brain that is predisposed to addiction, working a physical job with two young children at home and extremely easy access the a plethora of meds. Not only this, but the CPTSD a lot of neurodivergent people develop while growing uo undiagnosed and heavily masking completely fucks up our nervous systems. Many of us use or have used alcohol, weed or other substances to self medicate and help us regulate, leading to much higher rates of depression and suicide. Frank ending up diverting meds from the hospital makes SO much sense to me, and theres an entire conversation to be had around this problem, which is much more common that people think in hospitals. Frank has no sense of self outside of the ED, and getting hooked on Benzos specifically, literally a nervous system regulating drug, seems almost like common sense.
All of this aside, after Frank gets sent to rehab and has his infamous shouting match with robby, he comes back as a very different version of himself. Although he does try to jump back into his previous role, attempting to keep it light with Robby and making the cringiest joke (shout out captain crunch flying squirrel socks) and getting banished to triage like a bad dog, he realizes how much things have changed. This leaves him confused and vulnerable in a way he surely hasn't felt in years, and he has no idea how to navigate that. Que our sweet baby angel Melissa King, who is the only person in the ED who not only welcomes him back with open arms, but treats him exactly the same as before. Now, its slightly unfair to hold the other doctors to the same standards as Mel, because Mel is really the only doctor who has seen this "true" vulnerable side of Langdon last season. He doesn't have to do any masking for her, and in fact does get to sort of step immediately back into the same roll he left her in, which was competent doctor who she admired. As they stick together on and off for the rest of the shift, we get many beautiful Frank Langdon moments, especially with Becca. He's much less rushed, his energy is generally much quieter, and he seems to have a calmer aura about him all around. He reveals to dana that in the ten months he had between now and rehab no one reached out to him, and it was a long ten months to be alone with his thoughts. Which ironically, seem to be exactly what he was running from so skillfully last season.
By the end of the shift, its evident that the dynamic between Mel and Frank has shifted yet again. He's continued to let her in in ways no one else in the ED has seen, including his moment of vulnerability admitting he didnt know if he was ready to come back, just to mirror their interaction last season of him reassuring Mel that she was good at this, and there was a place for her here. Our two lost souls are still scrambling for purchase a bit, but with encouragement from one another, they both are reminded they're in the right place at the right time. Cough Cough.
Our finale in the ambulance bay just really seals the deal for our two favorite doctors, fully allowing them to transcend from what was once mentor and mentee, to two coworkers standing on even ground, and admitting to each other that neither one of them really knows what they're doing (like so many of us adults out here.) The entire interaction is fucking gold. We get Frank being there for Mel while she realizes that her entire world is changing and she has no power over it, and that now it's her turn to be alone with herself and discover what it is she really likes and wants. Luckily for her, her good-friend-and-not-at-all-soulmate Frank Langdon has some experience with that, and i'm sure is willing to offer support. By this time, Frank is completely unmasked and vulnerable with Mel, and even though we all know he obviously heads to the ambulance bay to seek her out, he starts off asking several silly questions. Oh, have you seen Robby? Oh, have you finished charting? Oh, are you watching the fireworks? Even after she shares her melancholy with him over the whole Becca situation, he somehow knows the right words to validate her experience and Beccas own autonomy. Only when Mel finally asks him, oh, you? Does he casually bring up the thing hes been excited to tell her probably for the last 45 minutes. This moment, of Mels genuine excitement and awe towards him, I imagine lights up his dopamine centers in a way he had no idea even existed. She is so earnestly excited for him, and her belief in him is palpable, and I think it's the final thing that tips his whole world on it's axis. Frank Langdon knows he's not the same person he was ten months ago, and he has spent the last year or so really trying to figure out what that means, but here in the ambulance bay with the subtle crackle of fireworks overhead and this REAL person looking at him with REAL adoration and trust and openness, he just feels like he's finally headed in the right direction. And I cannot WAIT to see where four months of this bond can take us!
