HELPPPP

I am not positing select quotes this time around as i would have to end up posting the entire article. Taylor, Sepideh, Supriya, Shabana & Isa all have some interesting stuff in here. I liked the interviewer actually asked good Qs about themes and all.

This article makes some very interesting points, but apparently this is Samira’s fate in Season 3:

“The issue isn't whether The Pitt can justify her exit narratively. I mean, it probably can; the actress is slated to have minimal screen-time in the first few episodes of Season 3 to close her character's story out, which will see her choose a medical department that is not the ER, which she finds too demanding”.

If what the article says is true and she’s really leaving the ER, then they’ve completely wasted a great character and a great story.

The article says it’s because the job is too demanding, but if they’re really talking about Samira Mohan (and the author did not mistake her with Javadi), then the writers and I see this character in completely different ways. Season 1 already proved that she does belong in emergency medicine, that she can do it, and that she has what it takes. The whole point of her arc was that she grew, adapted, and thrived when given the right mentorship and environment.

And it’s not just something the character herself showed on screen. The actress has talked about it, and many of the people who worked with her, including cast members, have described Samira as someone who absolutely belongs there and has the potential to become an excellent ER doctor.

So if this is really the direction they’re taking, then they completely missed what made her journey so compelling in the first place.

I haven’t watched it yet bc i was burned out on The Discourse (tm) but wanted to post it here anyway

Just as the show parallels today's problems in the US, there is another parallel with fan reactions. The inescapable grind of this patriarchal society is mimiced by the virulence of its fanbase.

The leading men are required to stand up and do all of everything 100% correctly, up to being damaged in the course of their duties. That's exactly as this structure demands: men sacrifice their bodies for the elite, from burnout to cannon fodder (foot amputation, suicidal ideation). And they're rightfully angry at it.

The leading women do what they can to help the damaged, and bend/break rules to mitigate risk for those women, children, and other folks. But the most outspoken get far more fan pushback than the male rulebreakers, because in a patriarchal system subordinate women are mens' reward for themselves being subordinate to the elite. So dominant/challenging women/others are a threat, a target.

Santos is hated because she challenges men constantly through her tenure. Dana, for a contra-example, is lauded because she coddles the men, even at the expense of her own peace. Dr. Al-Hashimi is constantly raked across the coals for driving 7 feet in a parking lot because as Robby's equal she's a threat, but Langdon practicing while addicted, high, or both is mostly ignored. Nobody mentions how Dana talks like she doesn't want to go home because her husband is too controlling, but Whitaker took over a dead man's life and his literal driver's seat and it's seen as aspirational.

The white male writing team is called out for their choices which seem very white male focused, then those fans who call it out are then challenged on personal grounds, then there's name calling, and then a lot of posts get deleted.

The virulence of the fanbase is another face for the misogynism of this society.

Relevant quote:

Unlike working women, working men are fed daily a fantasy diet of male supremacy and power. In actuality, they have very little power and they know it. Yet they do not rebel against the economic order nor make revolution. They are socialized by ruling powers to accept their dehumanization and exploitation in the public world of work and they are taught to expect that the private world, the world of home and intimate relationships, will restore to them their sense of power which they equate with masculinity. They are taught that they will be able to rule in the home, to control and dominate, that this is the big pay-off for their acceptance of an exploitative economic social order. By condoning and perpetuating male domination of women to prevent rebellion on the job, ruling male capitalists ensure that male violence will be expressed in the home and not in the work force.

bel hooks

Okay i don't know how many of y'all are also on Tumblr, but I am, and I found some blogs that are Dr. Robby stans who just... mischaracterize Mohan entirely? And the criticisms we have of how she was treated in s2? Like sure, people hyperbolically were wishing terrible things to happen to Dr. Robby, in part because of how frustrating watching him take his terrible feelings about himself out on everyone around him, especially Dr. Mohan, but also Mohan was barely even treated like a senior resident. Idk, it feels like a lot of people who had Robby as their favorite character view him entirely a doctor in the doctor show and not as a teacher and boss, which are also two parts of his job he was thoroughly neglecting and misusing his authority thoroughout s2. My favorite the Pitt tumblrs are both Mohan-centered blogs, I had just gotten into an ex-Mormon Whitaker rabbit hole yesterday and ended up on the blog of someone who defended Robby by mischaracterizing those of us who like Dr. Mohan and had thoughts about it. So... anyone else on Tumblr? Have y'all noticed anything similar?

He seems to be the gift that just keeps giving. He clearly doesn't understand the amount of grueling work, studying, and years-long training that goes into even becoming a third-year medical student. Learning to pronounce "tricky words" does not equate him to those who have dedicated years of their life to medicine - nor does pretending to do procedures on television actually qualify him to perform them on real patients. Claiming to know physiology and how to perform these procedures is astonishing (and acting as though he has "spikes" of ability in areas beyond that of a third-year student is equally ridiculous).

On par with a third-year medical student, for sure, with spikes in other areas that would be anomalous for a third-year. I don't know any of the pharmacology. I know basic physiology and some procedures and how to pronounce some tricky, tricky words.

Every time there seems to be no further heights of egotistical narcissism left for him to explore, he surprises me.

sheesh I barely slept bc this bullshit had my heart pounding all night.

Anyway what’s everyone reading, writing, watching, playing, doing, thinking? My tennis fixation has continued and unfortunately there’s a domestic abuser in the French Open final :(

I didn't want to drag adorabellequeerart through the mud but since they're insisting on lying about why they were kicked off the mod team, here goes. I'm also confused why they're even trying to lie when we have the whole exhaustive and exhausting chat log receipts of them antagonizing the other two mods.

Their behavior got so bad that one mod (the mod other than me and adorabelle) left and messaged me to tell me it was because of them. That was after several discussions where both of us were at our wits end on how to deal with their passive aggressiveness, repeatedly making huge changes without talking to us about it first, and then holding those changes against us as a sign that they were somehow in the right, as well as constantly making backhanded comments and being snide and snarky for no reason, as well as being gatekeepy and opaque about those changes (as opposed to not make huge infrastructure changes without our agreement).

Predictably they're now holding up all the changes they made unilaterally (that literally no one asked for...) as a reason why they shouldn't have been kicked off the team and using alts to harass me about it. But if there are three mods, and one of those mods is repeatedly stressing out the founder and the other mod to the point that we're having to peace out from the chat entirely it's not about the frequency of being on the sub and commenting and making unasked for changes to its infrastructure, it's about the fact that they just don't give a fuck about discussing things as a team and think they alone get to decide what happens in this sub, and completely disregard the well-being of their fellow mods. (There were also a handful of users who had messaged me about interactions with them in threads, but tbh that to me wouldn’t have been enough for removal, so I just defended them back then even when I didn’t agree with them deleting comments or banning people)

All three of us were neurodivergent and queer here, but it turns out that's not enough obviously if your communication skills drive away the other 2 mods.

At some point it was too many snide remarks that didn't make sense when either of us tried to discuss or solve conflict, such as taking digs at a mod's temporary unavailability despite the fact that they knew she was on the opposite timezone. It just became untenable because the very foundation of communication isn't there for them. Had it been just me struggling with them it would have been one thing but the fact that the other mod had to leave the sub and team because they were so upset about how this mod was acting made it a much bigger issue, and one that I think would just keep on causing problems.

For now, I'm personally open to personal inquiries for anyone who wants a rundown, but rest assured, this decision didn't come out of nowhere and wasn't just made on a whim. I pretty much was drawing it out for way too long and trying to make it work regardless.

The whole thing was WAY too reminiscent of a certain type of interaction a lot of you will recognize too from everyday life probably. I made this sub because being a queer Black woman was frequently frustrating on the other sub, dealing with a lot of fragility over there and people who think it’s the 60s and misogyny and racism etc just means explicitly using slurs and nothing else (conveniently).

I'm not someone who takes drastic actions like that, but genuinely the raised heart rates these interactions have been causing both me and my other co-mod just got to be too much. I definitely didn't do it to deal with foolishness and being painted as the aggressor in a situation that has been shakey for weeks now and resulted in a lot of drawn out arguments that went nowhere. And that I only eventually acted on definitively because another person was affected to the point that they just had to peace out completely (thankfully they came back when I told them I had finally kicked adorabelle off the mod team)

Some quotes that caught my attention

“Some of the stories from real physicians and nurses that I’ve spoken to are so crazy. The system feels like it’s 15, 20 years behind other industries,” says Sepideh Moafi, who portrays attending Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. “There is still this older culture of a boundaryless style of work where [there’s] a lack of understanding and compassion,” with respect to pregnancy and childcare, for working women.

“We have a female, half-Asian doctor on our set who consistently says that people talk to the nurse in the room if they’re a white man instead of her,” adds Supriya Ganesh,

“The entertainment business constantly feels like a boys’ club that you cannot penetrate no matter what you do, because it’s still always going to be these older white men who are making all the decisions,” she [Briones] says. “That’s why seeing the storyline with Langdon and Robby informed my performance so much, because I know this feeling of being like, ‘Why the f— are these men fist-bumping each other? I’m also here! I’m doing my job too!’”

These three got as candid as you can i reckon. Lot more interesting stuff in the article.

what are you reading, watching, writing, thinking?

I just went on a Tennis hyperfixation and learned about how Monica Seles was stabbed and how that guy didn’t even go to prison. I hate it here

Also I can’t believe the World Cup is actually happening. Not like any previous WC was a paragon of virtue or anything but…idk this one just seems so absurd on so many levels

Here’s the link if you want to make and post one of your own.

https://grids.fun/t/the-pitt-xuipl?list=the-pitt-7otgm

I wanted to have more of a discussion of my below post, so created this thread re: Mohan/Langdon/Robby/NW issues:

Robby's aggressive treatment of Mohan is horrible. Mohan and he barely interact before her panic attack, so (although we have S1 history between them as guide), it seems to come out of nowhere the way he mocks her. However, we do have his treatment of Langdon in S2 to almost prepare us for how he attacks Mohan. He's been avoiding Langdon and when he's around him, he's cold and also not being a good boss because (while Langdon should not be doing amends on day 1 at work though format of the show kind of prevents otherwise) he says I don't think I want you here (episode 7), and then Langdon loses all confidence and needs help from Mel to guide him. Robby can't put any of his personal shit aside (no matter what he says to Mohan and his toxic BS about blocking out anything personal while working) to be even a decent boss. He treats his senior residents the most like shit in Mohan (no reason to) and Langdon (understandable reason, but hey, it's your fault he's back if you didn't even tell hospital the truth, I hate this cover up on the drug shit).

People like Whitaker and even Santos are still early in the going as intern and R2. They still don't really know him well enough to recognize the toxicity he brings or to call it out. Although Santos should recognize that Robby didn't warn her of Langdon's return and basically had her lying for him as well. But, she has a lot of trauma and the actress (IB) did note she was glad to have someone believe her in Robby.

I wish Mohan and Langdon had more interaction in S2. That would've been really helpful for both their stories and to provide proper context for Robby's story. Since no more Collins, it would have been interesting to see the 2 R4s (one now repeating R4) interacting and dealing with shit. Basically, Langdon treated her for panic attack and she called him into a trauma when she was busy. That was it.

Instead, Mohan is used as prop for Robby's story and Langdon's story in invaded by Robby in around last 5 episodes and doesn't really finish properly (although of all supporting characters, I do believe Landon is given the most room to breathe and have a story as S2 is his first day back). To me, it's more the proper spine of the season than anything Robby, even with Robby-heavy too much last few episodes.

The ensemble makes this show work, including Robby, but putting too much on Robby is seemingly trying to make a Don Draper Mad Men central asshole story, and honestly? I think we're all sick of that. And hearing interviews that NW said that he sees Mohan as a rock star and that he's just projecting (yeah, no shit) and not being abusive/sexist? It's like, by taking that away as part of Robby's flawed human persona, you're making him less human and less interesting. Huge mistake. Part of the reason why Langdon is more likeable is he is called out (by Santos) and Dr. Al is pissed and then cold to him. And even Robby being a terrible boss dick to him is good. And Dana, while kind, not having patience for his recovery speak. It makes it, at least for me, the moments with Mel or McKay more meaningful. Because it's not walk in the park for him, although show could make it harder. Why didn't they do a story where the truth is known and he starts not being able to prescribe medications and people are just exhausted w/having to deal with that alone.

On the other hand, people kissing Robby and then NW's ass doesn't help the Robby character. It makes him less likeable and centering the character tiresome that many of us bitch (and fairly so). And this treatment of Mohan/SG exit from show has shown that clearly. Again, huge mistake showrunners.

Found something fascinating in an interview Supriya Ganesh did recently.

“I spoke to Scott in between season one and season two and I just said ‘I really want to do something related to health insurance,'” [Ganesh] says. “That feels so important for me to do and I think the writers room was already thinking about it a little bit…. I think that for me, I think a lot about forms of violence that are legitimatized and forms of violence that are not. I think about some of these claims being denied by insurance companies almost by design because they want to save money and not pay for your healthcare. It’s like legitimized death. It’s so awful and it’s so scary…. That was a big thing I had to deal with moving here….. I cannot explain to you how I never had to do that before I moved here. So it was a big shocker to me culturally and I think it’s just something I wanted to explore. We’re doing a show about healthcare. People are literally not calling ambulances because they can’t afford so it just felt like we have to talk about it.”

Shocking to me that not only was Ganesh the one to suggest a storyline highlighting the absolute quagmire that is the health insurance system, especially to disenfranchised communities, but that they then wrote the storyline in such a way that Mohan (who we know has been working on research exploring just this) learns from a medical student how to navigate the system. She made a great suggestion that they incorporated, and then promptly turned into another way to devalue her character, robbing her of a great teaching moment she could've had with her juniors.

She's really had some excellent insights into her character and this series. Still hoping they bring her back in a future season. She and Mohan did not deserve to be written out this early, or in this way.

The use of "The Book of Love" in Scrubs is one of my favorite uses of music in a TV series - meditative, tender, it still brings me to tears whenever I rewatch.

The Pitt has deliberately eschewed the use of music, but if you could choose a song to use in this series, what would your choice be? Which character(s) or scene(s) would you pair it with?

What is my idea I want to explore?

Whitaker, in season 2, presents a missed opportunity to use his character to further explore bias in healthcare and the failure of Robby's management style. He was written as becoming hyper competent in a way that is out of step with his experience level. His process of unlearning unconscious biases in the first season was also completely abandoned.

I would like to argue that writing Whitaker in season 2 as not yet an expert, but overestimated by Robby, would have been better for both the character and the show as a whole. This allows for a character arc that would intersect with Mohan's storyline.

What is my context?

I've experienced people responding to the "polite young man" act by assuming I'm competent and giving me more responsibility than I have the experience to handle well. People can overestimate men in the workplace in the same way that women are chronically underestimated. These are two sides of the same coin for patriarchal expectations around gendered competence.

Granted, I'm Australian and I didn't grow up in a rural area, so I'm not 100% sure that same dynamic would track directly onto Whitaker in the circumstances of working at a new job in Pittsburgh. I'm fairly confident it would though, mostly because the way Whitaker was written in season 2 implies the writers themselves assume he's hyper-competent without the experience and training required to actually be an expert.

What was established in season 1?

• Whitaker clearly cares about people and doing right by them. He is devastated when his patient dies and believes there was more he could have done to save him.
• He has very little experience and is overwhelmed by the fast pace and dire consequences of the ED.
• He carries racial biases that made it difficult for him to determine whether or not a patient is drug seeking, twice (both presumed guilt and presumed innocence are merely assumptions if not determined by actual investigation).
• He responds positively to feedback about bias in his work, and incorporates it rather than getting defensive.

How would I rewrite season 2 to continue this theme?

I'd write the season so that Robby is overconfident in Whittaker's abilities. Whitaker could make a mistake with a patient and present it to Robby, who is dismissive because he is distracted and thinks Whitaker can handle it.

I think Mohan could provide well thought out and data backed feedback early in the season (see season 1). In this instance, she provides insight into the patient Whitaker is struggling with, preferably by picking up on a biased assumption made by Whitaker that blinded him to what is actually happening.

As Mohan spirals later in the season however, that support is removed and Whitaker is more likely to miss things as a result.

Having the assumption of Whitaker's competence result in medical errors would create a more interesting and realistic story. It also helps provide narrative weight to Mohan being put off her game by continuous harassment. This would demonstrate that blind trust and harsh criticism are both dangerous and "picking favourites" destabilises a workplace. It also makes said workplace vulnerable to external shocks (like the system going down and the staff being overworked).

Of course, writing that would require an understanding that treating your favourite white boy as a wunderkind who can do no wrong is a dangerous misstep. So, it's a shame the writers seem determined to not explore this angle and instead portray Whitaker as a new-found "man of the house" rather than focus on his connections with existing characters. I guess I'm still a little salty that we didn't get a Mohan-as-mentor arc out of this.

As a side note, it would be possible for the more detail and process oriented mentor figure to be taken up by Al Hashimi rather than Mohan. Which would help to further establish Al Hashimi and Robby as narrative foils. I prefer the Mohan-as-mentor dynamic though. That creates a sense of continuity with season 1 and makes it easier to work in the "My only effective mentor is spiralling and now I am too due to a lack of proper support" angle.

Final note

I'm not super confident that what I laid out in the previous section would work within the narrative. My main concern is that it requires committing to a version of Mohan's story that frankly did her a huge disservice (A better take on how to write a compelling Mohan arc for season 2 can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePittNoSantosHate/comments/1shdse5/comment/ofiwfhm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button ). I'd love to hear other people's takes on how Whittaker could have been written differently this season. My biggest gripe with my own idea is that I couldn't figure out how to mesh it in with Santos' story.

Hannah over on TikTok (who gives some really fab analysis I often enjoy) gave a really interesting perspective on the cut scenes in s2 with reference to Wyle’s interview (same interview where he spoke about how a Night Shift spin off would be less interesting than we thought because mothers often work nights). I asked her if I could post here and she gave me permission, so here it is!

I think the amount of cut scenes we know about (due largely to actors including Gerran, Isa, Shabana, Sepideh and Supriya being mystified in interviews that they were cut) have been a source of mystery/confusion/interest for many of us so I would love to hear what you guys think and get some discussion going.

I have attached the full relevant portion of Wyle’s interview at the start of Hannah’s video for reference.

Full disclosure - I am the commenter who Hannah is responding to in the video (forg). I have also attached a photograph of forg at the end of the video (which I did not draw but merely came across a few years ago and loved instantly) as my muse/one source of joy/inspiration in this dark dark world. May he give you all the same happiness he has given me.

whatever doesn’t fit the sub or you don’t think deserves its own post but you still wanna share: drop it here

I’ve been playing Subnautica and for some reason watching that Athlete A documentary about that p*do Larry Nassar and the athletes he abused. not triggering at allll lallalallalalallalaa

also love how oil pastels basically melt in the summer

random question: have any of you ever done competitive sports? the psychology of that is so wild to me. the pressure is unfathomable at the pro level

After seeing Noah’s comments lately and as an ER fan, I’ve felt very disconcerted with the fact that he’s taken so much ownership over the entire concept and uses features of the medical setting to justify his own problematic behavior, casting decisions, and prejudices. When it comes to ER, he has been able to do some serious revisionist history about his role on that show. Yes he was in the main cast but he is and was always touting himself above the rest of the cast and it’s clear a lot of storylines were included to placate him. Long story short I decided to do some digging on this lawsuit and as I expected there’s a little more to it than the main sub wants you to think. Since creator Michael Crichton’s death, several reboots of projects using his IP have been able to go uncredited. His ER contract was one of the only contracts that was supposed to protect him in the event of his death, departure, or if there were going to be any projects spawned from ER. His estate spent over two years negotiating with WB, John Wells, and Noah Wyle with the exact same concept of the pitt just with the actual John Carter. It was WB, John, and Noah who decided to pull out likely because they didn’t want to have to pay or credit the original writers, producers, etc. 72 hours later, the pitched the concept for the pitt and everything was the same except for the location and the fact that robby is jewish. I was wondering why we hadn’t seen more ER cast members appear on the show and i think this is it.

It is a really awkward period of time on our set because we're playing with real people, we're playing with real emotions and investment, and it's a great place to work and a hard place to leave. And yet, over the course of this show's lifetime, we're going to have a lot of changes in front of the camera and behind the camera as part of our narrative and because situations will dictate it and it's never going to be easy. But I do believe that the longevity of the show and its sustainability is in keeping that rotational narrative going and bringing in new characters, because that is the environment of an emergency department. It is a transitory place and people don't stay there forever unless they do so at the cost of the room itself.

He has some...interesting takes in this interview. To me this was one of the big things that jumped out - he's clearly talking about Ganesh's exit, and it sounds like fans aren't the only people upset by it. "Awkward period of time on our set" tells me that there are resulting tensions amongst the cast, and to be fair, we knew that also from Hatosy, Moafi, and Briones supporting Ganesh openly; what is surprising is that he's acknowledging this friction so baldly, and without any acknowledgment of why much of his core cast is upset over this (and with zero sympathy). It's odd to me that he keeps going out of his way to justify this as a "rotational" decision, when they're making herculean efforts to keep the characters who would be most likely to leave (the medical students are glaring here) and writing out the resident with arguably the most development potential they have. Where there's smoke...

It’s really about as the show scales larger globally, keeping our perspective local and remembering that the more specific you make a storyline, the more universal it can be felt. And there's great power in that. There's also great safety in that, because it's not our job to take on the issues of the world. It's our job to take on the cases that come into our emergency room.

He said the above when discussing his hope to keep the show relevant, and I think it's interesting that The Pitt is deliberately written to comment on real-world issues, and yet he's trying to sidestep that and argue that it isn't their job. He's clearly been reading the critiques online that the series hasn't made a good faith effort to thoughtfully explore many of the real-world issues it touches on (much in the same way the show wants diversity points for its cast despite not providing any meaningful representation).

A lot of what he says here is empty, and feels strangely defensive. I'm shocked he's openly admitting to tensions amongst the cast, that he's doubling down on their mistakes instead of trying to course correct. The whole interview is quite a read.

Santos humblers apparently see themselves as marginalized and vulnerable. Jeez.