chaotic thoughts

the fact that robby is the MC isn’t even a valid excuse. shows like bojack horseman, house m.d., or the bear also center on mentally struggling male protagonists, and yet they still manage to heavily criticize their behavior and address the impact it has on the people around them, people who are not obligated to just accept the abuse because "he’s not doing well". that’s the issue with the pitt : it’s the final product, the message the show ultimately delivers.

i’ve already explained here, michael robinavitch is never actually confronted with the consequences of his behavior, and the show never tells us he should be. everything in the narrative, the scenes, the framing, the dialogue, leans toward robby. they question his emotional management, not his behavior. the show simply didn’t choose to address this in any meaningful or complete way.

and it becomes a problem when he’s consistently sharp, condescending, with characters like mohan and al‑Hashimi, when he refuses to listen to people like dana and mcKay, yet listens to duke and abbot without hesitation. these are patterns you can’t ignore anymore.

the other patterns are heather collins never coming back, then gloria, kiara, now samira, soon javadi, and the uncertainty around al‑hashimi’s presence. the most blatant case is obviously samira, who had genuinely compelling narrative arcs in progress, both on her own and in relation to robby, and the production chose to erase her from S2 and then not renew her for S3, even though nothing required breaking their so‑called sacred realism for her to stay.

meanwhile, who’s left ? whitaker, whose only "progression" is being a bit more confident. mckay, who has NO arc besides delivering the season’s moral lessons. mel, who was honestly even more out of touch than samira and never gets called out for it, and langdon. i’m told he’s one of the few whose narrative arc actually goes somewhere. yes, but how come he’s the only one ? maybe there’re systemic reasons behind all this… but who knows. not saying these characters should be removed, i’m just pointing out how strange the situation is.

the pitt genuinely wants to do the progressive thing. but it clearly failed on that front. and being vocal about it isn’t "not understanding the show" or "performing our own views on mental health" (with the implication that we supposedly want robby to kill himself). it’s a reminder that yes, addressing mental health is important, but you don’t get to do it while reproducing other oppressive, cliché, or discriminatory patterns. it’s not a matter of "narrative choices they had to make", it’s not a documentary. they could’ve chosen to address these issues. they didn’t.

a truly excellent show that claims to be politically engaged would've woven all of this together. an excellent show would've taken the time to do real intersectional work. an excellent show made by people who actually want to be progressive would've listened to criticism and questioned itself.

is that the case here ? no. instead, the show, just like part of the fandom, hides behind its politically engaged discourse. it's hides behind its good intentions to deny that it might be doing something problematic, or that it might be delivering its message not in a good way.

when I talk about doing it a good way, i'm not saying robby should be antagonized or portrayed as a monster. i’m talking about letting the character actually question himself, examine his biases, without using his condition as a shield every time someone criticizes how he’s written. i’m talking about not framing him as the only one who cares or understands that women aren’t treated the same way. i’m talking about not making every major turning point of the season revolve exclusively around men speaking with men.

there were really some missed arcs this season because of aaaaall that. i’d already made post about it with a focus on al-hashimi character. it’s honestly just sad, because we know how much potential the show has, what it’s capable of, and unfortunately S2 just proved we should never let our guard down, no matter what’s said in interviews, the facts are the facts. noah wyle and sepideh moafi, or supriya ganesh, or isa briones or shabana azeez don’t hate each other ? sure, and ? that changes absolutely nothing about the criticisms of this season’s writing. it doesn’t erase the producers’ comments about the characters, about the women, or that, in the boys’ club that is the entertainment industry, women still have to watch what they say.

the pitt and its producers can have all the good intentions in the world, they can genuinely want to advocate for health workers, they’re doing it from the perspective they have : that of gen x white men. and it shows in the final product and in the showrunners’ reactions..

one last thing : the "don’t watch if you don’t like it" is so unbelievably shallow it’s almost shocking. if we couldn’t criticize media, especially ones that claim to be socially engaged, we’d never make any progress in terms of representation or narrative treatment. no ideological shift, no chance of ever feeling genuinely represented.

what it really shows is that the people who keep repeating that on loop have absolutely no willingness to question themselves.

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