owlbeers 🦉 🍻

"Someone must have been in a bad way to walk away from you, little one."

I keep thinking about the grace that Robby shows Baby Jane Doe's mother here. (Yes, BJD has a father, but we know this is about mothers.)

Later, he tells Dana he had a mother, she left, and he doesn't need another one. Later, he tells BJD that he was abandoned.

Which is so fascinating to me because we see Robby's understandable anger and hurt about his own circumstances, but he can still find compassion for a mother who did to Baby Jane Doe, what his own mother did to him.

Noah Wyle as Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch in The Pitt, s1e12

THE PITT (2025-)

 Gordon Mortensen（b.1938 United States)

 Spring Flowers

patient care and patient advocacy are extremely important to him personally, but nothing gets as much brownie points in his book as skills. that's what got his respect and attention with baran, when she pulled off that slash trake, leaving him starry-eyed. that's what draws him to trinity and victoria, because they're both quick thinking and innovative. that's what got a temporary good moment between him and langdon, an impressive procedure.

it's so interesting. I can't quite verbalize all my thoughts on it but there's something so. he tends to critique patient care and advocacy when anyone but himself does it. he fights against it when baran is trying to stand up for the incarcerated patient. he has a poor mentorship with samira, who focuses specifically on patient care. the times he does clash with trinity are specifically patient advocacy driven moments. (even though he praises this trait in her to baran.)

I think it's partially because fighting for patients and caring about patients is what is actively killing him. "leeching a part of his soul." he puts too much of himself into it and he's so completely burnt out. running test after test with nick bradley even though there was no hope, using blood bag after blood bag on leah even though it was too late, keeping adamson on ECMO for seventeen days because he can't let go. he lets the patients affect him on a bone deep level, he's all or nothing in his empathy and struggles to compartmentalize.

so, it's a trigger for him. it's not just that samira reflects him as a whole, because several other characters reflect him. trinity reflects him a hell of a lot, with their similar senses of humor, their capabilities to handle a trauma and be quick on their feet, the version of himself he probably likes a lot more. the competent version of himself. patient care makes him feel helpless. traumas make him feel in control.

so samira holds a mirror to a source of pain. and hurt people hurt people. I didn't even mean for this post to delve into that dynamic but I do think it's notable.

it's also notable that his workstyle as an attending is heavily influenced by covid. in covid, after adamson died, a mentor, a father figure, a guiding light, robby had to step up and shoulder brand new responsibilities. they were all looking to him in a time that was so extreme, filled with grief and death and chaos. he had to force himself through his. workhorse himself through this. you can't care about patients personal lives, you have to just care about if they get to live at all.