mindful(l)

John held up a hand. "Okay, look, it's clear you're speaking from a place of profound ignorance on this topic—"

Robby let out a squawk of outrage; Jack snickered into his coffee cup.

"And I'm not saying I'm an expert, but I am saying that I know enough about it to know that lots of people definitely treat it as a hobby." John narrowed his eyes. "Wait, have you ever even done it?"

"Technically," Robby said, because a technicality counted.

"What does that mean?" John asked.

"A few years ago," Robby said with a waggle of his hand, "Gloria Underwood tried to get the ED staff to do team-building exercises and—"

"Wait." Jack sat up straighter. "Are you talking about that bullshit she had us spend a weekend at that shit-ass Comfort Inn for?"

"There was a karaoke machine," Robby protested. It had been a small battery-powered thing with an attached, glittery microphone that let out a high-pitched squeal unless you held it a very, very precise distance from the body of the machine.

"That was not a proper karaoke machine," Jack said. "She got that for forty bucks on Amazon."

"I think it counts!" Robby said. "I participated!" The fact that he'd only intoned turn around, bright eyes over and over to accompany Jesse's rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart", and then only because Gloria had threatened to cut the nursing budget if he didn't do something, was beside the point.

John shook his head. "Have you ever set foot in an actual karaoke place?"

"Why would I have?" Robby said, bewildered, which was a tactical mistake, and was how he, his husband, and his brother ended up at nine on a Wednesday night, walking into a karaoke bar. The floor underfoot was slightly sticky, the signs on the wall were neon, and the stage was already occupied by an older couple who were giving their all to "Islands in the Stream." Someone in one of the seats near the stage was holding up an iPhone and waving it over their head; its screen showed a video of a flickering lighter.

"This is great," Jack said, clapping his hands together. "I like a place with atmosphere. The places with the private booths are all well and good but nothing tops a bar with an involved audience, you know?"

Robby stared at him. "Are you telling me I've known you for fifteen years and this whole time you've been some kind of secret karaoke fiend?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Jack said, his chin coming up in that pugnacious way that Robby secretly found very endearing. "What I am saying is that I have layers. And also that what happened while on leave with my unit in Seoul stays there."

"What the fuck," Robby said.

While they talked, John had gone off and investigated the lay of the land, and now reappeared with a grin on his face. "Okay, we're signed up, and I got us a booth over here."

"When you say we—"

"Live a little!" John said, and then they were sitting down in a horseshoe-shaped booth about halfway along the wall between the main bar and the stage, a pitcher of beer on the table in front of them. The couple who'd been singing finished up to a smattering of applause, and were followed by a woman in a leather jacket who marched up there with incredible confidence as the first strains of "Believe" rang out and hissed, "It's Cher, bitches," into the mic.

She started to sing. The confidence was misplaced.

"If I just say you two were right, can we leave?" Robby said with a wince.

"Nope," Jack said. "Consider it my birthday gift."

Robby side-eyed him. "Your birthday's not for another seven months."

"My un-birthday gift, then," Jack said, sounding entirely unbothered.

Robby sighed and took a sip of his beer and then almost choked on it when he heard a too-familiar voice say, "Dr Robby?"

A grinning Trinity Santos stood in front of him, dressed to kill and holding the hand of a politely smiling Mel King. "Fancy seeing you here! Dr Abbot is maybe less of a surprise."

"I am ubiquitous," Jack said with a solemn nod.

"And Dr Carter, too! Boys' night out, huh?" Santos dimpled. Robby knew this was going to be all over the ED in a few hours: did you know that Robby does too have a hobby and it's karaoke? There were a lot of things about being a department chief that no one warned you about in advance; becoming a bigger target for generalised workplace scuttlebutt was one of them.

Though to be fair, Robby supposed, being outed in the press as the long-lost heir of a Gilded Age robber baron family and then marrying the ED's longterm smokeshow hadn't helped.

"We're introducing Robby to karaoke," John said, and invited Santos and Mel to join them because of course he did.

Robby had planned to be in bed by nine thirty that that night, and instead he was wedged in between his husband and Santos—who were talking about lessons learned from a particularly nasty degloving case that had come in a couple of days ago—and his brother and Mel—who were earnestly discussing horse conformation, whatever the hell that was. He let out a tiny sigh.

John's slot was the first up, but he turned to Mel and said, "Actually, I've got a song idea. You want to make this a duet?"

Mel beamed at him and said, "I would be delighted."

Robby would not have thought that either of them was the target demo for Lil Nas X, but there they both were, singing along to "Old Town Road" with what he could only describe as gusto. They mimed flicking the reins of imaginary horses; Mel shook her head wildly from side to side, eyes squeezed shut, as she chorused can't nobody tell me nothing.

"This is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life," Santos said. "Truly. Sincerely."

"She's got conviction," Jack said. "That'll take you a long way."

When John made it back to the table, he was grinning and flushed, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. "Gamma would have been so pissed if she was around to see that," he said as he sat back down.

"Not a fan of Lil Nas' lyrical styling and killer abs?" Santos asked as she fished the olive out of her dirty martini and popped it in her mouth.

"She wouldn't have been able to get past her initial horror at how I was misusing my skills." At Robby's sceptical look, because the most charitable thing he could say about that performance was that John had been near being in tune, John laughed and continued, "My grandparents were very keen that I was raised to be properly accomplished. Horse riding lessons, piano lessons, dance lessons, art appreciation lessons, etiquette lessons…"

Jack let out a low whistle. "When did you sleep?"

"Gamma thought having a good seat during dressage was more important than my insomnia," John said dryly.

Robby knew that Millicent Carter had legally been his grandmother too, but fucking hell.

"Oh dear," Mel said, her eyes round behind her glasses.

"That's why my kids don't do any of that stuff," John said with a shrug. "I mean, they do swim lessons because that's important, but otherwise unless they've asked me to do something because they want to do it, no extracurriculars for them. I don't want any of them having to suffer through having their portrait painted sitting on a dressage pony."

"Wait, what?" Robby said.

"Gamma's idea," John said, "and before you ask, I burned it years ago."

"A loss for the culture," Jack murmured.

"I don't know how else to say it," Santos said with a curl of her lip, "but your family sounds, uh, kind of fucked up. No offence."

"None taken," John said. "That's kind of been my therapist's conclusion, too, although he uses some more five-dollar words to say it."

"Why would I use five-dollar words when I could be ordering five-dollar drinks instead?" Santos shimmied out of the booth and said, "Okay, show time."

"She really is very good, you know," Mel said in confidential tones to the others as Santos made her way to the stage. "I'm not just saying that because we're dating. Sometimes she'll get a comped drink if she decides to really get the audience going."

"I'm sure she is," John said, and then Santos shut all their mouths with a version of Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet" that had people whooping. Robby's eyebrows rose.

"Shit, she's good," Jack said during the guitar solo part.

"She is," Mel said, her hands clasped together, and she had a starry-eyed look on her face as she watched Santos that Robby recognised—it was close kin to the one that he knew he wore when he looked at Jack in an unguarded moment. He had the suspicion that not so long from now, he'd be writing letters of recommendations aimed at getting the two of them attending positions in the same institution.

Jack ordered another round of drinks for the table, even though it was a weeknight. Robby raised an eyebrow at him. "What?" Jack said. "We don't work tomorrow and their livers are still under thirty. This is what taxis were made for. Relax."

The conversation ebbed and flowed. John chatted with Mel about the work that the CFF Free Clinic was doing with the immigrant community in Pittsburgh; Jack talked hockey with Robby and what was the correct ranking of the top five hair metal bands of all time with Santos. It was one of the more unusual evenings that Robby had had in a while, but what the hell—maybe he could stand to have more of those in his life.

And then it was Jack's turn to go up on stage. "My public awaits," he said. He leaned over and kissed Robby on the cheek and said, "I hope you've put some thought into what your song is going to be—"

"I'm not going to—"

"Pfft," Jack said, and stood and strode up to the stage. Taking the mic, he said, "This one is dedicated to Robby, who is also"—his voice dropped—"slippery when wet."

Robby put his head in his hands as the opening riff of "Livin' on a Prayer" rang out. John was laughing and clapping already; Santos already had her phone out and was recording.

By the second verse, Jack was gesturing for people to get to their feet, strutting from one side of the little stage to the other like he was channelling the spirit of the '80s. Squint a little, and you could picture him with a full head of feathered Bon Jovi hair. Robby, despite himself, was helplessly charmed, and laughed and clapped.

The song built; everyone got into it. Jack cupped his hand to his ear and listened, expectant, before a good three-quarters of the bar and even some of the servers roared back at him, "We've got each other and that's a lot for love, we'll give it a shot!"

Jack beamed and clenched his fist over his head as he launched into the chorus. Robby wolf whistled at him, which was totally allowed because that was his husband.

"Oh my god," Santos said when Jack left the stage, brow gleaming with sweat, "you bodied that key change."

"Thank you," Jack said, sketching out a little bow.

"You've been holding out on me," Robby said as Jack sat down next to him.

"From you? Never," Jack said, and dimpled.

Two other people sang after that, newer songs that Robby didn't recognise but that Santos, Mel and, oddly, John clearly did.

"I have a tween daughter who's just starting to ask to go to concerts," John said. "I don't get to escape this knowledge."

"Poor you," Robby said.

"Eh," John said, "I like to think that nothing you learn ever really goes to waste."

"Maybe not," Robby said, but then he got proof of that not five minutes later, just as he was about to have to decide what to sing. Robby never knew what sparked it, but from the far side of the room came the sound of raised voices, and then someone was hit and a table knocked over and there was broken glass and screaming and more punches were thrown. The music stopped abruptly and the house lights came up; people started to scramble to get out. The bar's security personnel shut it down quickly enough, but there were bodies on the floor, some of them unconscious and someone moaning about his leg, blood pooling among the shards of shattered glass.

"Call 9-1-1," Jack yelled over in the direction of the bar, already moving, "tell them there six, no, seven people down. There are doctors already here but we need ambulances now. Mel, Santos, with me, start triaging."

The two women followed Jack's lead, which left Robby and John to look at one another and silently agree to work on the man who was lying, semi-conscious, nearest the stage.

"Where's the blood coming from?" Robby said.

"Roll him on two," John said, "one, two—yeah, there it is. Left posterior, just below the scapula. Nasty."

"He's tachy," Robby said over the man's low moans, then called out, "we need a first aid kit over here, now!"

John nodded. "Improvised chest seal?"

"Gives him a decent chance," Robby said, and they fell into an easy rhythm of working together, and between him and John they had three of the victims stable and ready for transport by the time the paramedics showed up.

Robby accepted the hand that John offered to help him lever himself up off the ground with a soft oof. He was maybe starting to get too old to do emergency medicine on the floor. "Thanks for the assist."

"Anytime," John said, then looked at the wreckage around them. "Well, maybe not anytime, but you know what I mean."

Pics from Luca's upcoming projects, THE ECHO CHAMBER, pairing Luca with Alicia Vikander and Susan Sarandon.

Pic of Luca and Charlotte Vandermeersch for LET LOVE IN.

Luca at the ending of his play.

Luca and Alissa at the David di Donatello awards.

Also with them were their kids, Lenius and Juliana.

-In non-Luca new, Marwan Kenzari wrapped on the series DE STILTE / THE SILENCE.

"You can put all sorts of things in tupperware," Robby said, avoiding the question like a pro as he stacked the box on top of the nearest pile.

"I'm throwing out the tupperware," Jack said. "There's too much tupperware. And Christ almighty, lift from your knees, would you? I don't want another round of I'm fine, Jack, until you finally cave and take the muscle relaxants because you've tweaked your back again."

"I'm fine, Jack," Robby said automatically.

"Ugh," Jack said, and retreated into the kitchen. The sound of kitchen cabinets opening and closing continued apace.

Robby looked around the living room. He was pretty sure that was it in here. The TV, the sofa, and most of the rest of the furniture were labelled as going to Goodwill; the wingback chair, the one he liked to read, was tagged to go with him to Jack's—to their—house. Everything else was boxed up.

He tugged his t-shirt up so that he could use the hem to wipe the sweat from his forehead and ambled into the kitchen to find that Jack had, as promised, approached packing up in here with ruthless efficiency. There were more full black trash bags stacked by the door waiting to be thrown out than there were packed boxes waiting to be gathered up by the movers tomorrow.

"What?" Jack said when Robby raised an eyebrow or two at him. "You think anyone should waste time, money and effort on hauling tupperware and jars of expired spices across Pittsburgh?"

"It'd be nice to be asked," Robby said, because it was important to keep up appearances where grumbling was concerned, but maybe the sincerity of his grumbling was undercut by how he wrapped his arms around Jack from behind, rested his chin on Jack's shoulder, and let himself enjoy how simply good that felt, even after all these months. "They're my containers and spice jars."

"Like you actually give a shit about rosemary or white pepper," Jack said, leaning back into Robby's touch just a little, just enough. "Besides, I asked about the actually important stuff, didn't I?"

Robby thought about how carefully Jack had swaddled Robby's Bubbe's menorah in bubble wrap, how he'd wrapped up Robby's old photo albums and his one precious, framed photo of his grandparents on their wedding day in meticulous layers of tissue paper. About how Jack had listened to the stories that Robby had shared off and on that day, haltingly at first, about the little house not far from here that he'd grown up in—the wrench it had been to sell it after his grandmother's death, his hand forced by the Second Notice letter from the palliative care provider and by the med school tuition payment deadlines.

He thought about how Jack had asked Robby to move in with him in the first place, standing next to him in the ambulance bay on an ordinary Thursday while they waited for an ambulance to roll in. Jack had tossed it out there as casually as if he'd been asking if Robby wanted pizza for dinner that night or nah, but his body language had given him away: arms folded, chin lifted, watching Robby out of the corner of his eye. Clearly nervous as hell and doing it anyway, because he'd wanted Robby—because he'd wanted Robby to stay.

Those aren't the same claim. And I think the latter requires a degree of certainty that I'm not sure the text itself supports. Because one thing I find myself returning to over and over is that many of the ideas which have become central to certain corners of the fandom are, in my view, beautiful interpretations. But they still read like interpretations.

Samira as Robby's younger self. Samira as his true heir. Robby projecting his self-loathing onto her. His inability to articulate his admiration of her. Her craving his approval. Their relationship being simultaneously loving, toxic, and professionally harmful. His impossible expectations of her stemming from his belief in her exceptional potential.

These are all compelling readings, truly. But I don't think they're all canonical truths. Fandom does this all the time. We all do. We find threads; we connect dots; we construct emotional throughlines; we invest in possibilities. That's part of the joy of engaging deeply with fiction. But I think problems emerge when interpretations slowly become treated as facts.

"I think this relationship is central to the show" becomes "This relationship is clearly the emotional core" which becomes "The writers abandoned their own story" which eventually becomes "The writers have revealed their misogyny".

And somewhere in that progression, what began as an interpretation becomes transformed into a moral accusation. I think that's what I've found difficult. Not criticism, not disappointment, not even anger. But the way in which creative disagreements sometimes become reframed as evidence of moral failure.

Because if season 2 failed Samira, that is a perfectly valid opinion (which I share). If someone believes her screentime was insufficient, or that her relationship with Robby lost complexity, or that the show devoted too much energy elsewhere, I think those are entirely legitimate criticisms.

But I don't know that disappointment itself proves misogyny. And I don't know that every uneven relationship or disparity between characters necessarily has the same explanation.

Take Whitaker, for example.

I've seen him increasingly reduced to the "mediocre white man who gets rewarded". And honestly, I find that reading sad. Not because he's beyond criticism - he's not - but because it seems to flatten him into a symbol. His working-class background; his upbringing in rural Nebraska; his homelessness; his theology background; his anxiety; his mistakes; his growth; his deep empathy; his bonds with Robby and Santos; his willingness to meet people where they are; his evolution from terrified MS4 to confident R1. All of that disappears, and he becomes simply an embodiment of structural privilege.

Which, to me, feels oddly ironic, because a great deal of the discourse surrounding Samira rightly pushes back against flattening complex women of colour into symbols. Yet most of the criticism of Whitaker flattens him precisely the same way.

Likewise, Robby becomes 'latent misogyny'.

Dana becomes 'internalised misogyny'.

Gloria becomes 'the profit-obsessed Black woman'.

Al-Hashimi becomes evidence.

Collins becomes evidence.

Louie becomes evidence.

Joyce becomes evidence.

Everyone becomes evidence.

And eventually the characters stop feeling like people and start feeling like exhibits in a larger argument.

I also think some theories have become almost impossible to falsify.

If Robby criticises Samira, that confirms the reading.

If he praises Whitaker, that confirms the reading.

If he trusts Langdon, that confirms the reading.

If he doubts Al-Hashimi, that confirms the reading.

If Samira struggles, that confirms the reading.

If she excels, that confirms the reading.

If she receives little screentime, that confirms the reading.

If she receives more screentime, but isn't validated in the 'right' way, that confirms the reading.

And at some point, I start wondering what evidence would count against the theory. Because if there isn't any, then we're no longer using a framework to understand the text. We're using the text to reinforce the framework. And I'm not sure that's a partiuclarly healthy approach.

Perhaps most of all, though. I wonder whether some of the intensity surrounding season 2 comes from grief. Not grief over what happened in the show. But grief over the loss of the show people thought they were watching. Because I think many viewers fell in love with a version of the pitt where Samira was Robby's successor. Where their relationship was the emotional centre of the series. Where her philosophy of medicine would eventually be vindicated. Where his inability to express affection would slowly give way to recognition. Where he would finally acknowledge that she was extraordinary.

But I'm not convinced that 's the story the writers themselves thought they were telling. And I think season 2 exposed that gap. Not necessarily because the writers betrayed their own themes, but because audiences and writers were perhaps never imagining quite the same show. Which is disappointing, and disappointment is real. But I don't think disappointment automatically becomes proof of prejudice.

And I think that's where I ultimately land. Not that discussions of racism and misogyny should stop. Not that media criticism should be gentler. Not even that people should simply accept the show's decision.

But that accusations as serious as these deserve a degree of humility. Because the pitt is a show about imperfect people trying their absolute best in a failing system. People shaped by grief, ego, burnout, race, gender, class, trauma, hierarchy, and institutional pressures. None of these things operate in isolation. And I think our criticism should be willing to embrace that same complexity.

Because sometimes I read certain corners of the fandom and come away with the impression that racism and misogyny are not being treated as possibilities to be explored, but as conclusions from which all other explanations must flow.

And, I don't know… maybe that's where I part ways.