el ángel gabriel

I considered posting this as it was with no yappage/commentary and letting the images speak for themselves - which I guess they will if no-one clicks the 'read more' cut. But you have! So you get: yappage. Because when I tell u guys I've been rotating this rotisserie chicken style in my head forever: I MEAN IT.

I cannot (read: WILL not) accept this as purely coincidental/Not Significant. Because camera focus is used too often to draw our attention to things/character connections between what's being said and the character being focused on (most obviously noted being the one from 2x11 where Baran talks to Brenda and asks if she's ever thought about hurting herself while the camera slow-zooms in on Robby).

But this whole scene/little speech has some good examples of it, too, like just before this we have Robby saying "the kids you'll lose will linger" and the camera then lands on Collins and Dana - Collins having just had a miscarriage, and Dana knowing this, so Dana reaches out to hold her hand/offer support.

And I #get the Santos connection, too, with the 'afraid of getting in trouble' of the kids getting mixed up in grown-up stuff and getting hurt and being afraid of the repercussions of that now that it's known (by the hospital) and how that obviously relates to Trinity's backstory. And also her current storyline of knowing/suspecting Langdon's drug diversion and her uncertainty over that and that 'trouble' word repeating, with both Langdon and Garcia calling Santos herself trouble, while Santos at first insisting, "I don't wanna get anyone in trouble." Alll of that makes sense.

And having the camera on Robby for the parts of this it's on: ALSO makes sense!

So it only makes sense that we are seeing a very specific, very lingering, slow-zoom shot on Langdon when that specific line is spoken. And I need to knooooooowwwwww W H Y/every detail!!!!! (ESPECIALLY when Frank didn't work this case personally).

BC ALSO!!!!

Now, okay, you could argue that this is meant to be another nod to/reminder of his own kids/the danger he could potentially pose to them, with reference to pot-gummy boy Tyler from earlier in the season, and the idea that, y'know, kid gets injured/killed after playing with dad's gun = kid gets injured/killed after playing with dad's drugs. Fine. Sure. Ya. I can go along with that as being an element of this...I ain't accepting it as ALL of it. Nuh-uh.

This is just...Okay so context for those who cannot remember/need a lil help - Robby makes this speech at the beginning of 1x09 as part of the debrief for the little girl, Amber, who drowned in a pool after she dived in to save her little sister/pull her out.

Robby is speaking to them about the child he first lost, 20 years ago while doing his residency at Big Charity in New Orleans - something that still sticks with him so clearly he can remember details (like the little boy's age) and that he was afraid of getting into trouble all these years later, he goes on to start telling them about his coping mechanisms of, to quote Dana 'literally burying your feelings'.

So, for the purposes of this scene/the narrative of season 1 and this debrief, HOW Robby's first pedes-death happened doesn't actually matter and isn't actually relevant in the context of this moment - it's more about it still lingering with him and those feelings and what to do with them.

But for that, it could've been ANYTHING, right? In fact it could've been nothing (by which I mean: they didn't even NEED to specify a cause, really, for this scene to happen/work). But they DID. They DID and they specified it so goddamn specifically and then they slow-zoomed in on Frank's face while they specified specifically and I would humbly like to @ noah wyle personally and demand to know: W H Y!?

Francis. What horrors linger in ur backstory? Come on. This is a safe space. U can tell me. I know they're there. I'm like 80% sure they involve guns in SOME capacity at this point - between this and the fact that Frank is the one who clocks the jewellery store owner's gun (AND the fact he was reaching for it) and is the one to restrain the guy (by diving on top of him like a Smart Human (some day we'll talk abt Frank's shitty instincts. not today tho) and then call the all-clear. (aaand that his first patient of s1/the first patient he ever presents is a: GSW! Woo! Everything is fine. It either means nothing or everything and everything is WAY more fun so I'm going with that one).

Also adding to this that Frank deals with a L O T of 'accidental injury inflicted unintentionally by family member/friend*' (which is indeed quite a niche thing, yes, but the boy is SWIMMING in it - esp in season 2). *quick note I'm ONLY counting accidents caused by friends/family - there are a lot more accidental/unintentional injuries but for the purposes of this...

As a quick account of this we've got:

1)- Tyler Jones aka pot gummy boy - who ate his dad's weed gummy by accident (yes, drugs connection/kids accidentally getting drugs from dad - it's STILL an accident, and one caused by a family member, it can count for two things!)

2)- 1x06 - Zac Dawson and Miles Hernandez - I'm counting the ambulance thieves in this because they are friends and they cause each other damage in an accident/that wasn't meant to happen while fucking around. It works. I'll take it.

3)- 1x13 Martin aka 'my new friend Martin' - the PittFest fentanyl OD who got a percocet off 'a friend' so he could dance bc he has a bad knee (don't look too hard at Frank's bad back and the pills HE takes so HE can dance (which is used a lot as a phrase meaning 'to work in the Pitt' in s1 and a lot in s2 which...idk, sure y'all, do what u gonna do)). Still fake pill from friend causing overdose = it's on my list.

4)- 2x02 - Clint Hansen - who has a nasty burn on his arm from bacon grease off a big gridle after his cousin Mona yote some water and it splashed him. (the Hansens also get bonus points for: being Southern af (hi appalachia!Frank headcanons/pball interview), -bickering/being dysfunctional af (and repeatedly triggering Frank but that's a thing we'll get to at a later date) -being the gift that keeps on giving in terms of accidental trauma caused to family members -a lot of bickering back and forth revolving around sides of the family and xyz being 'crazy'/'psycho' and that clearly 'running in the family' it's fine, I will definitely not come back to this in another post in another capacity at any point.

5)- 2x03 Harlan Hansen - BP waaay too low bc he decided to shlorp some of cousin Wendy's blood pressure pills as presrcibed by "family pharmacist" Sloan who thinks pooling meds is a solid plan (again: we can have drug parallels AND accidental 'nearly killing ur family member by trying to help' parallels. These patients contain multitudes, and so does Frank).

6)- 2x03 Duante Polk - bead boi! Bead boi gets a mention bc, even tho the bead-to-the-nose was technically self-induced, dad was present and also he and his sister were making bracelets together when the incident occurs so: I'm counting it/stop stop there are already enough parallels calm down, we get it!!!!

7)- 2x05 Alex Burton - ah, dear sweet dumbass Alex and his dry-ice burn from his attempt at getting a penguins brand aka 'the family crest' from his brother Aaron. I really feel like this one explains itself.

8)-2x07 Kenneth Reese (according to the 2x07 script anyway) lovingly referred to as 'Motorboat Man' by myself who is, as u may have guessed: the guy who got sliced up by the motorboat propellors. The flight medics specifically noted that this happened when he was trying to untangle a waterskii line and his buddy started the engine while he was doing this sooo: to the list!

9)- 2x08 Jackie Lidell - this is getting listed because her tongue lac was caused mid-selfie by her friend jerking her head up and crashing into her chin/closing her mouth on her tongue which: ouch.

10)- 2x10 Derek Foster - sure I'll count water park dad and his 'fun day out with son getting derailed by collapsing water slide they were on together for the purposes of joy, whimsy, and father-son bonding' why not?

11)-2x11 Micah Azurmendi - heatstroke boy, who got said heatstroke accidentally (according to mum) after crawling into the car to take a nap while she was working in he garden and didn't notice. Or it was caused deliberately. Either way, for the purposes of the list: here it be.

Now I don't know about you, but ELEVEN (11) instances of 'accidental injury directly caused by family member/friend' feels like an awffy lot to be a mere coincidence to me/by jove, I think they're trying to tell us something!!!!! (and if they ain't: well I would like some other better explanation please and thank you).

Also hey: #BonusContent, because this ISN'T a Frank-case/patient, but it is close enough to this/UNHINGED as a parallel to s1 that I feel compelled to include it anyway. But in 2x07 Robby and Cassie tootle on in to have a chit-chat with Roxie and when they do they find her mid-conversation with her boys who are having this delightful little exchange:

Tucker: Brian Jenkins is allowed to hunt with a .22 on his grandpa's farm. Shane: Sounds like an accident just waiting to happen.

WHY YES, SHANE, IT DOES SOUND LIKE AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN (esp when u factor in good old Elbridge from 2x14 who was injured, per the EMTs, by "shooting his .22 caliber pistol in the air with an aluminum pot on his head for protection. Didn't work." (can I just say I fucking hate these writers and the attention to detail they have in this fucking show (positive))?

A N Y W A Y. All that to say: I SEE YOU, VILLAINS, AKA PITT WRITERS. I SEE YOU AND I KNOW YOU'RE UP TO SOMETHING AND ONE DAY: I SHALL KNOW WHAT.

Final tidbit because we're in PEAK 'what the fuck, why not?' mode atm: what iffff that 'devastating back injury' referred to for Frank had something to do with this (things u do not want near the spine/spinal cord at any point ever: bullets/bullet fragments). I don't think this one is particularly likely honestly (I'm leaning: disc issues! actually, for #reasons I can get in to at some point that's not now) but wouldn't that be: Interesting. And really this is the point of all of this 'wouldn't it be interesting IF.....'