#media thoughts

- Ccrp

- Multiple murderous cults

- Constant deaths and disappearances

- General Lords in black shenanigans

Nick is, according to most interpretations, gay. At the end of chapter two it’s heavily implied that he sleeps with Mr McKee. His descriptions of men are much more detailed and loving than his descriptions of women, including that of Jordan. He loves talking about gatsby and that smile.

But gatsby doesn’t seem to perceive Nick in the same way. Gatsby is love with daisy, an unattainable metaphor for the American dream. She’s superficial and even in the kindest interpretation of her character, scared enough of facing consequences that she letsgatsby die for her. Gatsby doesn’t care, he loves her regardless. She’s beautiful and cruel and married and will never actually run away with him but he doesn’t care.

If you ship Nick and gatsby, I think it’s important that this unattainability of daisy is the attraction that gatsby builds his relationship with her on. Nick is the opposite. He’s socially awkward and yes, initially a means to an end, that genuinely loves gatsby (romantically or platonically)

Al-Hashimi is being written to be aligned with corp interests with her instance on using her algorithms and kissing ass to Underwood. Underwood's cost-cutting and profit-seeking threw safety to the side, which directly led to the circumstances to have Evans get punched in Season 1. On top of that, Underwood's reactions to Robby & The ER's handling of the Pittfest victims is clearly written to be antagonistic. From the fake patient scene and the 180 lung scene in the Season 2 premiere, it seems like Al-Hashimi's being very pushy with methods that don't seem to get the goods. We've seen a whole season of the previous methods work, and handle a mass casualty event, while the person Al-Hashimi aligns with made actively made things worse for the characters last season. I mean, she's also trying to stop using the name "The Pitt" to refer to the ER, the literal title of the show we're watching, in the same way that Underwood does in Season 1.

She's a complicated character! She's aggravating to both the characters and the audience, but that's not all she is. She also has good interactions with other characters in the season premiere, and she has good history with others, too. It's a very black and white view of these characters when the interesting thing about The Pitt is that these complicated, multi-faceted characters are put through a very complicated, high-stress job that makes people clash, grow and change. Flattening her to remove any negatives is doing a disservice to her character and the show.

Another character that people relate Al-Hashimi to is (Season 1) Santos, and I think Santos gets flattened a lot, too. (Season 1) Santos is an asshole. She is written to be disliked, she is mean to other people for no reason and barely sees patients as people. A lot of her interactions and story beats drive this aspect of her home to the audience. However, that's not all she is! If that's all she was, we wouldn't get Whitaker and Javadi making her crash out over the idea of her being given a similar nickname to "Crash". If that's all she was, we wouldn't see her help out the found-in-Pittfest-parking-lot patient. Think about how much more relaxed she is in the Season 2 premiere compared to the first few episodes of Season 1. Think of that scene with her and Mel, with Santos really trying to get past Mel's own walls and figure out what's upsetting her. If we flatten Santos to "perfect angel, does nothing wrong" like some sides of the fandom like to do, we lose the impact of these moments.

Another way: Think about everyone's different reaction to Langdon being back. Despite clearly helping Langdon get back to the ER in some way (think about the steps Robby outlined last season in their last scene together compared to where Langon is now!), Robby still obviously feels negatively towards him. Because of Langdon being so outwardly supportive and nice to Mel, she's extremely happy to see him finally back. However, because Langdon was a huge asshole to Santos, she's a lot less thrilled. That's complicated!

Another way: Despite Robby clearly respecting women like McKay and Evans, he's still much harder on Mohan and Al-Hashimi than he is on other men in the ER. Three of his storylines last season were of him being mean to women for various reasons in ways he is clearly not with the men. Collins gets her head chewed off after she pushes back on how he treats Mohan, McKay gets thrown to the incel kid because McKay took away control from Robby in that situation and he was so worried about the incel kid's life he couldn't see how an all-women "elimination list" could be a red flag, and Al-Hashimi is getting a similarly cold shoulder to Langdon despite the two's "trangressions" being completely different levels. That's complicated!

Going back to Al-Hashimi & Robby: She's sucking up to corp interests & pushing methods that don't seem to work/help/teach, and Robby's an unprofessional asshole w/ some obvious control issues that hates the corp interests and probably definitely has a blinf spot with how he treats women. These are two complicated, interesting, multi-faceted characters giving us TV drama! That's The Pitt, baybee! Feigning ignorance over why the text of the show would make someone would view any character in The Pitt in a negative light, this whole idea that Al-Hashimi or any character is "just eager" and there's nothing else to them, is just silly. There's positives and negatives to pick through for every single character in The Pitt, that's the whole thing about the show.

Give me more women sincerely appreciating men. More admiration of a man's strength when it is wrapped in nobility.

Give me girls lifting each other up, at no one else's expense, just from their own love for each other. More embracing of womanhood, more joy in simple things.

Give me strength clothed in dignity and delight, power wrapped in hope and love and generosity.

Give me more kind women, please. We need them.

This goes for main characters as well as secondary, tertiary and so on. And I'm talking about character driven narratives as well as plot driven (or a mix).

Like, for me, the writing and acting can (and should imho) be enough to convey some sense of the character's background, even if we don't know exact details or know everything in depth all the time. But I feel like this is a not-so-popular opinion these days? Maybe?