ignoring all of the ethical concerns, lazy writing, and patterns of behaviour it spotlights, writing samira off the pitt is still the worst they could have possibly fumbled because they had a better option right there. samira should have been made an attending.
this is something i've been thinking about since before season two even came out, truly i am so set that this is the correct option that i genuinely did not even consider the writers going in a different direction from samira being made an attending. i believed all the way up until her exit was announced that season two was going to be the beginning of this arc.
langdon has always been the heir apparent golden boy of the er (i believe they might have actually called him the heir apparent in the 7am script? i could be wrong). robby wrote him a letter of recommendation for an emergency education fellowship without langdon even asking him - presumably so langdon could take over the teaching hospital's ER. obviously by season two this idea has been shattered, now robby has no one to pass onto.
he's projecting all of his mentorship and advice and attention towards whitaker, and is now floating the idea that he will take over the ER. meanwhile, gloria has offered samira a position once her residency is over, as per a recommendation from jack. this would be something samira is hiding from robby, but he would find out mid-season and be furious that decisions like this are being made without his input. this time, samira puts her foot down and asserts herself, she tells robby she was planning on telling him when he returned from his sabbatical but obviously didn't get the chance to. they end the season at odds still.
season three takes place after robby returns. he has found that samira is thriving under baran's mentorship, and when she eventually replaces baran as the er attending for season four (i love baran and hope she stays forever, but i never believed she would be a permanent character because i genuinely assumed that samira would replace her as attending) for the first time her and robby are on even playing field. he no longer has the power over her he always has, she doesn't need his respect anymore and frankly she doesn't care to have it. she's confident in her abilities as a doctor and as a teacher. eventually they do find common ground, robby learns from her, maybe she learns some stuff from him as well.
this concludes her "slow" arc from season one, it fulfils all the character growth that season one started. she is no longer insecure about her abilities as a doctor, she has managed to find her special sauce and has managed to prove to everybody else that it works. but it also provides so much enrichment for all the other characters as well!!
it provides meaningful growth and change in her relationship with robby. robby would finally be able to leave the er in good hands, it would be an excellent conclusion to the mental heatlh storyline they showed in season two. everybody spent all of season two saying "mental health isn't always pretty, sometimes you lash out and hurt people" and this provides a conclusion that actually creates mutual respect and understanding rather than just "sure i've been yelling at you all day but im mentally ill and your boss so i'm right" like the show ended up doing.
it provides tension in langdon's story - what will he do now? he's always assumed he'd take over the er. he needs some pushback, too, all of his pushback has been related to santos or robby's own personal conflicts. it would be nice to see him being challenged externally by something he can't just write off as being caused by someone who hates him.
it provides an excellent outlet for whitaker - if robby is trying to force him into this er role at the ptmc, this leaves room for him to discover on screen that he might like to go into rural medicine instead. samira is also the only person (on the day shift) that we have ever seen get through to trinity. samira becoming an attending gives trinity a woman in a position of authority who is on her side, it could help her relinquish her control issues and finally show her what a healthy relationship with authority figures looks like. also, if samira is an attending and langdon feels like samira "stole the job" from him, and she's shown to work closely with trinity that's another reason for tension between the two of them!! or a million other things they could have played with.
season three could have been samira realising that she's put off living until she finished her residency and now it's done and she still doesn't feel ready. you know who else put her life on hold for something else that now doesn't need her to wait anymore?? mel. something for them to bond over. literally every single character benefits from samira entering a teaching role. (also, and this doesn't really matter to me personally, but i am aware mohabbot was intended to be a canon slowburn, jack getting her a job at ptmc behind robby's back??? i know you guys would've eaten that up).
they had an arc that quite literally wrote itself, and somehow they chose to get rid of a fan favourite character - the show's beating heart - instead.
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