The Pitt - S02 Season Wrap-Up w/Nichole, John & Ian

[00:00:00] Baby Jane Doe Baby Jane Doe Baby Jane Doe Baby Jane Doe

[00:00:07] Welcome to The Lorehounds. This is our wrap-up podcast for Season 2 of The Pitt. For today's episode, we have assembled a team that is yet to grace the internet, a psychology professor, an armchair Dune scholar, and a man who once tried a Pittsburgh accent and deeply regrets it.

[00:00:40] We're here to diagnose a show where we've watched brilliant people destroy themselves through overwork and emotional suppression. With me today are Nicole from Nevermind The Music. Hello, Nicole. Hi, guys. John from the Dune Minute Podcast. Hello, hello. Good to be back. And Ian from The Captain's Pod. How you doing? So weird that you unearth my psychology degree that I don't tell anybody about. It's so weird. I didn't know you had one. Yeah, no, well, I don't, but you found it. Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:10] Definitely who you were describing. It was definitely me. So today we're going to have a wide-ranging discussion all about Season 2, and I'm sure we're going to touch on Season 1 as well, so full spoilers for this conversation. So if you haven't watched Season 1 or Season 2, go do that right now. Binge all E30 episodes and then come back and listen to the podcast. We'll be here for you. So check the show notes for links to all of the other podcasts that are represented here today.

[00:01:38] Stick around to the end, and we'll have some news about what's coming next on everybody's different feeds. Community conversation, as always, is in the Discord. We're going to be here for you. And we, of course, are an independent podcast network, and your subscriptions mean a lot to us. It's what keeps the content flowing and saving us all from burnout and depression. No, no, no, not really. It's not that bad.

[00:02:01] We do love what we do, and if you enjoy all the content that we produce, then consider subscribing, either on Supercast or Patreon. There's links for everything in the show notes below. Let's get right to some Season hot takes. Nicole, we haven't heard from you all season, and I know you were banging on the door like, I've got to talk about this show! That's true. So I would love to hear from you what your overall take for the season as a whole is before we get into the nitty-gritty.

[00:02:30] Sure. I'll have to say, I watched all of Season 1 in one day. No, are you serious? Yes. It was not a wise choice. It was definitely not good for my mental health. Are you okay? No, I wasn't okay. I have so much latent medical trauma that we're not going to unpack right now. But I watched the whole Season 1, and then that night took my daughter out to a concert at Fenway Park, which is like in a historic ballpark in Boston.

[00:03:00] And the whole time I was just like hyper vigilant, like, hold my hand, get out of it. Like I thought there was danger around every corner. So I was hesitant to dive into Season 2, but very happy that they... I watched it like week by week as each episode dropped and that felt healthier. Also for Season 2, I thought I had it figured out and I was completely wrong. I thought that like... Can I say what I thought was going to happen? Yeah, yeah. This is a full open spoilers. Yeah. Nobody feels like you have to go back.

[00:03:28] So I really thought they were like teasing that Robbie was going to kill himself. But I thought that that was like a red herring, that he wasn't. And I thought he had like a terminal illness that he knew about that he wasn't telling anybody. And they were like transferring his feelings on that onto his motorcycle friend. And that was going to be the big reveal for the end of the season. But I was wrong. And that bummed me out. It's such a Rorschach test. Everybody's like applying all kinds of stuff.

[00:03:55] So it bummed you out, which means for the record, you wanted him to die? I don't know. I thought like the ideation was too on the nose. I thought it was just like too easy and too accessible to think that like, okay, yeah, he has some suicidal thoughts and he's not dealing with them. And that just seemed such like a low hanging fruit. And I wanted it to be a little bit more nuanced than that. I wanted to be tricked a little bit more. And I wasn't. And that bummed me out a little bit.

[00:04:26] Interesting. Yeah. Do you have a sense of what season you enjoyed more just on a vibes check level? I liked this season more. Okay. I think that's season one. Interesting. Yeah, because the characters got a little bit darker. And I generally like darker characters and like the seediness of it all. It felt like the cracks were showing more in this season for me than the first season. And I liked that.

[00:04:54] I thought that the character development was stronger here. Right. So that's like my lukewarm take. I don't know. It's a hot take. John, we had a mid season with you and Ian, and we were all pretty comfortable with the direction that the show was going. And really enjoying it. How did you find yourself in retrospect at the end of season two?

[00:05:17] Pretty sure in the mid, in our mid season episode, I said something to the extent of, uh, season one being the better of the two. And I still firmly land in that case. Uh, so hard disagree with you, Nicole on season two being better. Uh, mostly just because I got real tired of Robbie, just being a raging asshole to everyone.

[00:05:39] And like, I get it, you know, it's a highly stressful job and everything, but also like, bro, you're making $400,000 probably a year. And you're just going to scream at med school students all day. Like, chill the fuck out. So, uh, I mean, obviously he's going through a lot and everything, but I felt like it was, uh, very, you know, to Nicole's point on the nose and very like in your face about like, Hey, I'm going to kill myself on my sabbatical.

[00:06:08] I'm going to kill myself. And it's like, yeah, those aren't good thoughts, but also like you work around so many people that have been through probably way worse traumas than your mother abandoning you. Um, so, you know, you have a network of people you can talk to, but men will do everything, but go to therapy. So that's kind of how I feel about the rest of the season, if I'm honest. Right.

[00:06:38] And are you going to hang tough for a season three? I mean, you're, you're still all in. I mean, yeah. If, if they're saying that season three is exploring Robbie's rock bottom, like sure, go for it. I mean, at least we know ahead of time where, where we're looking. Um, you know, they, we know that it's a winter, you know, episode. We don't know if it's close to like Thanksgiving or the holidays or whatever, but like, regardless of whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas or Hanukkah,

[00:07:08] or Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, like that time of year is always rough for everyone. Um, but I hope it's not just the depression show either. Right. Right. And I think there's, there's a decent amount of characters that, uh, make it not just the depression and anxiety show. Specifically. I mean, okay.

[00:07:36] If we're, if we're, if we're just going to like dive into it this early and everything, I think, um, having Whitaker this time around be like the rock that a lot of people kind of, uh, cling to for like levity, uh, is, is a good evolution of his character this time around. Um, or if not levity, just like support in their lowest moments.

[00:08:02] I know we should on Ogilvy quite a bit in our mid season update, but I thought the, the ending that they had with him and Whitaker outside where, you know, they had that conversation was, was a good, you know, way to show like where he was in season one and where he's at now. What is it? Six months later, seven months later or something like that. 10 in real time. Oh no. Yeah, it was 10. That's right.

[00:08:27] Um, so yeah, I thought, I thought he was a, he was a good addition to it. Um, I really liked, I forget what her name is, uh, what the character name is, but Mel's sister, um, really just kind of like exploring her independence and everything, uh, throughout this season. And I thought she was an awesome character to have around as well. Becca. Yeah. She was cool.

[00:08:58] She was super cool. And Mel's like kind of cracking under that too. And like the real confusion and the real strain of like giving up her caretaker position for Becca is really an interesting storyline for me. For sure. Well, having that bomb dropped on her after a really shitty deposition too. That wasn't the. Yeah. She was going through it this season. Yeah. Ian, your overall thoughts, uh, looking retrospectively at season two. Okay.

[00:09:28] Stick with me. I prefer. Hmm. Okay. I like season one better, but I think season two is better. The reason for that is the, I have weirdly, I have fond memories of season one, despite all of like terrible stuff and the anxiety, but it still felt very. The, there are uncomfortable moments.

[00:09:56] There are uncomfortable moments, but looking back, it feels comfortable compared to this season, which felt extremely uncomfortable, especially towards the backend. And shifting from anxiety. To full on suicidal thoughts is a whole different stratosphere of difficult to watch. Which is why I personally think it's better. I like the, it just, it stuck with it.

[00:10:19] Like, I think we have a very trained to like expect twists and to plan for twists and to find layers, especially us people that talk about content. And hours and hours at a time. And like, we dissect and we dissect. I famously got called out by the showrunner, David S. Goyer on the foundation. Was it season two for hunting shadows? He was like, who was it? That was like thinking that this guy was that guy. And they were, they were related. I was like, Oh, that was me. Yeah.

[00:10:45] So personally, I, I think there's a bravery to just telling the story. And not having to overcomplicate it. And I think, I mean, what you said, John, about men avoiding therapy. Like if there's a great way to kind of put that in front of us, it should just tell us the story and tell us the story of Robbie avoiding it, avoiding it, avoiding it. And I kind of love that he doesn't have a moment at the end where he's like, okay, guys, hands up. I did it.

[00:11:12] I booked my first counseling session because it's not reflective. Like I can speak to it myself. Like I preach to my partner. You let's talk to somebody. You need to talk to someone. I don't do it myself. I'm still not talking to anybody. I absolutely should still not doing it. So I kind of like that non story, um, temptation like that, not tying it up in a bow.

[00:11:37] And I just have, I have a feeling that season two in particular may age extremely well as the show continues. So as season three delivers, I think we might look back on season two slightly more kindly as we binge all of it over the course of two days and question everything. Nope. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not helping.

[00:12:02] But if there's a, if there's a hot take in there, it might be the, like, I've seen like the, the anti Robbie stuff where like a lot of characters suffered because of the amount of focus on Robbie. We're going to talk about Robbie a lot here coming up. I agree with it, but I think it's good. Like, I agree. That's what they did, but I also don't think it's the wrong choice. Right. Are you disappointed that we're not going to get a night shift season that they're just going to go with more Robbie, Noah Wyle?

[00:12:28] Well, one of the things I loved was that the back end of this season was deliberately like three hours with the night shift. So yeah, I want, I, I, I absolutely want that. Of course. Cause I love Abbott. Like Abbott is, Abbott and that team. Yes. Abbott, we need to put him. I'm in, in front of the camera more. We need more Abbott. A million percent. Cruz. Dr. Cruz, cruise control. Good night. The confidence he has. I love it. I love it so much. Like, yeah. And that actor is everywhere right now.

[00:12:58] Yeah. He's awesome. He's all over the place. Cruz and Ellis. You're just, yeah. You're riding. You're riding. Yeah. So. It was, it was really weird and off putting for me to see Luke Tenney in this because I'm also at the same time as watching the pit, watching this latest season of shrinking. And I'm like, you are two very different people right now, man. It's wild. This is just absolutely. I mean, it's great. Like he's a great actor and everything, but.

[00:13:29] He was in. It's called acting. Yeah. He was in Project Hail Mary too. Oh, was he? Yeah. He was the security, like the security that was helping. Oh, the system guy. Yeah. That was helping him. Yeah. When he was like first building the box and everything like early. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. And Avid Elementary too. He's got a good part in right now as well. Oh, sweet. So he's like all over the place playing so many different characters and just crushing it through and through. So. Having his day in the sun. That's awesome. Yes, absolutely.

[00:13:57] I guess while we're talking about people in therapy, if you haven't watched shrinking, you should. It's great. Oh, it's so good. That is also an emotionally devastating show, but in a very different way. Yeah. It's so funny. And that's why I don't know that I'm quite ready. I'll do it. Season two, it sounds like is moving like that. I heard some people that felt the season one was a little uneven, but it sounds like season two is a little bit leaning in a little bit better, a little bit more confidently.

[00:14:27] Is that accurate? Yeah. It just finished three. Yeah. Season three? Yeah. Where the hell have I been? And even like, Harrison Ford's so good in it. And even like season one for a new cast getting together, they had such good vibes. And season two was great. Season three was super duper strong and like really funny. Great writing. They have Brett Goldstein writing for him. I think Brett Goldstein.

[00:14:55] Ian, did you say this on a recent episode of the Captain's Pod, your mailbag, which I haven't finished yet, but either you or Danae say something about when networks pilot a show, they should just give three seasons. Yeah. So I made the point that if it's an established franchise like Star Wars or Star Trek, if your goal isn't, I have one story to tell in six hours, I'm going to tell it, you should

[00:15:22] be given a green light for three seasons to let your people mesh and gel and go together. Don't do this season by season nonsense. I get it. If it's a brand new show, you got to test the waters. But when you have an IP, give it some room to breathe. Right. Yeah. It's, it does take, uh, the, the three season mark is often a place where a show finds its footing, where the actors find their footing, where the writers really are leaning in and understanding the shapes of the stories.

[00:15:48] And, um, that's, I guess, part of the nice thing about the pit is, is that it's sort of got, uh, um, it's got to cancel itself because HBO is not going to cancel it. They will keep resuscitating this, uh, this, uh, patient until it's got a DNR itself. Yeah, exactly. So I think it's a little different in terms of the chemistry and, you know, relationship

[00:16:14] between the characters on the pit though, because of the way that the show is formatted where it's like, you can't say, okay, here's this one episode and then here's our characters, you know, a couple of days, a couple of weeks later, it's here's our one, here's our 15. You know, there's no time for people to like develop friendships off screen or anything like that. You have to just full send them into it. Um, so I think for me, at least like a lot of the characters, you know, definitely had

[00:16:44] some glue ending on season one, but we're seeing more of it in season two. And to me, it like really solidified when we got those back three episodes with the interactions with the, uh, with the night crew that said, I don't know if I want a night crew series just because it's one of those things where it's like, it would be very fan servicey. It's very fan servicey. You have something that's good.

[00:17:13] Don't just, you know, leave it where it is. You don't have to do it because when you, when you do have to do it, then you have to like keep going with it or it just gets really campy and really bad really quickly. I could see a, a spinoff of, uh, like a standalone, you know, hour and a half episode with the night crawlers or something like that. Just, I'll take the fan service. I'll take it. Sorry, Nicole, you were starting to say something. Oh, I was just thinking of like, you know, we're talking about character development and,

[00:17:43] you know, how you, in the format of the show, you don't get to see like outside or individual relationships build, but it was really cool to see what changed in the gap between the first season and second season in terms of like the friendships outside of work and how the relationships grew and changed in that kind of stretch of time that was off camera. So I'm eager to see what happens prior to season three and how these relationships still grow and shifts and what's happening to these characters off camera. Before the next shift picks up.

[00:18:10] I think that's going to be, I think that there's a lot of potential there to really push some character development and I hope they exploit that. So we're going to take a quick commercial break. And then when we come back, I've laid out about six sort of broad topical areas and I've got some sort of starter questions. I'm just going to throw it to you guys for us to, to work around these different things,

[00:18:36] but just to clue everybody in on sort of the landscape of, of where our discussions were going to go. We're going to first talk about the problem of Robbie, the Robbie problem. Then we're going to talk about patients as mirrors. Then we'll talk about recovery as the, as a superstructure to the season. And we can talk a little bit more about season one, season two. We've already done that a little bit, but I've got a couple of more questions I can ask you guys.

[00:19:02] We can then get into a little bit of the offscreen realities and some of the stuff that's going around on the show. And then we can talk a little bit more sort of where we are there. We can sort of take a fresh look at, at what we're thinking about for season three. So let's take that quick break. And then when we come back, we will talk about the problem with Raleigh. I'm thinking of what is it? What's the song problem with Maria? Isn't that a famous? Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. I don't know why that's coming to my head. Anyway, here we go.

[00:19:45] And we're back. So before we start talking about the Robbie problem, I'm just going to frame the overall conversation a little bit. I heard on NPR, they were doing some assessment of the season and somebody pointed out that season one was about acute problems and season two is more about chronic problems. And I think we can kind of take that a little bit further.

[00:20:08] And I'm going to make a statement that season two is kind of a 15 hour argument about what the American healthcare system does to the people inside of it. And not through the one big catastrophic event that we had like in season one, but through that slow grind of a single ordinary shift on an American holiday weekend.

[00:20:36] And the argument is that through every layer of the show, the patients, the staff, the politics, the technology, the burnout, you know, what is the American healthcare system and what is the show saying about it? And so the question we kind of like the bigger frame question is, has the show made the argument and did it make it well that, you know, this system has deep, deep structural flaws to it.

[00:21:04] And I think we can sort of, as we work through these different sets of questions, we can kind of use that as a, as a gauge to, to orient ourselves along through the, this conversation. So to talk about Robbie, um, there's a lot of critical conversation around the show and, um, the

[00:21:34] description of Robbie's behavior as a, as a pattern and not just the burnout, but that hot, cold cycle that keeps his staff destabilized. And, um, you know, Langdon calling him out sort of with this, with his behavior that he's seeing from addiction. And so Nicole, I'm curious as our resident psychologist, well, not a practicing college, but it's our, our, our psychological professor, what are we looking at when we're seeing Robbie

[00:22:02] in his, in this condition, not only with the suicidal ideation, but his sort of dominant character traits that he's leaning into and leaning on? Well, you see a lot of stuff with Robbie and season one talks about PTSD from COVID. Right. And that PTSD can present as depression, anxiety, that like hot and cold, um, light, like emotional liability.

[00:22:29] Um, but with Robbie, I think it's more than that. So I'm trying to think of a way to unpack this. That's like a psych one-on-one level of thinking. Right. You know how, when sometimes people are raised in environments that are really chaotic, they like seek out those chaotic, chaotic environments throughout their life because that it's, it's

[00:22:55] like that chaos becomes their baseline for their personality, that they're raised in such a chaotic, hectic environment that a mellow, calm environment feels uncomfortable for them. They need the chaos to feel comfortable because their, their nervous system has been regulated and built around like a stimming chaotic environment. So people that have that kind of upbringing often seek out professions or relationships that mimic the chaos of their family. Cause that's what they know. And that's where they're comfortable.

[00:23:25] So what I see in Robbie is someone that needs the chaos to feel okay. And he even says so to Duke for sure. That he doesn't know how to be anywhere, but here. Right. He starts up something along those lines because he's so hardwired to that like hypervigilant state that to relax feels unsettling to him. Right. He doesn't know how to turn it off. Right.

[00:23:48] Those are all kind of mile markers along this road to anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, because he, he doesn't know how to turn it off and he's not eager or willing to accept help in doing that. And when he gets called out, I don't know his name, the guy that was addicted to Langdon. Langdon. Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry. When Langdon says, I saw a lot of guys in rehab, just like you.

[00:24:18] Because it's that same patterned behavior of like, you need this high intensity environment. You're always like seeking the next thing because being mellow and being chill and being like a stable affect, a stable baseline isn't comfortable for them. So all this to say like Robbie needs therapy, right? To process the trauma that he went through during COVID and losing his mentor.

[00:24:44] That just kind of heightened and kind of triggered and activated what was like a maladaptive developmental thing that happened to him probably from when he was a kid. Right. Of growing up in a really volatile environment. We don't know too much about Robbie's childhood. He doesn't, he hints at it at the end of the season, but we don't know where he was before he was here. And I think that's really. Right. And we know that he kind of idolized, he's kind of idolizing Whitaker in some degree.

[00:25:12] I mean, he's outside and he's talking about being, was he talking to Mohan or Javadi? I forget. And saying, you know, at this point I thought, I think it was Javadi or Mohan, sorry, Mohan. And he's saying, I thought I'd be married and have a couple of kids at college at this stage of my life. And I don't have that. So we know what he idolizes. Or what he's like was planning, but someone with a personality type like that, that their, their, their system needs that chaos. They're not going to be content, settle down.

[00:25:39] They're, they're not going to feel like it's okay or allowed for them to slow down and just get in the pickup truck and go to the farm. You know, like that's not allowed for him. He needs to like punish himself in a way, which is a really interesting motif. I mean, the pickup truck in the farm is punishment as well. And with the baby too. Give me a break. I know. Thank you. That's seeking some chaos as well.

[00:26:04] It's true, but it's also like, you know, continuing Whitaker has this role to be a good boy. Right. And there's like altruistic piece. And I think Robbie sees that he had that at one point too, but something crushed that inside of him. And it might've been COVID. It might've been that trauma. It might've just been like life in general. Right. Right. This Robbie has this need to run away that Whitaker doesn't have yet.

[00:26:29] And I think Robbie's not jealous of it, but like nostalgic for it almost. That's how I see it. And Ian, there's a central tension that's driving Robbie there where he's telling Dana, I can't leave here because you got, I have to be here to keep this place running. I also want to be here because that's my baseline regulation thing, but I also can't be here anymore because it's taking little bits of my soul every time I'm leaving. As a writer yourself.

[00:26:59] Like, what are you seeing in there? What are you seeing in there? What the writers are doing with Robbie's character and setting up that really complex interiority? Yeah. The point about it being a management style and how he's deliberately running hot and cold to keep his people on his toes. I'm not seeing that in the writing. I'm not really buying it. What I'm seeing is him living in fight or flight.

[00:27:26] And the result of that is you get these knee jerk reactions. So the doctor hits you on the knee and you kick out. All of his abuse comes in the moment and explodes out of him. And occasionally when he's had a chance to step back, he'll then go and apologize. Now that's absolutely what narcissistic armchair psychology man over here gaslighters do to people as well. But I'm not seeing that in Robbie.

[00:27:53] I'm seeing him running just on impulse and solving the next thing in front of him. And that is a very comfortable place for someone like him for his brain to operate in. Just solve the next problem in front of me. Push the obstacles to that problem out of the way.

[00:28:16] And one of the best analyses that I liked was when he really came up Mohan for losing it and having a panic attack. And someone said, you're mad at her because that's what you do. And that you're bringing your stuff into work. And just that channeling all of the faults that he sees in himself when he sees that in somebody else. Attacking them because he's attacking the thing that he does as well.

[00:28:45] So that's what I'm picking up the most from Robbie is just this guy that is reactive. And deliberately living in that reactive state. Like if I stay busy, I don't have to think. And where is busier than the pit? And it is terrifying to walk out the door. More than the writing I do now in my previous life before writing, I was a retail store manager.

[00:29:12] And sometimes, to be clear, there are no lives at stake. It was like a Home Depot style place. Nothing mattered. But when you have 20 managers descending upon you and you've got a big grand reopening, that place was where I was buried. And I wasn't leaving those doors. I was a god. I was the only person who knew exactly how to run that shop.

[00:29:40] And even though it was killing me and I hated it, there was a satisfaction in keeping that boat afloat. And it is contradictory. It is paralyzing. But I think they've represented that extremely well this season with him. Yeah, I think of that all the time too at my job. That I take on a lot of responsibility. And I have this feeling that if I go away, who will do all this work? And I've been calling it this semester Dr. Robbie Syndrome.

[00:30:09] Like I'm diagnosing myself with Dr. Robbie Syndrome. Like if I walked away, they'd fill my job in a second. If something happened to me, they'd have someone in here tomorrow to cover my glasses. But I think... And that person would just do it their way. They would. You know, they'd go, oh, I'll figure it out. And this is the structures of the atmosphere. And I'll just teach the class the way I'm going to teach the class. And everything would be okay. But do you know what's crushing about that? Sorry. It is the... I don't want that.

[00:30:39] I want to be special. I don't want somebody to be able to step in and do what I was doing. Because then, in a messed up way, that devalues my value. So if Al Hashimi can actually replace Robbie so easily, that destroys his world in a way. It's like, well, if I don't have value here and I'm not integral to this place, where am I integral? And that, like, ego death that works... Well, that's a strong sentiment to say that Al Hashimi represents his ego death.

[00:31:09] But we don't have to dive into that. No, I get it. We need Marilyn for that. But this idea that we have this, like, martyrness to our jobs. That if I'm not here, like, only I can do it. Only I can solve those problems. It's incredibly toxic. It is not healthy for anybody. And to go back to your previous point about how he was digging in to the other doctor having panic attacks and transferring his feelings, like his anger with himself onto her.

[00:31:36] We see that throughout this season with these two characters. That he's transferring a lot of his anger and a lot of his resentment onto this one person. And it's starting to break towards the end of this season. And one more thing, and then we can move on if you want to. But this idea of Robbie as a narcissist, I'm going to push back on that all day. Because he feels remorse. And a narcissist wouldn't. He knows he's flawed. And a narcissist wouldn't. They would think that, like, everyone else is broken. This is the way to be.

[00:32:07] Yeah, I completely agree. That's why I don't think that's his... It's not a management thing. I don't think it's deliberate. I think this is all just him working on impulse. It's definitely his body and his brain are wired to be yet in this fight or flight state. Like, that's where he's relaxed. In a fight or flight state. Which is so F-time. That's not what that's meant to be, darling. No, that's the backwards. The opposite. Literally.

[00:32:32] So, John, Robbie never apologizes to Mohan. Not even once. But he tells Javadi that she can do anything. And then he swaddles a baby and he gets this really saintly final shot. How are you interpreting the way that they're constructing Robbie's character here? Is this a Noah Wiley problem?

[00:32:56] Or is this, as Ian was saying, the tension of Robbie is his internal conflict? I think it's a lot of Robbie projecting his own history with his abandonment and everything onto Mohan. Whereas it's almost the opposite problem that Javadi has. Where her mother is a hover mother and is just constantly on top of her.

[00:33:26] And that is not something that Robbie is familiar with. That's interesting, yeah. He kind of sees her as someone that is obviously incredibly talented. Because they spent all of season one and even parts of this season talking about how it's her 21st birthday tomorrow or whatever. Next week or whatever it was. And how she's already in this student doctor environment.

[00:33:54] And that she got into med school super early and everything. So he knows that she's very talented. But I think it's because the hover mother, why aren't you doing this perfectly kind of thing is foreign to him. That's why he's more forgiving. Whereas Mohan has the hover mother with the constant phone calls and everything.

[00:34:18] But there's still a lot of separation physically between them. So I think he kind of sees the physical separation from it. I don't know. Maybe this is a situation where the curtains are blue because the author says the curtains are blue. But no, it's something else. And Javadi's mother is a high profile doctor within the environment, right? Yeah. So there's some tension even there. Well, both of her parents are. Yeah.

[00:34:47] Because I think her dad was a GI or something like that. Right. Yeah. In the hospital as well. Or maybe her mom was a GI and I don't remember what her parents' professions were. But I thought it was very funny when they gave her shit about potentially considering dermatology. As if they saw dermatology as anything less than incredibly important. Because as a pasty, white, pale person, I can promise you my dermatologist gets a lot of money from me.

[00:35:18] And from my perspective, there's only one job. Like her mom and dad are like high up, but nothing trumps psych ER. Like nothing is that. I feel like that job is the hardest job in a hospital. Say more. Psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatric emergency doctors. That's really, really, really challenging work. Not everyone can do that.

[00:35:46] A lot of people try and burn out super duper quickly. So I think a lot of her challenges were like, how can I prove to my parents that I'm good? You can't talk back to that as a goal. That is a... It's a very, very, very hard job. I feel like you also deal with people at their absolute worst and lowest situations in those cases too. Yeah.

[00:36:13] And it's emotionally challenging, physically hugely demanding. That's my only critique is like, I look at her and I don't want it to be like this. What I'm about to say is an ugly thing to say as a feminist. She's too tiny for that job. She's not... She's literally... You have to be very, very physically strong. So what you're saying is, is shark should have been a psych... I don't know if he's got the empathy quotient for... You need a high empathy quotient, but you need some muscle. For sure, you need muscle.

[00:36:42] She just needs those shots in her pocket constantly, right? Four milligrams of a percent. There you go. That's it. That's it. It's an incredibly challenging job. I have a lot of students that go into psychiatric nursing. And even like the best and the brightest kids, the strongest kids, they do it for a year. And they're like, I can't do this. Like it's really, really demanding work. And even people that go into it and are successful know that there's a shelf life, know that they can do it. They get five years max.

[00:37:11] And then they'll have to transition to something else because it's just not sustainable for the long term. Ian, did you think... In many cases. Did you think that Javadi's heel turn to psychiatric emergency work was earned? Because it did feel a little out of the blue. Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise for me. And I think... I'm going to say disappointment. But I think looking back, it won't be. It'll be fine. Because I was just...

[00:37:38] We're presented with this hyper-intelligent, like Einstein of a doctor. And we know so little about the Psyche-ER side of things that we just assume she's going to be like the next Robbie or something. Like she's going to be able to perform all of these crazy medical procedures. So I felt a little bit of loss that we aren't going to see her reach that level because I

[00:38:03] doubt we're going to pivot really into seeing what she does over in a completely different department. It'd be great if we did. But unearned is tricky. I think they could have done a better job of perhaps trickling some of that through the season a bit more. It did definitely... Heel turn is a good way to describe it. Beyond the... So I didn't tap into it from the social media posting. Like I didn't...

[00:38:27] That seemed more like a awareness thing rather than a mental health promotion thing. Yeah, like that hinted at it to me looking back. Like in hindsight, like that was like a little bit of a seed of this idea, but it definitely seemed more life coachy than Psyche-ER. But I think if you have an empathy towards mental illness, that's a really good step in that direction.

[00:38:56] And also, I don't think you should make major life decisions after you worked a 13 hour shift. No, absolutely not. Like sleep on it. Legit sleep on it. I wonder how much of it is a deliberate mirror between Mohan and her, who Mohan has spent the entire season wondering what the hell do I apply for? And the things that I want to apply for are now gone. And then Javadi's just handed it on a plate. Oh, I guess I'll do this. Great. Like there's that big comparison between working for that all season and then just getting

[00:39:25] it in the 11th hour. In fairness though, Mohan had been told since season one, like, Hey, you work really well with old people. You should consider geriatrics. And she's still just like, I don't know what I'm going to apply for. Like that was the, that was the big thing with her introduction in season one was like, you are slow. You are not able to like keep up with the speed of the ER. So maybe consider something that isn't the ER.

[00:39:55] And they like, they gave her a runway for the people that she worked with, the people that she works with very effectively, whether it was, you know, women's health, especially for like women of color, uh, or like the elderly and geriatric care or, or, you know, those cases that we see where you need someone that's like super hyper detail oriented in those cases that can take their time with, you know, everything and go back and look.

[00:40:24] Um, but I thought it was almost lazy writing for them to be like, I don't know where I want to go. So in all season, they've been giving us the, her good interactions with, uh, with geriatric patients. Sorry, David. There's, um, there's a difference between being good at something and wanting to do it. Like I'm really good at baking, but I hate it. I'm not going to make any more cakes. I'm done with it.

[00:40:49] So I like tapped into her annoyance of stop telling me to work with geriatric people. I don't want to do that. Thank you. I might be good at it, but I'm not interested. I don't think it was ever a telling. I think it was more just like, Hey, have you considered this? Yeah. That gets, that gets annoying. John, what did you think of the use of Duke as our sort of exterior character for Robbie

[00:41:18] to start to get into that question of what's really going on with Robbie? Did, did that work for you as a, as a story device? Robbie 30 years down the line though. I don't know, working at the pit, maybe 15 years down. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Um, I, I thought it was, I thought it was a good idea to bring in someone that like he

[00:41:42] felt comfortable with to kind of begin to like open the cracks a little further and a little deeper. Um, it, you know, we, we got the chaos of the pit obviously. Cause like the moment that he has a second to talk, he's getting pulled away and everything. But, uh, obviously we get the, the big scene between the two of them outside where he tells Duke like, Hey, I don't want to be here anymore.

[00:42:08] And, you know, seeing Duke who is someone who by his own admission had done a lot of horrible shit, but still, you know, sees the benefit and, you know, being around and not wanting to take that one way trip. Uh, I think he's very not judgmental about. Yeah. Because, because he's been through so much shit. He's seen a lot of shit. He's done, uh, you know, a lot of shit and everything, but he still says like, Hey, there's still a purpose here.

[00:42:38] And, um, Robbie knows that I think Robbie eventually understands that he still has a purpose back at the pit, but also like, go take your three months, man, like get away from it for a little bit. So I think having Duke to kind of tell, tell him that is, uh, is beneficial, but yeah, I liked the character. I thought it was, uh, and shout out to the actor. I'm looking them up really quick.

[00:43:07] Um, do I have his name? You know, we have a deficiency in our, uh, Eakins. No, Jeff Kober, uh, Jeff Kober. Oh, he's a friend trying to read the show notes or the show guide here really quick. Yeah. Jeff Kober is great job on the portrayal of him as well. And he's, he's been an actor that's been around for quite a long time. Oh yeah. It felt like one of the most authentic Lee awkward interactions as well.

[00:43:32] Like when Robbie really gets into it and he doesn't suddenly become sage, mental Yoda that has the answers. He just kind of shuffles awkwardly and is like, you're going to take your bite? You good buddy? Like, I love that he doesn't, he just, it felt extremely genuine. And they kind of dealt with it like two guys at a bar drinking a beer and suddenly a couple of beers too deep and something has come out. And they're like, can we just pretend I didn't say that? But there's still value in having said it.

[00:44:01] I kind of wish they split the role, like the job, let me say it a different way. I wish they split the function of that character between Duke and the woman that Robbie has been sleeping with, like the other doctor, she was a social worker that he had like a thing with. Oh, you know, I forgot she exists. Right. And thank you. That's the point, right? Like she has an intimacy with him that could have gotten him there too. And they didn't lean into it at all.

[00:44:30] And I feel that frustrated me a little bit that it was this like macho guy when we had a strong female character that had emotional intimacy with Robbie and you could see that they had nuance to their relationship and it wasn't exploited enough for me to progress the plot along in a way that it was such, it was right there. Like they could have had like one conversation that showed like a real vulnerability and not

[00:44:56] like this veiled macho vulnerability that we saw with Robbie and Duke. I would have loved to see like a more of like a feminine tone, bring that out in him. I think that that would have helped me develop and like his character more. That's the character is Noelle Hastings, who's a case manager and bed utilization nurse played by Meta Golding. And I think I said on one episode later in the season where, when John and I were covering

[00:45:26] the season that I was really mad at Robbie because she is a real one. Right. She's into it. Yeah. Yeah. She's somebody that he could share the job with, which is a hard thing to do, right? If you have no sense of what the chaos of an ER department is, she's somebody that can empathize, sympathize, completely understand. And he can talk about those kinds of things without sort of traumatizing his partner who

[00:45:54] has maybe nothing to do with it. Like, and it seemed like they had a really good rapport and ease. And they were like hot together. Totally. And we needed that. I needed that for sure. Abbott only took me so far, you know, and I think that, you know, Robbie could use a strong female partner that he can talk about his feelings with and like a social worker is that girl, you know? So between Robbie, Abba and Langdon, what more do you want?

[00:46:24] Kind of more. I kind of want more. I'm also coming off of a real like heated rivalry, like my fifth rewatch. Oh, okay. There we go. You know, I'm really trying to fill some gaps. Got it. It could, it could also just be a Santos and Garcia relationship where all they do is just have sex and eat ramen in bed. So that's not my vibe. I appreciate it. I appreciate the representation. Yeah. Like who, what?

[00:46:54] No. No. Ramen is not what you eat in bed. Taco Bell, maybe. And isn't it like that's going to be against the rules, right? Like, it's got to be. Just like driving barefoot. It's just like, no, wait. Not ramen in bed, but like this idea of them like even together. Oh, I guess. I feel like that can't be. Oh, that. Yeah. Well, that. Never mind HR. Let's keep HR out of this conversation. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about patience is mirrors.

[00:47:17] Um, you know, the show uses individual patients to carry a lot of, uh, systemic arguments and we have a lot of text that we can, you know, there's a rich text here of, of different patients with different conditions. Let's just start like right at the, the, one of the most intense things towards the end of the season with the patient who is, um, wanting to give, uh, to have a free birth

[00:47:45] and she's in an eclamptic crisis, which is a major medical emergency. And that's putting a lot of our modern idea, modern, um, our current ideas and feelings about medical care and certain political ideologies and mistrust in the medical establishments while at the same time, like we know that there is a lot of great healthcare outcomes from the, the, you know, from this style of medicine.

[00:48:15] I'm curious, Nicole, um, from your standpoint, how did this storyline hit you and what are some of the threads that you can pull out in terms of our context? And as a, from, from that sort of sociological, like here is an issue that we're dealing with in the country. Yeah. What are you, what are you pulling out from that? Oh, sorry. I shouldn't use the pulling out thing because we had a baby being pulled out. So that was just wild.

[00:48:42] Well, I didn't know what perspective you wanted me to, to address here. I'm kind of giving you the, just, you can expound. Well, like I'm a mom. I had a baby was evacuated from my body. Um, and it's a good way to put it. Well, she was born on evacuation day, which in Boston is a weird holiday we have. So that's the, the joke I make. It's not funny. No one laughs at it ever, but maybe you guys. I bet the people in Boston do.

[00:49:12] So there's like four people listening. They're like, that's funny. Um, but, uh, it was the, one of the harder scenes for me to watch and not, I'm like pretty good at horror and gore. And I like the theatrics of it. I was really fascinated how they filmed that and watching behind the scenes stuff. It's like really cool. I, it was really hard for me to watch though, because I was so frustrated, um, that we have healthcare, we have access to healthcare. Not everyone does.

[00:49:40] So for me, I get really frustrated sociologically when people have the privilege of a world-class or a good enough healthcare system that they can have. Can I interject real quick? Yes, for sure. The, the, there's a, uh, what this might be helpful in our conversation that, um, outcomes versus delivery. We have excellent outcomes. We have terrible delivery, right?

[00:50:05] So the, the way that healthcare is allocated and distributed and delivered is messed up. But like when somebody gets in and gets the care they need, we can have extraordinarily uh, uh, positive outcomes in, in a lot of cases. Yeah. So I don't know if that helps. And that said in our country, many women die during childbirth. Many women of color die during childbirth more so than other countries that have similar or worse healthcare systems than we do.

[00:50:34] So we do not do a good job. So it's a glaring inversion in that, that question of inverse of, of outcomes versus, um, distribution. Absolutely. So to me, when there are potential maternal deaths that are preventable because I'm a mom didn't want to go to a doctor, like that frustrates me because so many people do all the quote, right things and still die during childbirth. And I could, you can see it in the doctor's faces.

[00:51:04] Like they're trying not to judge. They're just trying to treat. And I think that's an ethos that stretched across this whole season that I really appreciated. Like we treat without judgment and you could kind of start to see it break here a little bit in Robbie. Um, so I, I think it was a really interesting scene and an important scene and a great scene to advocate for like maternal care. If you do have access to it and prenatal care, you have access to it. Um, education. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:51:33] But that's the thing. There's a lot of people being educated on, on what? On TikToks and, uh, you know, other, other social media platforms where this mistrust of that rightfully there should be some mistrust about. Uh, if I, um, yeah, I think that, you know, especially women of color have a strong distrust towards prenatal care and postnatal care. Um, I can understand that. I know plenty of women that have wanted home births.

[00:52:01] Plenty of my friends wanted to be birth in birthing centers or have a home birth or a water birth at home. Um, and a lot of birthing centers are next door to hospitals. So when things go south, you can just go right across the street and get a blood transfusion to save your life. Right. So it was hard to watch, especially when they, after they took the baby out and she kept

[00:52:27] bleeding and they just kept packing her full of the paper, like the material that like collects all the blood. Gauze. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you realize I used to turn laparoscotomy pads, I think. Right. They're like all the lap pads and they just dumped out the box and they just started shoving them in to this meat puppet, you know, nevermind the music. I use the term meat puppet a lot. Like we are just like meat puppets, like puppeting around.

[00:52:54] And sometimes on the pit, you're very much reminded that you are just a meat puppet and they're just trying to like patch you up. And that was a moment when birthing, um, is such a miracle and it can go south really quickly and you can turn into a meat puppet pretty quick. So I'm not sure if that addressed any of your questions, but I did have a very strong reaction to that scene. And that's like my brain dump on my feelings around it. Yeah. No.

[00:53:21] And I wanted you to, to have a free space to, to share and, and give us your opinions because when John and I talked about this, like we don't have wombs, we have not had babies evacuated from us. So we can only say so much. I had a pretty complicated birth of our daughter and I did almost die when she was born. I talked about that in a recent episode in Nevermind the Music, we're trying to make each other cry on our podcast. And I did make Mark cry. Yes. Yay! You won.

[00:53:50] And it's, it's hard to watch that. And I, I, I feel so lucky every day that I survived that and I had great doctors to help me. And if I birthed that home, it wouldn't have happened. If I lived in a rural environment, it wouldn't have happened. But the fact that I live so close to the best hospitals in the country, in Boston, saved my life and these doctors saved my life. So, and that wasn't my choice. So I get frustrated when I see women making the choice to not accept that level of care because it's, it's here, you know?

[00:54:19] And then we have a contrast with a patient from, uh, episode nine. I think it was Amaya who is having the ovary that was twisting on itself. And, uh, McKay and Whitaker, I believe were the doctors on that. And they actually took the time, McKay actually took the time to listen and, and, and to sort of be present and be aware of the social problems, uh, that, uh, uh, affect, uh, women and particularly women of color in those circumstances.

[00:54:48] No, doctors don't believe women's pain, especially women of color. Like that's not hyperbolic. That's back to new sorts. Which is all that weird countervailance stuff about why we should have some distrust in the medical systems and be concerned about what has been put into our food because of corporate profits and these kinds of things. But then when it actually argues against our ability to receive the healthcare, we need to save the life of our. Yeah. Like, uh, they say, I don't know if you've heard, um, that the system's broken.

[00:55:17] This is what they're, I think this is what they were talking about. Right. Right. I want to, um, change gears a little bit, uh, to John regarding Langdon. Um, Sarah, I don't know if you heard the episode where I interviewed Sarah, who is a ICU nurse and, uh, a listener of the, the lore hounds and we had her on, she was sending in all the emails over the course of our coverage.

[00:55:43] Um, I'm curious as to what you think about Langdon's arc. Uh, he's gotten this great redemption arc. Oh, he's a doctor. He's coming back and you know, he's doing the work. But Sarah pointed out that if he had just been a nurse of any level, he probably would have been, you know, and somebody caught him stealing drugs. He probably would have been, you know, if not placed in cuffed, at least escorted off the premises.

[00:56:08] What did you see in the Langdon storyline and the, and the questions of recovery and, um, and how he was being received by his, his coworkers? Well, they made it abundantly clear that Langdon, Robbie even made it abundantly clear that Langdon should have been, you know, placed in cuffed and, you know, taken away from the hospital and everything.

[00:56:32] But out of his, I guess, uh, call it duty as Langdon's mentor or whatever. Uh, he, you know, chose to, you know, give him that one out. Um, I, I am very, you know, it was interesting watching the rest of Langdon's, you know, recovery

[00:56:59] and everything, or I guess, you know, return, not recovery. Um, but his return, uh, in this season and his interactions with the rest of everyone else. I don't remember, frankly, um, because it feels like a million years ago since we last talked, but was the conversation between Robbie and Langdon up on the, uh, or in the elevator,

[00:57:24] um, was that before the halfway mark of the season or the halfway or after the halfway mark of the season where Robbie basically tells Langdon, like, look, I'm glad you got your help. I'm glad, you know, you are doing the work and everything, but I don't know if I want you here. I think that was episode seven. Pretty sure we covered that. I think we talked about it. Okay. Cause I remember, um, liking that he said, I just don't know if I want you in my ER. Yeah. Okay.

[00:57:53] So that might, that might've been like right on the, right on the point where, um, the boating accident victim was episode seven. And that was, I believe that patient. Was that right? I can't remember. Yes. That was the, okay. I had the two mixed up because there were two, uh, medevacs this season. There was the one with the lady that got her leg, uh, from the slides. Yeah. That was the one with Ogilvy on the, on the second half. Got my leg. Yeah.

[00:58:23] Yeah. Yeah. And also once again, shark, my favorite character from this season. God, I loved how just like direct he was, but no, I like it. Okay. So, um, I like, like I said, in our recap, um, having not gone through recovery the way

[00:58:47] that Langdon did, but kind of doing it, you know, with the help of, you know, my therapist at the time, uh, and, you know, my friends and family network and everything like that. It was a different like pace of having those conversations, but then seeing Langdon turn, you know, to Robbie at the end, like before he's leaving and just be like, Hey man, you

[00:59:13] like, I've seen where things are bad and you need to get your shit together. I think was actually kind of, um, kind of, I don't want to say like satisfying, but I don't know what else to say, but it was satisfying to see Langdon, you know, kind of turn that back on him in that way to, you know, basically say like, look, I got, or I am getting my

[00:59:41] shit together. I need you to do an effort to do, to get your shit together too. Um, and there were conversations that I've had with people in a very similar situation. And I think because of not just because of those conversations, but those conversations helped those other people get their proverbial shit together as well. Um, so.

[01:00:06] Did you find that that portrayal of the work that Langdon was doing, did that feel authentic for you? Did they, do you feel the writers, uh, did, did a good job thinking through that and presenting those situations in a way that worked? I don't want to speak to it because I didn't go through a program like that. Okay. Got it. So. Just as a regular fan, did you just as a regular fan? Did you? I mean, as, as a fan, I thought it was fine. Um, but once again, like my, my journey

[01:00:36] was very different, so, you know, I don't want to compare, uh, apples. So we're in Gotcha. Fair enough. Well, every addict's journey is very different, right? Like, you know, there are people that seek help, whether it's from AA or from other services, uh, whether it's, you know, depending on where you live, potential social services that are offered by, um, you know, either your city or your hospital or, you know, other nonprofit groups or, you know, just the help of friends

[01:01:06] and family. Like everyone's story is different in that case. And I, I, I think it is a good, good enough way of representing it from or to a mass audience, but it's definitely not everyone's journey that they take. Ian, I want to turn this to you. I don't know. This is kind of a baby mapping a strange question

[01:01:32] onto you, but I want to ask you about the ice episode or a pair of episodes. Um, it sounds like the showrunners have said that they, they had written it quite a long time ago. So the events in reality sort of outstripped the, you know, outpaced the show and they were kind of like, Whoa, like we didn't sort of mean this to happen this way. And then there was a little bit of, you know, buzz in the news about, did they pare it down? Did, uh, did something

[01:01:58] get changed at a scene, get cut or something like that? So I'm curious to hear from you both on the, the question of in having something so overtly political in charge in the show, was it a, a boon or a bane to the show? And then also as a writer, did you feel the cut or the manipulation that was done maybe in post by, by the studio?

[01:02:25] Yeah. There were, there's something ineffable about when you can just see something kind of stands out and it's hard. You can't treat it in a vacuum. Like it's good to know that it was kind of, it's interesting to know that it was made pre the stuff that was happening that's still happening. And that was especially happening at the end of last year and the

[01:02:52] beginning of this year. Um, I think they handled it the best way that they could. Um, it, they didn't shy away from how terrifying it is with everybody just leaving, leaving their job and leaving the, it doesn't matter. You need urgent medical attention. We're out of here cause it's better than being deported. Um, so I like that they kind of, they showed the impact of

[01:03:20] the bomb without kind of criticizing who drops the bomb. So no one really, they, they got to show their anger for what happened, but there wasn't really a specific kind of finger wagging. So this is why I like Star Trek so much because Star Trek gets to do allegory. Star Trek can say, I'm just, I just want to give John carte blanche. If you need to bring in a Dune reference,

[01:03:47] you need to talk about some Frank Herbert, you're welcome to do so. So don't feel out. I thought we were about to explain what Star Trek is to John. Zach is taking care of that on the Dune Minute podcast, I think enough for John. Sorry, John. Did you guys have an executive report? I watched TNG growing up. I just don't. It doesn't show, John. Yikes. But we can talk, we can talk all about elevating specific people and, you know, you know, worshiping leaders all day if you want. Oh yeah, there we go.

[01:04:18] So Star Trek can set a thing on Hexocoroco Phallopatorius V. I'm slipping in a Dr. Hoover reference now. Oh my gosh, guys. It can set it all over there. You said yes, Nicole. You knew who these people were. I've got a recording that you want to talk to me about, TNG. It's right here. I never said that. I would love to. That was AI. Yeah, AI.

[01:04:45] And it gives you a freedom. It gives you a freedom to say what you want. Shakespeare did it by selling all of his stuff in Italy. Like, you can have so much more freedom to do that when you're analogous. Not all of his stuff. What's that? Some of it's based in Denmark. Denmark as well. Apologies. Sorry. We don't talk about that one. But it's so much harder to do it when it's right there. It's in front of you. And it's a show that's embedded in being realistic and being realism.

[01:05:14] So when it does decide to pull a punch, even if it's only pulling it 1%, it's very obvious. Because it doesn't pull any other punches with childbirthing the meat sacks, putting us back together, taking us apart. But like, so the second you're even like eyeballing it to be like, okay, what are you going to do with this? It has that extra scrutiny. So I think it's a bit of a no-win situation, to be honest.

[01:05:40] And I think they did as well as they could with representing the fear, how it's part of the climate. But I'm always going to want them to go a bit harder because I have a vested interest in staying here. I'm curious if this was written before or after. Like, where in the before and after was this written and shot in relation to, you know, everything that's going on with Ice, right?

[01:06:08] Like, because I feel like if this was written after the death of Alex Peretti, it would be tonally very different. But also, you know, we do know that HBO intervened and told them to chill that whole section out. So I am curious. Any speculation on what they, I had an idea. I was wondering if they caught Nurse Jesse actually physically contact, having physical contact with the Ice agent.

[01:06:37] I'm wondering if that's what they dropped out, which would go to your theory, Ian, about they sort of didn't show you the explosion of the bomb going off. A bomb went off, but you didn't see the actual whoosh. And I wonder if that was what they pulled out. I thought all the reporting was around like, hey, you need to show. They're basically both sides. Don't say both sides. That's what they, that's apparently what the reporting was saying was that they have to show both sides.

[01:07:06] Because it's like, first of all, what's the other side? Yeah, showing the other side doesn't make them look good. No. If you want to make them look good, show less of that. Yeah. I mean, if you want to make them look good, just don't be Nazis. Right. There you go. There you go. I didn't prepare any of you for this question, but I'm just going to throw it out there really quick. Because I was just scanning in the, in the show tracker and Nancy, thank you so much for all the work that you did. This is such a comprehensive and amazing record. She's the best.

[01:07:36] It's like so great to have this. And when we go into season three, it'll be even better to have this. And I was just seeing like all the patients that we saw this year and all the different things. So I'm just kind of going, I'd like to go around and just see, is there a patient for any of you that just floats to the top that you were really invested in their story? You really enjoyed whether we saw an outcome or not, but just enjoyed the interaction or it really moved you in some way or just stuck out in your mind in some way.

[01:08:05] Nicole, I don't know if you've got anything at the top of your mind. There are two that are bubbling up. Go for it. One is like the, I call them in my head, like the trucker family, like the family that was having the family reunion and they were there like in and out all day. The Hanson family. And they like, we're like putting all the pills on the table and just like confettiing the pills and just taking whatever they felt like, which I think is so ridiculous. Maybe that's the other side that they needed to show like that kind of lifestyle.

[01:08:35] You know, but at the end he came back and he had like the tug of war and the rope went through his hand and they kept saying, oh, I can't feel it because of my diabetes. I can't feel it. But I thought that they were going to do something with that. And it bugged me that like, I felt like they were setting us up for it. It wasn't his diabetes. It was something else. And there was no reveal. There was no resolution to that for me.

[01:09:02] But that, those characters stood out in a way that, you know, when I talked about like Dr. Robbie and how he kind of might be craving chaos, that would be a family that you would come out of and crave the chaos. So I like thought of that a lot. And then, um, honorable mention, the sunburned girl. I want to know everything about the sunburned girl. She was on my list. She was just like, kind of like, totting around in the background.

[01:09:28] And I saw some behind the scenes stuff of her like getting the makeup for it. And it was just, I thought that that was just delightful. And I wanted to know like, what happened? What happened? Oh, and the girl that was drunk and split her tongue. Oh, bit her tongue off. Yeah. It was so funny. I didn't find her in my list. And she didn't even remember. Yikes. And they were so flirty with him. It was like, that was funny to me. So I like the characters that made me laugh because the rest of the season, I was like, my heart was pounding.

[01:09:58] So I needed some like, some comedy. That was Jackie Liddell in episode eight. John or Ian? You also had the patient that was just taking like, what was it? 5,000 milligrams of turmeric a day? Oh, yeah. There's Noah Wyle's wife in real life. Yeah. Nepotism. Um, and then Ashley Davis in episode, uh, 13. Well, and then you had, um, I'm going to blank on his name. That's okay. Give me a second to scroll up through IMDb.

[01:10:28] Patrick Ball's wife, uh, was the lady who glued her eyelids shut. Oh. Oh. So, yeah. Lots of, lots of spout. I'm like, why are you hiring the wives? We're a little Baptiste in episode two and four. Yeah. Superclude her eyes shut while applying false eyelashes. Yeah. Also happened on Love is Blind this season, if you guys follow that. You know me. Missed that one. That's all. Oh my gosh. That's all that I watch. It's the best sociological experiment of our century. Love is Blind. Whatever.

[01:10:58] Ian, you got a pull for us? Yeah. Um, it's probably low-hanging fruit, but I really enjoyed, um, Mel's sister, Becca. Sure. Um, as a patient. That was a great one for representation. And can have sex and have relationships and enjoy fireworks. And just how, like, groundbreaking that was to Mel, who realized, maybe I'm the dependent one. Hang on a minute. That's uncomfortable. Maybe I'm dependent on her. Hadn't thought the angle, that angle, Ian.

[01:11:27] That's a really good angle. She's realizing her codependency. Yeah. She's right in it as well. There's, it takes two to tango. Um, so I just thought that was, that was unexpected. And I absolutely loved the turn that it took and I love how it was handled. I just, I think it was absolutely beautiful. Right. Flip side, Mel now has time to go to the Ren Faire and, you know, do more Ren Faire things and not watch Elf 137 times a year, whatever the number was. And the reenactors.

[01:11:57] They were so great too. I wanted more of them. Like, I wanted to know more about that. Episode 12. There's so many threads to pull here. Uh, did you guys all get the, the stinger too? You, did you hang? Yes. The karaoke. Yeah. The karaoke. That was great. Yeah. That was really good. She's got a great voice. Like in real life. She's like on Broadway. Right. Yeah. Well, not anymore. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah. Uh, any other patients that float to mind?

[01:12:26] Um, I mean, we got Louie, right? You know, of course. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like, okay, of course I am. So yeah. I think we gushed about him on the mid season. Right. We, we spent a good bit of time talking about Louie in the mid season. Um, also the, the like sudden, um, death because of Ogilvy's like, I guess incompetence of looking at the kidney stone guy's aorta. Right.

[01:12:54] Uh, Austin Green, episode nine and episode 11. Yeah. Poor Ogilvy. I know that you guys didn't like him, but I found a lot. I didn't have a problem with him. I've heard some of your episodes. Like I, there were some strong, less than empathetic language about Ogilvy. You think you're tough shit, but you're not. But like, I think it's some, he was masking so tight. Like he was just trying to be a hard O so bad.

[01:13:22] And it, you could like see it, the, the cracks form. I don't know. I thought I really was interested in his character. I, I can't wait to see what happens next with him. And I know that that's controversial because people didn't like him that much, but I don't know. I thought I, there was a lot of innocence in him that I thought was really interesting. So I don't think he's going to be back because they made it very clear that like both Ogilvy

[01:13:47] and, um, Kwan were there on like only a four week rotation or something like that because of some kind of. Oh yeah. He may, they may not, we may never see Ogilvy again or Kwan. It was some like temporary thing. She was great too. Loved her. She was like, nope. I love this. She was like, oh, my commitment is over. See ya. Which is a great way to set up and counterpoint this question of what are we doing to our medical

[01:14:13] staff when we're expecting them to work unpaid shift time, you know, because they can't, because they're so burdened during their shift that they can't keep up with the required paperwork and administration. They're literally falling asleep off shift, trying to get their, their notes charted. Um, I make sure you yell that in a Broadway audience. Patience, but man, it's a lot. I'm just scrolling this list. It's a wild amount of people that we saw today. And I really, I don't know. I appreciated that.

[01:14:43] Oftentimes we didn't get a resolution because that's where our frame is the ER and that's as far as we go. So that, that Langdon went up to the, the, uh, med surge floor was kind of like a, whoa, like, uh, you know, I thought it's all quiet and calm. It's like weird because our nervous systems have been sort of so, uh, trained to, uh, like the chaos of the ER. Well, let's do this. Let's take another commercial break. Then we'll come back.

[01:15:10] We'll talk a little bit about more, uh, talk a little bit more about recovery. And then we can talk a little bit about season one versus season two. And we're back.

[01:15:37] So we talked already a little bit about recovery in the last sections of stuff, but let's talk a little bit more because Langdon's arc did form quite a strong spine for the season. Uh, it set up a lot of dramatic tension in the storyline and it, it wove constantly throughout, um, and, and added a lot of pressure in, in different ways for different characters.

[01:16:07] Uh, I'm curious, Nicole, um, what you were seeing with Langdon himself and the kinds of work that he was doing. Now there is this giant sort of hypocrisy, like he knows that he, he stole drugs and he's getting a walk, uh, but he is doing the work. And so there's this also there's tension there, which I think is, uh, is interesting, but at least what are you unpacking from the Langdon storyline overall? Um, I, it's complicated. Like I liked Langdon as a character.

[01:16:37] I believe he is a kind human. I can understand the path that he fell on, like hurt his back and falls into opiates. Like I understand that it's, it's well-documented and it makes sense. Um, I'm upset. I can't buy the treatment of it. I feel like he wouldn't be there. It's hard for me to understand how he's still there.

[01:17:02] Um, how little you understand the patriarchy and its ability to disappoint yourself. I know, and maybe that's what it comes down to. And this idea that he's, he, he's showing remorse, but it's also like, it's not enough for me. I don't know. I have a really hard time. He's deflecting sometimes. He's not actually, he's doing the, it's almost like he's going through the motions, but he's not really always present to the work that he's doing.

[01:17:31] He's not showing me like that he knows that he got to go get out of jail free card. Yeah. That too. Yeah. You know, uh, he's like, why don't you know, I'm back. Why aren't you talking to me? It's like, it's clear why they're mad at you. It's not obtuse to me that they'd be treating you that way. I don't know. So I had a hard time buying that. I did think it was pretty bad-ass though. When he like put that guy's spine back into place. So I was like really, really cool.

[01:17:59] So, but I, I think of if he was a nurse, how it wouldn't be that way. If he was a woman, it probably wouldn't be that way. It was only that way because he was Robbie's, you know, or Robbie was his mentor because that was like one of the big things with season one was like Robbie had Adamson or whatever his name was.

[01:18:21] And then, you know, in season one, Langdon was the Robbie to Adamson in that relationship dynamic. And then like in this season, like Whitaker fills the Langdon role. Yeah. In the, in that relationship. I feel like El Hashimi's reaction was the appropriate reaction. And I, it was wild to me that they were like, oh, you're acting out of, calm down. Like that's not appropriate.

[01:18:48] I know it's just like that, that should have been normal. So I have a little bit of a hard time with that, even though I love the character and love the storyline. My favorite reaction to him was Santos's eventual explosion. Whereas the only way you get anything from me is when you actually do the work of owning up and telling everybody exactly what happened. Like, yeah, that blows up his life. And that's a big ask.

[01:19:16] But I think, I mean, no better than me for sure, Nicole, like the psychology of that is the healing. Like if you can actually face that big demon, he's always going to be like sitting on that lie. And that's part of being an addict as well is lying to your friends and family about what you're doing. It just, it feels strange to me that he still has that lie inside of him sitting there. Yeah. And he's, you know. We always do. We always do.

[01:19:47] And I think that that's, it comes out, you know, and he's going around and he's making amends and he's working his steps. And those are important pieces, but it feels performative and not genuine to me. That just was my read on it. And I'm, I, you know, and I don't have a lot of experience working in recovery because I can't handle that type of work. Um, it's, you know, I just, I don't have the disposition for it.

[01:20:16] So, but there was something to me about his process that I can't even put my finger on it, but it just doesn't, didn't seem super duper genuine to me. And I was really expecting him to relapse this episode when he started complaining about his back and like treating his back with ibuprofen. Like I really was. They were tickling us with some of those. Right. Like I, and then he, you know, I was really expecting that to be the next thing. Right. When he turned out his pockets, when he went to the, for the, uh, the drug screen, like

[01:20:46] I was just like, well, here comes, here comes an empty syringe cap or something. Or something. I don't know. Mainly it was when Whitaker went into the locker room with him and when Whitaker kind of blew up a little bit at him that you don't get to come in and be this paternal martyr. Right. I thought that that would be the moment that something would break. That's why I didn't want to talk about, or that's why I didn't want to like compare my journey to his too much and everything. It was just because like mine was so different.

[01:21:15] Right. And like, I, you know, don't, I don't think it's fair to like really compare everyone's one-to-one in that sense. Um, but yeah, I do feel like at times it definitely did seem like. Hey, I did this. I'm sorry. I, you know, betrayed your trust, yada, yada, yada. And it's like, are you going through the motions or are you, do you actually like give a shit about what you're saying?

[01:21:42] Cause I've had two hard conversations where you actually give a shit about what you're saying and tell you what, you're not that stoic. Yeah. Yeah. If you really give a shit about these people, you are not that stoic or maybe you're just a psychopath. And it did seem like he was showing good face at work because he in some level knew that he shouldn't be there. Right. So he was trying to like overcompensate a little bit. That's the read I took.

[01:22:10] And then he had Mel glazing him a lot and looking starry eyed into his, into his hair. Ian, as a man who has equally nice hair as Langdon, do you think Langdon was skating on his good looks a little too much? Is he, does he know that he's a bit of a golden boy and using that to his work advantage? You're catching me in hour 15 of my day.

[01:22:39] Well, your hair looks fabulous. My hair has definitely lost some of its oomph. Um, it's interesting. I almost see him shy away from that, but also you cannot underestimate like how I think if that's how people treat you every single day and you have patients falling over you and just that you're the knee joke reaction to you is you look beautiful rather than Frankenstein's monster.

[01:23:08] that like has an embedded confidence that I think he does even subconsciously skate along with. And I don't know how, like, I don't think he wakes up every morning and says, everything's going to be fine because my hair looks great and I'm beautiful. But I think there's an innate. Ness there that is just naturally. I'm going to get through this because, uh, the privilege of being a man and how he looks

[01:23:37] and in the, in the right place. And if that's one, that's one thing that they probably didn't dive into enough is the privilege of everything he has and how that's allowed him to, he didn't lose his family. He didn't lose, I don't want him to lose these things, but the fact is he didn't lose anything other than some time off work and the pain of going through the recovery process. So, yeah. And I would really, really love to know how much of that was a deliberate choice or, or oversight.

[01:24:06] I don't know that anyone's going to admit to that being a writing oversight, but if it's deliberate, it's really interesting. Oh, I was just thinking of, you know, whether it was a deliberate motivation or not, he's a, or if it's a choice that he makes to say, okay, I'm having a good hair day. I'm going to get away with stuff. Society has rewarded that and conditioned that behavior in him forever, right? He doesn't even probably understand his pretty people privilege because he's always had it.

[01:24:33] That's his baseline is that he always kind of just gets what he wants and can always like order off the menu if he wants or like, you know, steal drugs from patients if he wants. And that's just something he's allowed to do. I think this is a good segue. And I'm, I'm really kind of shocked as I was going through my outline. Uh, there's so many things that I could have included in this and I didn't. And I was just sort of realizing that the pit is a hyper object.

[01:24:59] It's so big that you can't ever get your whole mind around all of it. Like the ocean is a hyper object. Climate is a hyper object, right? AI is a hyper object. It's like, there's so many facets and layers. It's so hard to, to do. And I realized in my outline that there is no conversation of Dr. Al-Hashimi in here, which is criminal on my part. And I think it's a great pivot point from, to pick up from what you were saying, Nicole,

[01:25:25] to what he has just been conditioned into like, Hey, I got good hair and I'm a man and I can snap somebody's neck and fix them in a second. Then we have this incredibly complicated and rich character in Dr. Al-Hashimi who is sort of expertly played, but yet like, it's one of the more difficult storylines and how do we, how do we process her story?

[01:25:55] I don't know, Nicole, if you want to start us off on that. I had so many, I was so intrigued by her character. She's a fantastic actress. Like everything she's in is she's dynamic. And I had so many theories like what's going on with her? Like at first I thought it was PTSD from her, like her service. Her time in Afghanistan. Yes. Yeah. And especially when she was with the baby, she worked in the hospital in Afghanistan

[01:26:24] that mothers and babies were brutally murdered. And if she was in that space, it would make sense to me that if a baby was abandoned, she was treating them, that she would have the, like a moment of dissociation when she was treating them, which is what I first thought was happening. And then Abbott came in and they connected. I was like, are they going to hook up? Like what's going to happen here? Right. Interested in that. And then I thought when, and then another thing that we haven't even talked to was the

[01:26:51] kid that got trapped in the car and then the mom walked into traffic. You're right. Monday. Right. And then Al Hashim, you said like, you know, when motherhood can either make you judgmental or empathetic or something along those lines. I was like, did she have a kid that she lost a kid along the way? And that's why she kind of dissociated and got, had this, like when she was with the baby, did that kind of like trigger her like in a PTSD panic attack moment.

[01:27:19] And then when we found out it was a seizure disorder, kind of turned everything upside down. And then at the end when she was in the car driving and you just saw this great shot where she's driving away and the car stopped. And there were a couple of people like walking towards her. I was like, is she going to hit those people? Like what's going on? Right. Like, is she going to have a seizure and hit these people? And then cut to her just breaking down in the car because she realized that she can't do it.

[01:27:46] And that's, it was just like a lovely moment in acting and a great like arc to her character throughout that seemed so strong and stoic. And as soon as she is, I don't know if you ever feel this way, but you keep it all together. And then as soon as you're alone and like you're in your safe space, you just kind of think everything breaks. Um, and we saw that in her and it was just a beautiful moment. I'm eager to see what happens next with her character. She's coming back, right? Like she's got to. I hope so. She needs to. She's incredible.

[01:28:17] They've already said that she's returning next season. John, uh, what's your takeaway with, uh, all I see me character and performance by, um, Wafi? Uh, I think if you have a condition that renders you, uh, a massive liability when needing to make light, you know, second by second decisions that matter life or death and you

[01:28:45] don't want to report it to, uh, people that you need to report it to, that's a serious concern. Right? Like I don't, I, I thankfully, you know, don't have to work a job where I have to make those life or death decisions. So, you know, those aren't shoes that I walk in. Um, but if, if you've had multiple instances, you know, for the first time in what was it

[01:29:12] like well over a year or something that they stated that she hadn't had those instances in or anything. And then suddenly you have, you know, several of these seizures in the day, like it's important that you disclose that information, especially right as you're the person you're supposed to be filling in for is getting ready to leave. Um, because you, you know, it's, it's important.

[01:29:40] Um, I, I don't know, like the character grew on me over, over the, over the season. And everything, but I have dealt with hospitals that try to do the patient passport thing. And I, it is horrible. Uh, I think AI adoption is a stupid decision and I think it's horrible.

[01:30:06] So like, I'm seeing, I'm seeing her do all of these things that I personally hate. And I know that I'm being biased against the character in that case, but also I'm just like, man, you really suck. So I think we're supposed to think that though, about her. I think we're supposed to think that at the beginning, unless you're just one of those like AI glazers and you're just like, yeah. And then, you know, I was just in two medical appointments, uh, where in both cases they

[01:30:33] were like, Hey, we're using this thing that, uh, transcribes and makes notes. And I was like, Oh yeah, I've heard of this thing on the bit. Uh, Ian, your takeaways from Dr. Al Hashimi character, uh, acting, writing, all aspects. Yeah. I actually thought the AI is such a buzzword, but I actually think they were pretty balanced with her. I don't think she was like a full on AI bro slash sister.

[01:31:01] She, when it went wrong, she was like, it's not perfect. Like this still needs human interaction. But I feel like the angle was using AI to streamline and make it quicker where it can. So using a microwave instead of having to cook everything and take a lot longer, it's not trying to remove the human element. It's just trying to like truncate the bit that's really, really tedious.

[01:31:27] Um, but we've had voice to text transcription for years before AI and shit. And so you don't have to, you know, glaze AI and you can have, you know, bits where you need human interaction, but not in a case where they had, you know, the incident that they talked about where it's like your notes said that this person had an appendectomy or something when it was something completely different that could have like killed that person on an operating table.

[01:31:56] So, yeah, no, no, I completely agree. But I still think they were being pretty balanced with her. Like I think she was still not overly defensive and like agreeing it's not the finished product, but I don't think it shouldn't be in the hospital yet. If it's that unfinished, it shouldn't be impractical use. Like there's clearly some more beta testing. They can't even get a zoom interpreter to work correctly. Oh my goodness. That was so painful. I nearly lost it with Santos. I was like, stop being a dick right now.

[01:32:25] Just quit it. Stop it. Right. That was really hard. But back to Alashimi, I'm trying, it's hard to separate the character from how magnetic the actor is because she's just shit. I think she could play any character and I would be in love and just watching and just listening to anything. When she came down with her hair down and she was just a vision. I was just like, oh my God. She's like an actual opera singer. Like look at videos of the, on the internet. Oh, that's insane.

[01:32:55] I didn't realize that as well. It's gorgeous. I thought the acting was spectacular and amazing. One thing I thought it was very interesting was over the course of the 15 hours, you can see, you know, obviously, you know, you're going to look very different when you come into work versus when you leave work in a 15 hour period. But like, especially in the last five hours or so, she starts getting so much more disheveled as she's having more and more of these seizures.

[01:33:25] They all do, but she does especially. Yeah. Like hers is, hers is, they definitely like went in hard with some eye bag makeup and everything to make it a bit more pronounced for her. What I really appreciated towards the end of the season. And I, I, I hope this is deliberate, but I don't know that they fully addressed it.

[01:33:49] It was this double standard between Alishimi and Langdon, because it could be argued that Langdon has the same potential to lose focus and to screw up and to make a mistake through something he hasn't fully declared. And Robbie is coming down so much harder on her and saying, you cannot work in my ER until

[01:34:17] you declare this and you're on a proper program. He didn't do the same thing with Langdon. He did Langdon. He didn't force him to declare exactly what he stole and what he did. And he's still vulnerable and the same relapse could happen. I'm not saying that Alishimi should, um, should be given a pass, but it seems like there's an inequity between how they're being treated. Like Robbie comes down a lot harder on her and maybe it's because she was his hope to,

[01:34:48] of competence to give him the free pass to escape for three months. So I, I wonder if there's some extra, um, hire that comes from him because she screwed up his plans. Yeah. It's all based on his motivation to stay there, right? His like intrinsic motivation to stay in the ER. So he has to stay in the ER because of Langdon, because he, because he's a liability.

[01:35:15] So his liability is okay because it keeps him there and her liability has to, she has to be removed because that also keeps him there. Yeah. So that's like what's driving that character, right? Staying put. And that's the conflict. Yeah. It's very interesting. I love it. John, were you going to add something? I was going to say, she's just more of a direct threat to replacing him than Langdon is. Langdon is still his subordinate, whereas she's coming in and she's taking over everything

[01:35:44] that he's doing. And he, uh, in case you can't tell is a little bit of a control freak, uh, and, you know, having to relinquish, uh, and the administration clearly favors her. She's the one that they call up. Uh, you know, he's head of department and they don't call him up. They call her up. Uh, Oh, ostensibly she has cyber attack training and what have you. But they clearly like we're talking with her a little bit more than Robbie. Cause she's probably a little bit more of a corporate team player. Right.

[01:36:15] Yeah. In some ways. And that was one of the big things with season one too, was like Robbie was super like against the whole like hospital being enveloped under this one, like giant corporate entity that's looking at it as profits over patients and everything like that. Because guess what? This is America. Um, the business of America's business. Yeah. As was once said, let's, um, switch gears. We take care of people when they're sick. Right.

[01:36:43] Well, let's switch gears again a little bit and sort of look at the tensions between season one and season two. Ian, I'm curious from a storytelling standpoint, did you feel, how did you feel about this season not having that major dramatic? We all thought, Oh, the water slide thing, it's going to be crazy. And then it really wasn't. And it was like, I hate humans. Sometimes I hate us.

[01:37:11] I hate how we've been trained to want this three act structure. And we, we want this pattern and, um, sequels have to follow the same beats or they're not really sequels. And I, I really, while in the moment it felt weird because of that training looking back, I love it.

[01:37:34] I love the bravery of it just being a slightly less exciting day in the ER, still incredibly exciting, but it didn't have to have that big shooting. Because if it did, and it did have something like that, it wouldn't feel realistic. It would feel disingenuous. It would remind us that we're watching a TV show. And I love watching this because it, it so often doesn't feel like a TV show. It so often feels like a documentary. And they've deliberately done, they've deliberately done that in so many ways.

[01:38:02] Like it would be weird to pay so much attention to the detail of every procedure and then fall into making this a Hollywood movie that has to have this big climax at the end. And they've hit this weird ability to balance the, well, why? Yes, it does affect one in 10 people, dah, dah, dah, exposition, exposition, you know, about this medical condition. And it can be a little preachy. Oh, and of course the Medicaid or Medicare or your insurance isn't going to cover this. And isn't that a tragedy?

[01:38:31] It never, it wags its finger like a little bit, but it just never seems to go so much that we feel preached to. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it often presents rather than preaches. It just, this is the reality. This is what we have. And that's the benefit of basing. Is it true that all of the patients are based on actual, um, actual events? Are any of them made up? Like I, I just, I feel like you don't have to make any up.

[01:38:59] I feel like in the history of emergency rooms, you have an unlimited supply. I don't know if it's one-to-ones, but certainly like this condition or this pain. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a stew, a stew pot of that. Yeah. I don't know if anybody knows more specifically. I think, I think Noah Wiley has explicitly said like they have pulled from stories that other, uh, first responders and healthcare workers have shared with, with them over the course

[01:39:26] of since they were on ER and everything too. So I also feel like you could make up a story and it would have happened. I mean, especially on 4th of July, which is like, I think the second busiest day of the year for hospitals. Right. Joan, if we pull back and we look at the pit as a kind of commentary on American healthcare system, do you have a personal sense of, did season one tell the story better than season two?

[01:39:56] Or is that the wrong question to even ask? Do you, do you, when we think of the pit as commentary? Yeah. I, I don't know if one tells it better than the other because you have, you have very different situations between your patients in, uh, in season one and season two.

[01:40:20] Like you have some, some similarities, but I think they definitely. Season two is a lot more in my mind, you know, tell, don't show. And I prefer show, don't tell in my storytelling. Um, I'm thinking, I'm thinking of, uh, I think his last name was Diaz Orlando Diaz.

[01:40:47] The guy that like came in with the, uh, uh, diabetic shock and you know how he, you know, they had the whole like go fund me thing. And then how he's like, Hey, we're already a hundred thousand dollars in debt, but my wife doesn't know. So I have to get to my fourth job or whatever. And then he comes back in, in worse shape. Like I'm not downplaying that because that's the reality that so many people have.

[01:41:13] And it's a very unfortunate reality that so many people live in these days and everything. But I think that was, are you giving me the. No, no, sorry. I was, uh, I was counting patient. Um, I was tracking to see the number of, of episode or, uh, episodes that a patient appeared in and Diaz appears, I think along with Digby and baby Jane Doe, I think he's right up there

[01:41:42] with a storyline that they made sure that we were in constant contact with. The entire time. Nine episodes according to like IMDB or something like that. It's crazy. But like, that's one of those things where it's like, okay, you guys are taking way too long on this one story to like harp on this one issue a lot, which like I said, I'm not trying to be reductive about it because I know it is the reality for so many people, but also there's so many more things you can talk about that are, you know, fucked up with how

[01:42:11] our healthcare system operates currently. Right. Um, I did think it was also really important to talk, you know, about the one patient, um, who I'm blanking. I'm in case you can't tell I'm horrible with the actual like careframes that are like the one-off patients and everything, but the mother that had cancer that, you know, broke her leg

[01:42:37] and yeah, just decided like Roxy Hamler decided that she wants to go home. She wanted to stay in the hospital and everything. And ultimately that's where she passes. Um, but I thought it was, you know, good that they showed how, you know, there are people that process death differently.

[01:43:04] Um, you know, the husband obviously like as an adult fully understands what's going on, but then you have the two children, which I think were like nine and 12 or, you know, very developmental ages. And it's obviously going to affect them both differently because one of them was more reserved and one of them was more, uh, outgoing in terms of like wanting to always be near, uh, their mother.

[01:43:32] Well, the other one was just away. The older one specifically was always just kind of away and aloof and didn't want to be there and everything like that. And I understand, you know, like that's a really shitty situation that no, you know, parent should have to like walk their kid through, you know, any of that. But, um, I think it's, that was one of those things that the show took the right amount

[01:43:59] of time with because you saw what we thought was just, oh, she's got a broken leg and then it devolves and it goes further and further down the chain of, um, how awful things are that late in, uh, someone's battle with cancer. So, um, Diaz has nine appearances, baby Jade and Toe has 10 and Digby has 11. So Digby takes it.

[01:44:29] I loved Digby's storyline. Yeah. And for all the, from the beginning, Nicole thoughts on season one versus season two and telling the story of American healthcare. Well, I thought that season one did a good job of telling the story of the American healthcare

[01:44:50] system in like how in moments that humans have an opportunity to be very heroic, people step up and people always generally do the right thing. And I, I talk about this, I was just talking about this with my class the other day. We were talking about, um, end of life. I teach lifespan psychology, like lifespan development. And we did a whole unit on end of life and rituals around it and palliative care and DNIs

[01:45:19] and DNRs and all this stuff. And we talked about Roxy, the cancer mom quite a bit because all my students are watching the pit. And we talked about the death doulas quite a bit. And I think that incorporating that storyline in season two for me really spoke to a lot of personal elements that I can relate to and like what's good about the healthcare system. And I, this show shows a lot of flaws, right? And a lot of things that are wrong systematically.

[01:45:45] But the thing that keeps shining and bubbling up for me is how at the end of the day, humans are altruistic and humans want to do the right thing and help each other. Even if it is against protocol and against policy, they're going to go above and beyond. And my students kept asking the question, like how do healthcare workers honor a patient's wishes when their wishes are against an ethical code or a moral code or a legal code?

[01:46:13] And that was a question we struggled with a lot as a group. Like how do we, what do you do? And I just kept saying, you know, at the end of the day, people are going to do what's right by other people. And we saw that consistently throughout both seasons. So I'm going to flip it and say, you know, didn't it, of course, I feel like it accurately represented like the healthcare industry, but I also think it really accurately represented how people can work within systems that are broken to still do the right thing.

[01:46:42] And still help each other. And those are really human moments are what shined up for me in both seasons. I saw them more in season two, but honestly, season two is more top of mind to me. I'm not going to go back and watch season one right now. I'm not emotionally available for that. But I do think like, especially with the case of Roxy, a moment that really stood out for

[01:47:08] me is after she had passed and they realized her blanket was left behind. Yeah. Like how much care was taken just folding that blanket and packing it up. And that's not something that hospital policy mandates, right? You're in the middle of a very busy, very hectic shift. And you're still, this human is still taking time to carefully fold and catalog and make sure that that piece of fabric ends up someplace safe.

[01:47:34] And I really, I thought that was a really great representation of how far healthcare workers to go just to do the right thing to help other humans out. And that's what I'm choosing to take away of like how it represents the system. Nice. That I think it does a great job representing the humans that are working within that system, even when the system isn't agreeing with their motivation. And we had that same tension with Gus Varney, the prisoner, where Dr. Al-Hashimi was advocating

[01:48:01] for him to stay so he could get nourished before going back to another institution. And she like, she's smart and she pulled policy and she's like this, so we're going to do nutrition labs and see. And if he's malnourished, we're going to treat him for that. So it's a, and I see it, you know, I have a lot of experience in healthcare settings. And you always see stuff like that. Like, you know, we're not, this isn't really policy, but we're going to make it happen for you guys because humans want to help each other. And that's awesome. We need more of that.

[01:48:32] Those stories forefronted, I think so. Hope Punk. Hope Punk is alive in the pit. Let's take our last break. Let's use that little positive feeling. Take our last break. And then when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about some offscreen realities. And then we'll think a little bit about season three.

[01:49:01] And we're back. So season two came on and everybody was all over the show right away. And I was watching the Reddit boards after an episode would drop. They would just be voluminous. And everything from the, the okay buddy Whitaker humor sites to the, you know, straight line analysis, stuff in the news media.

[01:49:27] Like it really generated a lot of cultural heat, right? There was a lot of conversation. And then we had a bunch of external controversies, cast departures, fandom toxicity. I guess there's a lawsuit going on with the ER property or something. I didn't realize about that. That's been going on since before. Since season one. I think before season one. Really? Yeah. Okay. Do you have some more, John, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

[01:49:56] I don't know the details. That's fine. Apparently like, apparently it comes down to you stole my show idea. Now you're making it your show. And this is my IP. And, you know, God forbid we can't have more than one, you know, show about an emergency room. Oh wait, we've done that. Right. On many occasions.

[01:50:16] Like, just because it's the same, it's one of your main actors and like one of your previous showrunners doesn't necessarily mean like it's the same thing. Like, obviously if, if Noah Wiley's character was Carter in the pit, okay, you have a bit more of, you know, ground to stand on. But it's, he's not Carter. He's not even the same. Like, the, the personality and the character are two very different people.

[01:50:44] So I don't know how you can make that line drawn, but we're going to sue because we can. Right. So, uh, Priya Ganesh is not coming back. Uh, Tracy, uh, Fekor didn't return from season one. Um, the showrunners have said, oh, well, it's just sort of coincidence. Noah Wiley has said that this is a revolving door for, cause it's a teaching hospital. It's true.

[01:51:13] And we expect that there's going to be some rotation, but Nicole, did that impact you at all? And your appreciation of the show? Like, well, there's, these are two women of color who suddenly don't have jobs and, you know, was it their choice? Was it not? I haven't been following all of it. So I'm uneducated to what the realities are, but I don't know if it is, do you have any ick factor going on here? I kind of didn't.

[01:51:39] And even now, like, I, I know everything I've set up until this point, you'd think that I would, but I, it didn't really bother me. I, I, I totally buy that staff rotates in hospitals and even with the changes that are upcoming for the next season, like, I know that there's controversy around some of them. And I don't, it doesn't bother me. It does bother me that Langdon's still there because he would have rotated out. Right. If we're following that premise of like you,

[01:52:09] The four year. Right. Like he, maybe the time that he was spent in rehab, like doesn't count on that clock somehow. I don't know. I'm interested. It, it didn't bother me too much. Um, Okay. I believe it. But honestly, when I hear Noah Wiley talk about it, like as Noah Wiley, I don't really like his tone. No. Yeah. Well, that's what I was asking about the ick factor. Is there an ick factor creeping in from Noah Wiley side of things? It is.

[01:52:39] And it's so off brand to me. Like what I've established is this like lovely human girl dad of Noah Wiley. Like I don't like, he's kind of like, Oh, well, good riddance to them. Like his vibes off around it. And I, I don't know, there's something else. There's some, there's more to it than I understand. Right. Right. I think maybe he's just tired of people grilling him about it. Yeah, maybe. That makes sense.

[01:53:05] Like when that, when that interview came out, it like the discourse TM had been around on the internet for quite a while about the departure and everything. So that could have just been like a, Hey, I'm, I'm done answering this question kind of thing. Um, but he was also known a little bit from his ER days of being a bit of a, uh, uh, a big, fragile ego. Sorry. It's lame. That was amazing.

[01:53:35] Sure. Um, sorry, sorry to interrupt though, but like, if I, if I can give my, uh, non-straight white man perspective on, on this topic. I think it's also a little disingenuous because you also bring on some amazing actors, uh, like Al Hashimi. I had once again, terrible with names.

[01:54:03] I apologize, but the actress who plays Al Hashimi, she is also a woman of color. So like giving her an opportunity to be an amazing character on the show, whether, whether you like the character or not, the actress does a fantastic job. Uh, and you know, even though I am not a fan of Al Hashimi as the character, I'm definitely a fan of the actress.

[01:54:25] But then we also had the introduction of Becca Blackwell and they are a non-binary actor who I think did a fantastic job as the, um, as, as, uh, hold on. I've got it on IMDB. Dylan Easton, the, um, uh, not health and human services, um, the like social worker role.

[01:54:49] Um, so I think it's disingenuous to say like, oh, you're getting rid of these women of color when you're also bringing on women of color and you're bringing on, uh, queer actors and actresses to come into these roles and, you know, have a lot of representation that isn't your normal, uh, you know, over like over the top representation.

[01:55:17] That you see in other TV shows as well. Like these are just like incredibly qualified people in, in their roles that are just happen to be non-binary. I had a really interesting interview with Noah Wiley to that point that when they were writing season one and more season two, they, um, had consultants from ACLU, from GLAAD come in and say like, what can we do to help, um, forefront your community?

[01:55:48] And they all said overwhelmingly, like have trans, have queer characters that that's not a part of the plot. Like that's just part of their personality or that's just part of their character. That's just who they are as a human being showing up for a job that they're qualified to do. Right. And we see that representation consistently throughout the show. So I agree with your point that I didn't really miss these characters leaving.

[01:56:14] I didn't feel like they were slighted being people of color, being gay or trans because there were other, the representation was so solid throughout. So, and they did that mindfully. And I think that that's, um, to be so capillary, I think it's cool. I think it's really nice and cool that they did that. Ian, are you, uh, tracking at all?

[01:56:37] Some of this, uh, exterior fan behavior, people yelling during, uh, Issa Brioni's productions and things like this. And I guess there's some, a lot of internet, I don't want to say bullying, but people are getting really into the show and it's getting kind of like, is it borderline toxic, uh, in terms of the camps and the shippers and the, you know, all these opinions.

[01:57:05] I mean, I guess we can tell that the show is working culturally because it is attracting so much attention and engagement. That's why I hate sports. Um, I, we are, um, humans are incredible, um, as individuals, as groups, we can be horrible and as tribes, we can be worse.

[01:57:29] And we love to find a tribe and the internet has allowed us through message boards, et cetera, edits and all of that to find like discord servers, Discord servers, uh, subscriptions, uh, yeah, podcasts. To find like-minded tribe members and really dig in. And once you can dig in and that's the, that's why everything gets, and I mean everything, not just exaggeratively.

[01:57:53] It is, I don't think it's possible to avoid anything becoming toxic, some toxic at some point because it's so hard to self-police these conversations and to keep them respectful. And all of the opinions are valid. Every single one of them can be had. Um, I, if there's one thing I would love is to remove the competitive element from it. It's not about winning the argument. Can we just have a chat about it? We just have a discussion.

[01:58:19] So it's why it's something I try to really disengage with deliberately. Um, mainly because it's, I think it's incurable. I think we will always do this. We would, no matter what the TV show, whatever the content is. I was just going to say, didn't Star Trek it, but we still are tribal. We still see people doing human-y stuff. We are. Even though they're Starfleet officers. Officers, yeah. Horrible people love Star Trek. Horrible people have written for Star Trek. Right. No one, no content is immune. Um.

[01:58:49] No, I was even thinking of the imagined future of Star Trek. Uh, that there are, you know, um, people who are Starfleet officers who do dastardly things. In the service of some ideal that they believe is the truth. Everyone's the main character of their own story. And that is, that is unavoidable. Right. You want to talk about horrible people missing the plot of fandoms? Let's talk about Dune for a second. There we are. There it is. There it is. Good job. Well played, sir.

[01:59:17] No, but first of all, if you buy tickets to a Broadway show to then go yell at an actor and actress about their other role completely separate from that Broadway show, go fuck yourself. Like, do you seriously have nothing better to do with your life than- You cannot control your behavior as an adult human being. Then seek attention at someone else's show that you and thousands of other people pay for just to go yell, finish your charts before someone's going up to sing a song. Is that what happened?

[01:59:47] Oh, it's happened on several occasions. More than once. It's a point where Issa Briones is like leaving the production. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I don't know. So, I don't blame her at all for that. Like- What a drag. People are horrible. People can be horrible. My professional opinion, a lot of people can be horrible. But hope, don't give up hope. Not us. No. I think that, yeah, being positive is punk. I think being hopeful is punk.

[02:00:17] Right. So. So, it's going to be interesting going into season three and how weird this heat is that's being generated. And people are, as you say, Ian, going to start camping out on certain characters and be certain sort of, you know, super fans.

[02:00:35] Um, so, as we look towards season three, Nicole, are there any particular character, characters or arcs that you would like to see in season three? Just speculation, just kind of things that you might like. Yeah. I mean, it's all like, I feel like I'm more, not pop culture, that's the wrong word, but

[02:01:04] I want like the gossipy stuff. Like, I want. You want Mohan and Abbott. I want Al Hashimi and Abbott. Oh, you want Al Hashimi and Abbott. To like, have that beer and talk and share war stories. I want that to happen. Right. Can they just be like workplace friends? Or even like a brother, sister. Yeah. I just want that like connection. I love veterans. And I think that we can like have a good veteran storyline and like honor folks in that

[02:01:31] position in a real way and like honor their sacrifices in a real way. There's so much potential there and I'd love to see it. Um, I'd love to see Dr. Robbie adopt that baby. I know he's not going to guys. Like, I know that that's not what's going to happen. But like. 10 months later, he's got a. He's already on sabbatical. Like. Right. Exactly. Give him a reason to live. It would help heal some of his childhood trauma. Like, and at least he's really good at transference. I don't know.

[02:01:58] He's really good at like putting his feelings onto someone else and maybe he can like transfer all his unresolved childhood trauma. Look, if he's dating Noel and they can be in a healthy relationship together. They could be like the power couple that could. It could work. It could for sure work. And I'm here for it. Um, I want to see what happens with Dana and also the MAGA nurse that helped her out. We didn't talk about her at all. Monica Peters. Yeah. Yeah. I want to like see what's up with that.

[02:02:26] We don't even know who she is. She went home to like drink crystal light or something. I don't know. Um, I want to see Jabadi try psych ER and I want to see her struggle with it and overcome it because I think that stereotypically she's not the person that you would put in that role. And I think that she can do it because she's super duper smart and really has like this power in her. That's just kind of unleashing.

[02:02:56] And I want to see where that goes. I don't care about Whitaker. Sorry. I don't care about him and the baby. I don't care about Santos and Mel singing karaoke. Like that's a cute friendship. It's cute. But I don't need it. I want to make sure Santos is okay. We never talked about what she took that. Scalpel. Scalpel. Well, we saw all the cut marks on her. Yeah. So. But then they never resolved anything. And we know that self-harm is not the same as suicidality.

[02:03:25] We know that it's more of a self-soothing thing. Like we understand that. But it wasn't really addressed in a way that that would be a really powerful story to unpack. It would really help a lot of people to see representations of that. So that's where I would hope that they take some things in season three. And I want to see like people frozen in weird ways because it's going to be winter. I want to see like thumbs breaking off and stuff. I thought you meant like medical like cryogenics for a second. No. Yeah, there's your Star Trek brain.

[02:03:55] I want like slip and falls. I want someone getting an ice pick through their hand or something. Like I want to see that. You know Pittsburgh in the wintertime is going to be just a disaster. So yeah. I want them to talk about heart attack danger for men, older men in their 50s who have to shovel a lot of snow. Because that's a big concern for me in my mid-50s. And I have a very strict criteria. So when I go out, I have a huge driveway. It's insane.

[02:04:22] It's insane that if it's the heavy, wet snow, we have the snow plow people do it. If it's the light, fluffy snow, even if it's a couple of feet of it, I'll do it. But like that's a big time heart attack risk. Yeah, we call it widow maker snow. That's it. That's it. Have you considered just getting a big ass flamethrower? No. But I know a man with a 3D printer who lives in the Midwest and might be able to help me out with that. I don't think you understand how 3D printers work. I don't. I really don't.

[02:04:52] Also, you don't need a 3D printer. No, just go on to Home Depot. You can just go to Home Depot and get a deodorant actual torch. Yeah. There you go. That's a lot of data. I mean, look, you say ice here and the entire city shuts down for a day and a half for, you know, a single snowflake. So what do I know about snow and shoveling? Nothing. John, anything that you're looking forward to for season 3?

[02:05:21] Any character storylines or arcs or medical issues that you'd like to see addressed? I want to see Dana doing a little better. Yeah. We didn't talk much about her. No. But, I mean, we spent plenty of time in the mid-season talking about her. But seeing her and Robbie in the last few episodes really start to go after each other and everything.

[02:05:46] And I understand, like, from her perspective, too, all of the hesitation of, you know, coming back into work after being assaulted God knows how many times. But, like, really getting, you know, punched hard on that last day in season one or the last hour or so in season one. Right. You know, obviously she's, you know, a little shook up by it all.

[02:06:16] And I hope that, you know, with, I hope Emma returns and I hope we get to see her and Dana more in season three. They had a really great run, Emma and Dana. Emma had a hell of a first day. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. That's what I'm hoping for. And also, just Catherine Lanasa is a fucking badass, man. She's so good in this role.

[02:06:46] Dana's actress? Oh, right. Oh, right. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Didn't have her name connected. Yeah. She's great. Jane Cho. Ian. I'm not doing that this time. I'm not going to. You don't want that. It's cold, though. There is a thing that really annoys me when EPs and showrunners go, this show could run forever. We're just going to dominate. I mean, it happened, like, with Walking Dead. And it's just like, ah, really?

[02:07:14] To be fair, it is running forever. It really is. Like, still we're doing it in our house. Like, still more Daryl. What's happening? Right. In Europe. Like, what? Anyway, do you have any trepidation as a franchise for the pit's future? Like, are they going to continue to be able to keep this spinning? I mean, certainly HBO would like to do that. It's a reliable hit.

[02:07:44] I mean, the scientist in me is the best indicator of future performance is the past. So, they've nailed the first two seasons. I don't see... They've overcome the sophomore slump, right? Yeah. I mean, that's a real thing. Hard. TNG season two. Woof. Woof. Woof. But I...

[02:08:07] If you keep the same ethos and can hand that down, I'd be worried if there was a complete change in the writing team and the production team and all of that. If you keep the same ethos, I don't know why you can't keep doing this. The problem is, as always, the longer the shows go on, the more expensive the actors become as they return. So... Right. I think they're...

[02:08:34] If we want it to continue, we're going to have to have a revolving door of cast members. And I think that's great. Even... Sacrilege, I know, but we could do without Robbie. Robbie could go and they can be... He can be replaced with somebody that is just as good a job. I think what we love about the format of the pick is that hyper detail around the medical procedures and the patients.

[02:09:04] That's what really grounds the show. That's the... That's what grounds it. Real... Real time gimmick. Yeah. If you want to call it a gimmick. Yeah. And then the human stories. There are dozens of human stories within it. So as a vessel, they've hit a really good vessel. I'm kind of baffled it's doing as well as it is. Like, this should be... I'm fully expecting, like, to love this show and then have to recruit everybody to go and watch it. I don't understand why everyone is watching it. It doesn't make sense because it's like, it's not clickbaity.

[02:09:34] It's not like popcorn-y. It's not low-hanging fruit. It's really cerebral stuff. And usually you have to fight to get people to watch this. And it's like, it's saying really, really cool stuff. So, yeah, I'm really... I'm hoping it continues in this form. I'm excited to see more and more and more of Robbie because I just see myself in him. So I kind of...

[02:10:00] I have more of a curiosity about where his story goes and how they choose to kind of move him along. What I need you to do right now, Ian, is to recreate the final shot with Robbie. I need you to move to your left, I guess, so that the halo of the Enterprise is around the back of your head on the poster, which our listeners can't see.

[02:10:24] And so your halo is actually formed not by a child's drawing on the wall, but... Yes, they're lovely. I actually have a theory... Somebody's screenshot that. I have a theory as to why... To your point, like, why are we all watching this? Like, it doesn't seem like something that we're... Societally would normally be gravitating towards. And I think, like Dr. Robbie's thirst for chaos,

[02:10:51] I think we've kind of been conditioned from the pandemic to Doomscroll. Mm-hmm.

[02:11:26] People just in the wild, maybe that's in some way us trying to process through our collective trauma from our COVID experiences that feels like a little bit less hands-on. Yeah. But I have a tendency to read too much into things, but I think that that's what I'm doing here. What are you doing on this podcast? You don't belong here. I think that's like part of it. There's just so many... We're just servicing your pathology, sorry. That's true.

[02:11:53] There's just so many real humans in the show. And I think that really helps. And that's a hard trick to put... Like, it's a hard trick to pull off in the writer's room to make believable humans when you're putting words in their mouth. And it comes from great casting, great writing. It's a little storm in the bottle. And we just like, we love medical shows. For some reason, we love a good medical drama no matter what. Mysteries and medical dramas. Yeah. They do really well. Mysteries go into medical dramas so well. When you're doing the... House.

[02:12:22] The house, the... What's the word? The differential diagnosis. Right. Way to go. We haven't talked about Cassie much, Dr. McKay. I love her. Well, here. Let's do this. I love her so much. Let's do a last... Let's do a last words. Let's do a run around. Everybody sort of... One thing that we didn't get to talk about, because again, it's a hyper object. There's just... We'd have to have to do two or three more podcasts just to be able to do this.

[02:12:49] So go ahead, Ian, and then we'll go to Nicole, and then John, you'll have last, last word. Yeah, I really would. I would love more than more of Dr. McKay. I think she had such an interesting arc in season one with the collar and everything. And I think she had some moments, but nothing quite as much as season one. Nowhere near enough. She didn't get her date. She didn't get her... David, could you stop Bechdel testing our characters? She is more than a date.

[02:13:19] Way to go. She is fascinating to me. I think she's a great example of what you said, Nicole, about humans wanting to go above and beyond and bend the rules and find a way. Her and Dana, they can solve any problem and break any law, and I'm okay with it. Like, I know the motives, and the definition of the ends justifies the means. And I'm just like, I'll just turn a blind eye. Yeah, miss her. Want more of her. I am done with Santos, Javadi, and Whittaker.

[02:13:49] They cannot return. I think I've kind of had enough of... Now, I don't know what more there is. I mean, there's always more to do, but I think they figuratively and literally ran out of steam by the end of the season. And I didn't really need three episodes of them falling asleep doing notes. Yes, it gave other characters more room, but it was like, well, why are you here? Yeah, that's Cassie, Robbie, Mal Hishimi. That's what I'm really looking forward to next season. Okay. Nicole?

[02:14:20] One thing we didn't talk about that I think keeps standing out is what is happening out in chairs the whole time. You know, like the guys sitting there, like there's dead bodies there the whole time. And I saw some behind... He's just got hyper narcolepsy. Well, I saw some behind the scenes of this actor and he's like, you can follow his Instagram. He's like, I just got cast in a six episode arc of The Pit.

[02:14:46] And they show him going through makeup throughout the shooting and just getting increasingly more dead throughout. I had no idea that he was... I didn't realize that there was a sub story in the chairs going on the entire time. The episode, you can, every time they show up chairs, like he's there and he's just getting increasingly more dead throughout. And I love that all these micro moments in this show that when you watch it a second and maybe third time, you see all this subtext.

[02:15:15] And I'm really drawn to that. I just love subtext generally. It's just my flavor. And then if you're a production nerd, like seeing some of the behind the scenes stuff, like there are technicians and script people and all kinds of people that are dressed as nurses and they're just moving around, doing stuff in the background. It's like, it just is a rolling production. It's really incredible. So talk about micro moments. They're investing technology in the hospital. Yeah. John, last, last words. Anything that we didn't pick up that you want to make sure you get a shout out to?

[02:15:45] I hope next season, I really love the interactions between Perla and Princess. I think they're really good, you know, comedic relief throughout the heaviness that is the pit. I hope we get more interactions between them because I feel, I felt like a lot of, like there was a lot of them between season one, which like rightly so, because they wanted to

[02:16:14] show that Santos also speaks tagalog as well. But I hope we get more of the two of them together in season three. I like their interactions a lot. And like I said, you know, earlier, I want to see where, you know, Emma goes and I want to see, you know, Dana get better and, you know, be, you know, be better in a better place.

[02:16:41] Um, and also the same thing for Dr. King. Uh, she's, uh, she's also a bit of that comedic relief, um, without being, and we talked about this in the, in the mid season, um, without being like the too quirky, you know, neurodivergent person. Uh, they still make room for her to be a, uh, a fun character to follow.

[02:17:06] So, yeah, there was that moment at the end where Dana comes up and gives Perla a hug. And it was, it was just such a tender moment, you know, emotional. Check me out. You're making me cry, Nicole. Stop it. I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here. I know. You're just an empathetic person. I'm like, you're drawing emotion out of me. Um, there's this. How does that make you feel, David? Yeah.

[02:17:35] That's the worst. I did see that, um, I saw a note today that Pluribus season two is going to start shooting later this year. Start shooting later this year. But look, it's better than starting shooting next year. Like that, that, that they're shooting this year. That makes me happy. I got it. They're going to start shooting in December of this year. Okay. Well, all right. Well, technically. All right. All right. I don't know when they are. I've forgotten everything that happens. This is why I don't watch season one of anything.

[02:18:04] I would have to go back and watch season one. Yeah, exactly. That means that they've written something. That does not mean that. It means they've written episode one. They've finished it. That's fair enough. But anyway, it was such a lovely moment. And it was such a blank canvas for all of us to project out onto. So yeah, I really loved seeing those interactions. I love Donnie. I miss Donnie a lot. But in between these seasons, he's, he's one of my favorites.

[02:18:33] And there was a scene, one of the things that I want more of, and I can't find the patient. It was the woman who was burned by the coffee urn at the very beginning, who was at a, at a Jewish center. Yeah. She was talking with Perla and they were talking. Oh, that was amazing. The relationships between the different communities.

[02:18:55] And that's the kind of hope punk stuff that I want from this show is those, those really beautiful moments where, as you say, Nicole, two human beings are coming together and somebody's trying to do their best for this person who's sort of in a worst, you know, in a difficult spot on their day. At the end of the day, we're all so much more alike than we are different. And the world wants us to see the differences, but like humans one-on-one, like we want to be connected to each other. So, and that's the lessons we learned from Star Trek the next generation.

[02:19:25] I would, oh, you just ripped the words out of my mouth. Well, Nicole gets the star for the episode. MVP. I think we're meant, I think we're meant to be together, Ian. I think that this is the stars. I think it's meant to happen. Yeah, I think so. That's all right, John, you and I can just wander off and mumble about thinking machines and messiahs. I've just wandered off into the desert blind. Yes. Listen, you have a show and a movie coming up this year.

[02:19:54] So you've got, you know, plenty of content coming your way. I have a mini series I'm working through right now. All I have is like Starfleet Academy. It's stupid. Yeah, let's not talk about the current state of Starfleet. Let's live in the 90s for a little bit. Okay. Well, there's a plug, Ian, you're not aware of this yet, but I've got a recording that I think is going to come out tomorrow if I get my ducks in a row and get it set up for publishing tonight. Where I talked to Dr. Amy Sturgis, who's a professor at Signum University.

[02:20:22] And she has written and taught Star Wars and Star Trek a lot. And we talk about the differences between the two franchises and stuff. And we actually sort of go into the question, what is Star Trek? So what I'm hearing is that you cheated on me with somebody else. I thought I was your Star Trek man. You are. You are. Well, you know, it's, you know, I'm a man of varied tastes. You really are. You're such a attractive quality. This is getting weird. Okay, we're going to cut this off.

[02:20:51] What's going on on the Captain's Spot? Talking about Star Trek, what is next up for you and Danae over at the Captain's Spot? All right, we just come back from a brief hiatus where we had to live for a little while. So it is, you may not know this because Paramount is apparently completely unaware, but it's the 60th anniversary of Star Trek this year. Indeed. Not that you would really know anything from the programming.

[02:21:17] We have ideas percolating for some cross-podding that is going to happen that we're still finalizing. But for Captain's Spot... With John's other half from the Dune Minute podcast, Zach, who is a big Star Trek nerd. So we have stuff percolating there. But for this season of Captain's Spot, what we wanted to do that stayed away from the origins of Star Trek

[02:21:40] is to hit the top 20 best episodes in heavy quotes. Best as decided by like as much of the internet as I can find. Like just various lists and various opinions and pieces and... This is going to be mainline Captain's Spot content, season content. Yeah. So each week we're going to tick off the remaining best episodes of Star Trek.

[02:22:07] Now we've already done 11 of them, so there's only 9 left. Oh, you're down. Easy. This season will take us into right up until Strange New World season 4. So between now and June? July? Yeah. It's on the show tracker. Yeah. I think it's June. Yeah. It's going to be the best episodes of Star Trek that we haven't covered on the pod. And a lot of it is buried in TNG. So that's going to make... July. Nay very happy. That's her favorite era of Star Trek as well.

[02:22:38] And yeah, next week we do Yesterday's Enterprise, which is one we've been... I have been waiting a long, long time to do it. So it's a great episode. Very cool. July 23rd. So you'll be picking up the final season of Strange New Worlds. No penultimate final season. Oh, that's right. Sorry. Right, right, right. You're right. Yeah. Sorry. Season 4 and then next year will be Season 5, which is just a truncated six episode season. Yeah. And then we'll also have Academy next year. Season 2. Yeah.

[02:23:07] Season 2 of Academy next year. And the second and final season of that show, sadly. Great. Star Trek's great. I'm sorry. Be positive. Be positive. It's just a rough year, people. So you guys have a Patreon. You have a Discord. We'll put a link in the show notes for those things. But there's a lot of crossover between our community. So people know where to find you. So we've had some interlopers from the Lorehounds that we love you and keep coming. We're all of one sort of, you know, happy collective.

[02:23:38] Yeah. John, Dune Minute, you referenced your miniseries project. Tell us more. Yes. Well, we talked about it in the mid-season because that was very fresh when you were our guest. Right. For the second of six episodes of both the 2000 and 2003 miniseries, Frank Herbert's Dune and Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Those are the sci-fi produced from the two. Yeah. The sci-fi channel. Right. Sorry. Yeah.

[02:24:07] The Dune miniseries was their very first ever original programming. Original in quotes. But yeah, we're currently a week out from the fourth episode was released a week ago, which covered all of Dune Messiah. And at the end of May, we'll be releasing our first half of the Children of Dune.

[02:24:36] And then at the end of June, we'll be releasing the second half of Children of Dune because the way that the miniseries breaks it up is episode two is, you know, the first half of the book. Episode three, which is the final episode is the second half. So we're doing those episode by episode, not minute by minute like we do for the movie. You coward. They would never finish.

[02:25:03] Dude, each episode of the miniseries is like an hour and a half long. So that's what nine hours, minute by minute. No, thank you. Ambitious. Yeah. And then you would need you would need to be able to take the spice melange to extend your life long enough to be able to finish that project. So, yeah. Yeah.

[02:25:28] Um, and then we still haven't heard anything about season two of prophecy. I don't at this point, I don't know if it's coming out before the part three, the movie. Um, but I will tell you this for part three, we have already purchased, uh, multiple sets of tickets to see it in 70 millimeter and other IMAX formats to then talk about it very quickly when it comes out. So we'll have a, uh, you guys are going to be recording in the street outside the theater.

[02:25:57] You're hot in the car. Actually. Yeah. We already have, we already have all of the hardware to do that. So it's going to be very like gut immediate first reactions and we're probably going to have some hot takes and depending on what they do in the movie, I may hate it. I may love it. We'll find out. So exciting. But yeah, um, we don't have our own discord. Uh, we just are pretty active on blue sky.

[02:26:24] So yeah, you're, you're, you're in, and you're in our channels on our dune, dune related topics. Yeah. We're, yeah, we're in the dune general every now and then when we remember to post that a new episode is live. Unlike you, we don't do this, uh, full time. So this is just kind of us finding time in all of our busy schedules to make it happen. But, uh, we're definitely more active on blue sky than anywhere else. And, uh, you know, people can email us too.

[02:26:52] We'll be hearing from Zach on some Star Trek related stuff as well. And I'm sure you guys are going to go down that rabbit hole for hours. So, and of course, John, you do have an open invitation. If there's a show that pops up that we're doing some coverage or whatever, you're on the production discord server. So you can, you know, don't you, you were not shy about letting me know that you wanted to be on the season wrap of the pit. So, oh, I just said that. I love watching the show. And then you were like, come on. Well, that was initially.

[02:27:21] And then, then you're like, Hey, you're doing a season wrap. Uh, Hey, doing a season wrap. So you get kind of kicked in the door. So, uh, Nicole, what's happening with you and Mark over on a never mind the music. Oh, well, Mark and I are both now on our summer break.

[02:27:38] So that means we're just going to get in the studio and like record a bunch of episodes, so many episodes, but on our feed, you can check out our most recent episode, which was a sidetrack, which is like little kind of extra episodes. We do where we listed songs that make us cry. We each picked five songs that can like bring us to tears. Um, so it's a poignant, uh, this week we released our fast car Tracy Chapman episode.

[02:28:05] And we were talking about like the, the repeating rhythms of that song and also like the cycle of poverty and trauma and abuse of that song references, making some cool connections between those two motifs. Next week, we're releasing an episode with this cool interview we did with, um, these two folks that work for Farm Aid talking about, um, when artists take on political, uh, political roles and like have a political voice.

[02:28:32] And these guys, like me and Mark are just two goofballs. And this guy's like the director for like community outreach for Farm Aid. And I'm just like, do you know Willie Nelson? Like, can we call him? I'm like so tart. And he's like, no, I don't have his phone number. They were very serious, but like, so it's kind of funny to listen to. Um, and then that kind of will go into an episode where we discuss a system of the downs toxicity.

[02:29:01] And we were talking a lot about like cognitive dissonance and this idea that system of the down, like built their whole brand on being disruptors, but they weren't really, you know, they weren't in real life. And like the dissonance of like, can you hold both things? Like, can you have a brand that creates a fandom of people that are meant to go against the grain, but you're actually like part of the machine yourself, which is, it was a really interesting conversation.

[02:29:27] And then later in our schedule this season, we'll talk about Luther, Kendrick Lamar, um, covering Lauren Hill, the Eagles, Alice in Chains. Like we have a lot of great episodes coming up. The Fleetwood Mac episode was great. I really enjoyed that one a lot. Yeah, that Mark's son came on and told us why Fleetwood Mac is awful. I didn't listen to that side chart yet. I haven't gotten to that yet. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. We did a Fleetwood Mac episode talking about, um. Grief. Yeah. Great.

[02:29:56] I am so obsessed with grief and vulnerability. It's like all I've been thinking about lately. I'm writing a bunch of classes about it for next year or so. Do you listen to the podcast that we recorded with Marilyn for going, uh, into the West with, um, Lisa and Brian? I haven't yet, but I put it on my syllabus to make my students listen to it. So there, uh, because there's a lot of cross. There's a lot of action. There's a lot of, um, um, uh, Jungian crossover going on. A lot of iceberg below the surface stuff between those two episodes.

[02:30:25] I still think my most academic connection to grief came from our Bone Thugs and Harmony, the Crossroads episode. I'm going to hold on to that. Like, uh, so we have a, a big catalog and our, our content's pretty evergreen. So you can just scroll through and see songs that you like and that you're drawn to and check them out. You guys are driving music for my wife and I. She enjoys your podcast as well. And it's like one of the few podcasts that we'll listen to together. And so when we were going to see in-laws in Boston or whatever, we'll, we'll often put on a, nevermind the music. Funny and very humbling.

[02:30:55] So I appreciate it. Thanks for, don't forget to rate and review us or whatever. Speaking of which, I think we're ready to wrap up, uh, Lorehounds. You know, we're just crazy like that. And we're, we're covering lots of things. Uh, I have to talk to you about, um, Devil in Silver, uh, which is the next installment of the anthology show, The Terror, Nicole, because it's about mental health and asylum stuff. So Brian wants to cover it with me. So, but I'm, we might just do a one at the end.

[02:31:23] Um, we have, I believe our Project Hail Mary podcast is still in the pipeline. It's, we're trying to make schedules work. Um, we've got some stuff coming up on the Punisher. We've got a Star Wars movie inbound. There's a very cool new show on Apple TV called Star City that I'm thinking of maybe doing a one shot on. House of the Dragons coming up. The Bear is coming up. What else do we have? I know I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff. Spider Noir. Still got to talk about Devil Wears Prada at some point.

[02:31:53] Uh, so it's typical madness over here at, uh, at Lorehound Central. Oh yeah. Silo's coming up. You know, that's going to be a big one. Oh God. I'm so excited for Silo. Yeah. Hmm. Star City is the For All Mankind spiller? Yes. Yes. I cannot wait for that. Oh, maybe. Hey, you'd be, you just volunteered yourself. Let's go. Okay. It's got star in the title. I'm in. Fair enough. Fair enough.

[02:32:18] Well, again, if you want to talk to, uh, any of us, we're all on the Discord. Uh, I know Ian, they have their own quadrant of the galaxy and then on another Discord. So you can go talk to Ian over there or you can talk to him on ours because he's also there as well. We have a wormhole that connects us. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Come on, Nick. Might I recommend a highliner? Folding space. We fold space. The guild has, uh, reasonable rates these days. I gotta go, guys.

[02:32:49] So anyway, uh, please join us on our Discord. Again, we're independent podcasters. We do this out of the goodness of our hearts. And so we know times are tough, but if it is within your means and you do want to throw us some, some love in the forms of dollars, we would appreciate that. Subscriptions are at Patreon or Supercast. Links for everything in the show notes. I'll put some links in for everybody else's, uh, podcasts. I'm not going to do the full thank you to the subscribers and the Discord server boosters. You know who you are.

[02:33:17] We thank you a lot on all of our other ones, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your continued support and patronage and those who support the Discord to make it a more fun and community, uh, space. That's great. Nicole, always lovely to see you. Uh, looking forward to the next time we get to podcast together. Same. Um, about something. It'll happen. Don't worry. For sure. Ian? Not if I get there first. That's true. I'm going to go on Captain's pod first. We have things to talk about. That is for sure. John, pleasure.

[02:33:46] Uh, I am looking forward to some, uh, heavy Dune coverage later this year. So thanks for making some time tonight as well to talk about Pip. Of course. All right, everybody. We'll see you around the internets. The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds.

[02:34:12] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Baby Jane Doe.