SPOILER ALERT: The following will reveal plot points from the Season 2 finale of HBO Max‘s The Pitt.
Season 2 of HBO Max’s The Pitt wasn’t an easy road for newcomer Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, which didn’t get much better by the season’s finale, which aired on Thursday night.
One of the reasons for her discomfort was her strained relationship with Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), due to her being upfront in voicing her opposing points of view. Secondly, she was dealing with a worsening medical condition that she opened up to Dr. Robby about in a very vulnerable moment for her this season. Unfortunately, she was not met with kindness or empathy.
Sepideh Moabi, who brings Dr. Al-Hashimi to life on the critically acclaimed series, opened up about the frustrating relationship between her character and Dr. Robby with Deadline.
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“They hold very different philosophies about medicine. He comes from this more hands-on, intuitive, old-school kind of cowboy approach, and she’s more progressive. We learned in the last two episodes of her vast breadth of medical experiences, and her background, her personal experience being on both sides of the hospital bed, being a lifelong patient and a doctor with a decade and a half of experience in both research and working in conflict zones, working at The VA and working at this, ER, a trauma facility. She has a range of life and professional experiences that amalgamate and create the woman that we see,” said Moabi.
She continued, “Robby has that old school mentality, which is a scarcity mindset. Like you need to push other people behind and down in order to get ahead or to stay ahead. I had a mentor like that when I was coming up as an opera singer. He was a very abusive mentor. That was normal for that wave of teachers who believed in their students and thought that they needed to project whatever harsh sort of teaching modalities they received in their youth onto their students. We now realize that’s not actually helpful.”
Moafi admires what her character stands for and how she draws the line when she has to be harsh, “but she’s always gentle, and kind and encouraging,” as well as taking her job as a teaching doctor seriously by “empowering the up and coming doctors, in particular, the women of color.” Moafi gives a nod to a Toni Morrison quote: “If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else”.
“I love this character, and I love the character of Dr. Robbie as well. I think it’s an interesting exploration to focus on these darker parts and realities that are reflected in our health care system. I’ve spoken to so many women in medicine who have told me they wanted to cry when they saw my character. I’ve lived through what she’s living through and the obstacles they’ve had to overcome from years of this system that is not built for them, and that is behind the times in many ways, and a big part of it is systemic.”