(no subject)

[lakeeffectgirl]

Did I love this season? Yes, for sure, now that it's over. Did I feel like it was less cohesive than the first season? Also very much yes. I think they struck gold in the first season with those parts that were filmed before there was a complete plot figured out, and doing it again this season didn't work out quite as well.

The finale episode overall: I think I was expecting slightly more, but that's not what this show is. (It's not ER no matter what that lawsuit tries to say, ha.) This episode worked for me, 100%. I also cried so hard I could barely sleep afterward because my nose was so dried out from all the sobbing. During the Robby talking to the baby scene, yes, but also Mel and Santos karaoke-ing the Alanis.

My quibbles for the season are honestly very few, now that we're done, but in sum:

I found it slightly odd that everyone around Mel was allowing her to be so distracted by her deposition (why is this deposition on a 4th of July AND a Saturday?), and then by Becca. Like, I get it - I have been in that exact position of finding out your disabled sibling is having sex when you hadn't even realized that was a possibility!! - but I am not an emergency room doctor. On the other hand, I 100% get that Mel's arc for the season is her realizing she can't define herself by being Becca's caretaker, and honestly, I feel like that was a good story overall for Mel.

I also feel like the show forgot about Mel hitting her head on the floor almost as soon as it happened. I know this isn't the Chekov's Disease show most of the time but someone could have at least asked if her head was feeling better; it doesn't have to turn into something.

Samira's whole everything, which felt very disjointed throughout the season watching week to week, but I suppose IN HINDSIGHT worked alright. Do I feel like her storyline this season seemed unsteady until the end - yes. Samira was one of my favorites and I felt like what they were writing for her didn't make much sense. Especially since parts of it felt like a rehash of her "you're not moving fast enough" S1 storyline, which to me had seemed at least somewhat resolved by her keeping up fantastically throughout the MCI. But I guess not? I guess to work in Robby's ED you need to be able to keep up through something like the MCI and then not lose that pace when it's over, and she completely broke down once it was over. This is where the structure of the show itself was working against it, since we don't see her work in those ten months. Are we supposed to assume she's reverted to Slo-Mo? Things are already going downhill even before the aortic aneurysm English teacher.

I feel like most of my own specific problems with Mohan's storyline this season is that I kept thinking of how lost I'd feel if I was 75% of my way through years-long training for something and looking ahead at the future and my supervisor said, "Guess what? I don't think you can actually do this, specifically." Not that Robby is wrong, but Samira's panic attack also isn't wrong, because her entire life plan is falling apart in the space of twelve hours.

(Why can't you still go to New Jersey, Samira? Were you only going because your mom was supposed to be there, and really you'd like to stay in Pittsburgh? Is a fellowship your only path to staying in Pittsburgh? Do you really need a subspecialty? You've got a job waiting for you in NJ and clearly Robby's opinion of you didn't tank your prospects there... I felt like that could have been articulated in just one or two more lines of dialogue!)

The difference between the way that Robby treated Mel on this day and the way he treated Samira: Whew.

I both wished there was more for McKay and enjoyed her getting to to be the mostly steady presence. Robby giving her crap for not being there when Roxie died felt both understandable and hypocritical, because I think a younger Robby would have likely done the exact same thing McKay does with the patient in the park.

I am definitely a Robby fan but every single instance of "I don't get to do this/have this so you can't either" this season was suuuuch asshole behavior. Absolutely fascinating how hard this show works to make you love Robby and hate him at the same time. Perfection, no notes.

I'm doing a full season rewatch now and I feel like this is honestly a show almost better served by the binge format - watching week-by-week, it's easy to forget about the early season patients and plot points. I do think that part of this show is that a lot of the patients are supposed to tell us something about who their doctor is, and that's better served by binge-watching. Unless you're making a chart, which I felt more than once like I should be doing!!

The only real thing that I called early on was Robby's bike getting hit by an ambulance, but I thought it would be bad enough to delay his trip somewhat. We know now that it wasn't, and there's an interview with I think Scott where he says Robby does go on the trip, even though it's not on screen - but I'm a believer in if it's not on screen, it doesn't count, which is one of my major quibbles with this show - there's so many interviews with the cast and creators as the show is airing which provide details that aren't shown on-screen. NO, I shouldn't have to take any of that as canon! If it's not shown to me as part of the show itself, it's not fucking canon, I don't give a shit what Noah says, or what Shawn says about Abbot's feelings re: Mohan, etc. I know Shawn said it last year, but IMO, Abbot being a widower wasn't canon until he said it in 2x15!

It has been a very, very long time since I've actively been in a fandom while the show was airing. Long enough that there is a very distinct difference then and now in both fan behaviors and show promotion, neither of which I felt positive about re: this particular show. I understand why entertainment journalists want to write about fandom and fanfic/fanart - their job is to produce articles/content/whatever you want to call it - but I feel like the last few years have been so messy w/r/t this. People need to stop and think, Is this Hucklerobby fanart created for Noah Wyle's eyes? No, it was created for the specific community in which it exists, and I shouldn't move it outside of that sphere without permission.

I think we as human beings could all do with that reminder in general: Is this for me? If not, that's okay.

There seem to be a whole lot of Pitt fans who are watching an entirely different show than what's being aired on screen. Not only because they're only partially paying attention (a separate? yet potentially still related problem?), but there's a whole official post-show podcast and ninety million interviews with cast and crew members all happening as the season goes on. If you're incorporating all of that information into your consumption of the show, you're getting a wildly different view than simply watching the show alone. Cast and crew are constantly dropping all sorts of details, whether it's their own interpretations of what's happening (and going off what they filmed, not the final edit), or just talking about filming scenes that were not included in the final edit. And then fans are incorporating that versus ignoring it, and are then mad when the details of what's actually airing don't match up.

I'm not even going to touch the monetization/fifteen minutes of fame-ing bad behavior aspect (TikToks that are nothing but complaints, etc) but jfc: If you don't like a show, go watch something else. Life is too short to spend your time on something you dislike!

Okay I have been writing this entry for a week and it's long enough!!!! Posting!

Comments

[sheafrotherdon]

I, too, would have appreciated a couple of lines of dialogue that cleared up why NJ was no longer an option for Samira. I absolutely get moving to be closer to parents, and perhaps the panic was brought on by her mom's cruise (it was a cruise, right?) and the idea of a whole year where Samire couldn't get physically close to her. But none of the Pittsburgh-based options seemed right? It seemed . . . off, in a way that surely wouldn't have taken a ton of dialogue to set right.

I, too, loved that the show took the risk of making Robby unlikeable in places. And yet I still love him :D