Santos Doesn't Want Langdon's Apology on 'The Pitt.' Can You Blame Her?

I have a lot of conflicting feelings this week about Santos’s blow-up at Langdon, after Langdon finally found a moment to apologize to her for the way he treated her on her first day in the hospital (last season). It wasn’t a particularly good apology and, ultimately, he centered himself: He almost lost his job; his wife almost divorced him; he almost lost his kids; “people don’t know what I’ve been through!” I think it was a genuine apology, but I don’t think it was a particularly good one.

On the other hand, I don’t think that Santos would have accepted any apology. She doesn’t want to accept his apology; she wants to be mad at him. He’s the “golden boy,” and she doesn’t think it’s fair that the rest of the hospital has “welcomed him back with open arms.” She knows that if she had stolen drugs, she wouldn’t have gotten a second chance. Hell, Al-Hashimi basically threatened to hold her back a year if she didn’t finish her charting. She’s upset that he’s being treated differently by the hospital staff than she would be, or Mohan would be. That’s fair, and she’s probably right — notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Robby still won’t accept Langdon’s apology either.

But I also think that Santos’s refusal to accept Langdon’s apology isn’t about him — it’s about her. She’s holding on to this resentment because she doesn’t want to let it go, even as others — even as Louie, the man from whom Langdon stole the drugs — have forgiven him. Addicts do stupid, reckless, horrible things, and while Ogilvie cannot seem to understand or empathize with why anyone would become an addict — see, e.g., Kiki, the woman in the park with the massive xylazine wound — Santos doesn’t seem capable of forgiving the mistakes of one. I’m sure this has something to do with her history, with the cuts on her legs, with whatever she’s survived. I think she sees in Langdon someone else from her past. She doesn’t, after all, seem to have any issues with McKay, who has her own history of addiction — one that cost her primary custody of her son.

But I also think Santos is taking this personally for another reason: she’s the one who turned Langdon in, for something that could have cost him his license. The fact that he walked back into the hospital nine months later probably feels like a slight — like the institution, or the world, isn’t taking his screw-ups seriously enough because she was the one who reported him. Maybe if it had been Dana or Javadi who’d blown the whistle, the outcome would have been different. Langdon’s presence makes her feel small, which tracks neatly with how he treated her on her first day.

It’s an understandable mess. And anyone who points out that the “golden boy” gets a second chance where someone like Santos might not is absolutely right. But Santos could probably stand to take something from the Serenity Prayer: accept the things I cannot change. The Langdon situation is out of her hands, and hanging on to the resentment is hurting her at least as much as it’s hurting him. I feel for her — we’ve all been in situations where the rules bend for a particular kind of asshole. But I also think this asshole is genuinely trying to make amends.

Meanwhile, Roxie passed away, and there was a quiet real moment in that room when Robby and Javadi exchanged knowing glances while giving Roxie’s husband those few seconds of silence. What’s notable is that The Pitt didn’t try to turn Roxie’s death — or Louie’s, for that matter — into some big, melodramatic emotional crescendo set to a Goo Goo Dolls song. It let the moments breathe. RIP Roxie. I’m glad she’s no longer in pain.

Look: Ogilvie messed up with his English teacher patient by not checking his aorta. It might cost the teacher his life, though Javadi’s mom — with an assist from Javadi herself — may have pulled him back from the edge. But we finally got a glimpse of Ogilvie’s empathy. It’s there. It’s just buried under about seventeen layers of ego.

What’s more interesting, though, is that Robby blamed Mohan — as senior resident — for missing the aorta check, and once again reamed her out for her inability to compartmentalize. The irony runs in two directions: Robby compartmentalized so aggressively last season that he had a full meltdown, and he’s currently treating Dr. Mel with kid gloves even as she’s let her personal issues with her sister completely derail her work. Mel spent the whole day distracted by that deposition, then threw a small tantrum when she found out Becca had been having sex and keeping it from her.

This season has been less about sprawling emergency arcs — no mass shooting, no single cataclysm — and more about the grinding weight of its characters’ personal lives. So why is Robby singling out Mohan? And instead of berating her, or letting it stand when Mohan says maybe she’s not cut out for the ER, why isn’t he giving her the same kind of pep talk he gave Whittaker about setting limits? He offered Whittaker his apartment after he got too wrapped up in a patient. Mohan doesn’t even get a lifeline.

Then there was the ICE storyline, which I think did exactly what it set out to do: illustrate just how disruptive and corrosive the mere presence of an ICE agent can be. They brought in a woman with a possible torn rotator cuff — an injury they likely caused — and her being there was enough to send staff walking out and patients fleeing rather than risk deportation. People surrendered necessary medical care. And while it may have seemed cold to want to move the injured woman through and out as quickly as possible, it was calculated in the right way: the longer she stayed, the more patients and staff the hospital would lose. Robby ripping into the masked ICE agent was deeply satisfying, not that the agent particularly cared.

One last thing: when Al-Hashimi asked the woman whose son fell asleep in a hot car whether she’d ever thought about hurting herself, the camera never left Robby’s face. Dr. Robby is not okay.