Entertainment
‘The Pitt’ Star Opens Up About Santos and Garcia’s Complicated Relationship
Everyone’s juggling a lot in The Pitt Season 2, but Isa Briones’ storyline as Trinity Santos feels especially full. Not only is being a second-year resident at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s Emergency Department especially taxing, but on this particular day, she also faces the return of Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), Dr. Robby’s (Noah Wyle) pending exit for his sabbatical, and the realization that she might not get precisely what she wants out of her relationship with Dr. Garcia (Alexandra Metz). As is very often the case with The Pitt, the writers do an exceptional job of blending workplace challenges with personal concerns to craft stories about fully realized people giving everything they’ve got to others, while trying to figure out how to care for themselves in the process.
With The Pitt closing in on its Season 2 finale, Briones carved out the time to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio to discuss everything that’s happened through Episode 13, “7:00 PM,” before jetting off to New York City for her run in Just in Time on Broadway. We covered lessons learned from her father, Jon Jon Briones, takeaways from Star Trek: Picard, what it was like joining the cast of The Pitt, and, of course, everything Santos is trying to power through on July 4th.
Robby Leaving Is More Destabilizing for Santos Than You Might Think
“She’s losing a bit of a safe space.”
Dr. Robby is the Chief Attending Physician at the ED. Him leaving for a three-month sabbatical is bound to impact everyone working in the department, but it could prove especially trying for Santos.
In the middle of Episode 12, “6:00 PM,” Robby is supervising her, and when the patient embraces the risk he took that landed him in the hospital, Robby says, “Amor fait,” which means, “Love of fate.” Santos says back, “Memento mori,” which translates to, “Remember you must die.” Robby follows that up with, “Tomato, tomahto,” a response that leaves Santos speechless.
“Doing the scene, what we were really trying to solidify in these last few episodes was just how much she’s kind of clinging to Robby, and how him leaving is yet another destabilizing thing amongst so many destabilizing things in the day that she’s having. He’s one of the only people who knows what happened and who felt like was on her side with the Langdon stuff, and now she’s entering a world where he’s back and Robby’s gonna be gone. She’s losing a bit of a safe space, and so I think hearing him talk so morbidly about his trip is kind of like, ‘What the hell?’ It’s this like, ‘Oh, I might be really losing this person,’ and that just kind of digs it a little deeper for her to retreat into her little sadness shell.”
‘The Pitt’ Star Breaks Silence on The Show’s Divisive ICE Storyline
Fiona Dourif discusses Dr. McKay’s biggest Season 2 moments, including the Roxie storyline and her Episode 12 concern for Dr. Robby.
Santos Wants More from Garcia
“No one loves me, and I’m gonna be alone, and I should be alone.”
Another person Santos appears to be losing in Season 2 is Garcia. In Episode 10, “4:00 PM,” while passing in the hall, Santos calls Garcia out for criticizing her in front of Langdon and asks, “Whose side are you on?” Garcia tells her, “Langdon made a mistake and owned up to it. Let it go.” As one would expect, that doesn’t sit well with Santos and she continues to push her side of the argument. But, Garcia puts are hard stop on it by telling her, “You want to have sex and eat ramen in bed, I’m your girl, but if you want to talk about this Langdon shit again, call a therapist.”
Given the rocky state of their relationship and that it’s abundantly clear Santos isn’t getting everything she wants from it, I asked Briones to compare her relationship goals at the start of the show to what Santos’ is looking for from a partner now. She began:
“When you first meet her, she’s so go-getter and so coming-in-hot and wanting to prove herself, and I think there was obviously attraction there, but I also think it was like, oh, this is someone who is not off-put by my testing energy. She’s actually matching it and kind of likes it. So, I think there was kind of like an, ‘Oh, we feel like equals in a way, and we feel like we get each other.’ Also, ‘She’s in surgery. I want to go into surgery.’ There may be a little bit of that.”
What changed? As Briones put it, “I think now she’s caught feelings a bit.” She continued:
“You see that Whitaker has become a person that she is now kind of letting in reluctantly, and with Garcia, I think it’s like, this is someone who should be the person that I would let in, like a romantic partner. In her attempts, that has been shut down to make it go anywhere more serious. I think all of that compounding on this day is just leading her to further believe, ‘No one loves me, and I’m gonna be alone, and I should be alone.’ The one person who is showing her love and wants to be there for her is Whitaker, and she’s like, ‘Fuck you!’”
And this doesn’t just pertain to what’s happening in The Pitt Season 2, or even what’s happened since the beginning of the show. Santos’ frustrations are also connected to times in her life pre-The Pitt when she wasn’t heard. Briones explained:
“I think she’s felt not heard a lot in the past, obviously, about the Langdon stuff, but also about things far before the show starts that we hear a little bit about. I think she’s not been believed when she’s told the truth before, and so I think just wanting someone to hear her is a really big thing.”
Santos Needs Whitaker, And This Scene in Episode 12 Proves It
“Clearly everything is coming to the surface, and she has to spit this out at someone, and it’s gonna be him.”
As Briones noted, the one person who’s especially eager to hear her out and support her is a person she consistently pushes away — Whitaker (Gerran Howell).
Episode 12 concludes with a significant exchange between the two. It’s not just about Langdon. It’s about everything. It begins with Santos taking a blade from the suture cart and then when Whitaker asks her what’s going on, she lets it all out — the frustrations with the Langdon situation, feeling abandoned by The Pitt community, concerns about Robby leaving, pressure from Dr. Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), things not working out with Garcia the way she’d like, and then, to top it all off, she calls Whitaker out for not telling her about “squatting at Robby’s bachelor pad.”
It’s a phenomenal performance beat by Briones who imbues an exposition-heavy moment with significant emotion and subtext. When asked about tackling such a scene, Briones even mentioned, “Sometimes you have a dialogue like that where it’s clear you’re just trying to remind the audience what has happened, but it’s like, no, no, this was clearly everything is coming to the surface.” She continued:
“If you really look at the subtext of it, it shows how comfortable she is with him. She doesn’t really talk about anything with anyone else, but the fact that she’s willing to confront all this stuff to his face and accidentally show, ‘I’m scared to be alone,’ that’s really a very special character moment where you realize just how much she needs him.”
Looking for even more from Briones on Santos’ The Pitt Season 2 storyline? Be sure to watch her full Collider Ladies Night interview in the video at the top of this article.
- Release Date
-
January 9, 2025
- Network
-
Max
- Showrunner
-
R. Scott Gemmill
- Directors
-
Amanda Marsalis
- Writers
-
Joe Sachs, Cynthia Adarkwa
-
Noah Wyle
Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch
-
Tracy Ifeachor
Dr. Heather Collins
You must be logged in to post a comment Login