There’s Even More to Al-Hashimi’s Most Crushing Scene in ‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Finale That You Won’t See

Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 finale.

With Noah Wyle and R. Scott Gemmill‘s hit HBO medical drama The Pitt reaching its Season 2 finale this week, the thought of the doctors and nurses working this Fourth of July shift finally getting to enjoy some fireworks should be cause for celebration, right? Unfortunately, the season’s final hour, “9:00 P.M.,” doesn’t feel all that festive even once the staff is hanging out on the roof with lawn chairs and beer (except for that delightful mid-credits karaoke scene); everyone’s made it through a brutal gauntlet, and the future only holds more uncertainty.

Nowhere is that precariousness more evident than for Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) in particular. Last week’s episode saw the new attending pull Dr. Robby (Wyle) aside in the closing minutes to assess the chart of a patient with a seizure disorder — and Robby’s keen eye immediately put two and two together about the patient’s identity: “Baran, is this you?” When the finale picks up where their conversation left off, Al-Hashimi’s admission that she’s had several seizures during today’s shift creates a perfect storm alongside Robby’s inner turmoil, and the resulting conflict spirals into an ultimatum from one doctor to another: if Al-Hashimi doesn’t report her seizures to hospital admin by Monday, Robby will do it for her, upcoming sabbatical be damned.

Ahead of the episode’s premiere, Collider had the opportunity to speak with Moafi about her character’s most pivotal moments in the finale, including when she learned about Al-Hashimi’s seizure disorder, the research she did to accurately portray the character’s seizures throughout Season 2, why Al-Hashimi goes to Robby for his opinion (and why his reaction confirms all her worst fears), which part of that crushing parking lot breakdown scene was left on the cutting room floor, and much more.

COLLIDER: When were you informed that Dr. Al-Hashimi had this seizure disorder?

SEPIDEH MOAFI: I found out right before I tested for the role. I had my initial self-tape that was three scenes, and then they added a scene for my callback. I haven’t tested for anything in person, flown out to LA to do an in-person thing, since 2015. I thought after that Zoom session that they would make their decision. Apparently, for every character, they’ve done a live testing thing, which I love. I love being in the room. So, they brought me to LA, and before that, they added one more scene, and that was a scene where I’m basically describing my condition, talking to Robby, in a casual way. Certainly not the way that you see in Episodes 14 and 15.

I knew early on. I did double-check with [creator R. Scott Gemmill] at the beginning of the season to make sure that that was still what we were playing, and that that last moment with the baby at the end of Episode 1 was indeed a seizure. When I got confirmation, then I knew how to work my way backwards from that final moment where I didn’t know what it would look like, but I knew there would be a reveal somewhere later in the season, and I understood how to pace myself throughout the season.

‘The Pitt’s Sepideh Moafi Explains Why the Last Three Episodes of Season 2 Were “Emotional” for Her

“The thing that matters to me the most is the accuracy…”

Image via HBO

How much research did you personally do about the types of seizures that she’s having so that you could bring the necessary physicality to it?

MOAFI: A lot, a lot, a lot. The thing that matters to me the most is the accuracy, and I’m grateful that the show also places importance on medical accuracy, but for me, it’s doing right by a community. A lot of people don’t even realize what’s happening or the struggles that people who suffer from this condition, what they manage and have to navigate. I spoke to epileptologists. I spoke to the doctors that we have available to us. I spoke to every doctor that I knew, basically, and then also talked to specialty doctors. I had them send me medical journals about how these patients’ symptoms manifest. I watched videos of children seizing, of adults talking about their experiences with seizures or how they evolved throughout their lives. I listened to and read a lot of interviews with people who are talking about not just the event itself, not just the seizures themselves, but the fear and the moments leading up to them. It was a lot of collecting, hunting, gathering information.

As with most aspects of this character, you fill the tank, and then you put the walls up, and you hide. The seizures are so subtle. You’ll see people in real life who, when it’s happening, they’ll be in conversation just naturally, and then all of a sudden, they’ll kind of look off to the side. They’re still blinking. It’s like what Samira was saying to Doctor Al-Hashimi in the first episode, like, “Dr. Al, is everything okay?” It’s not like she’s staring off into space and looks like a zombie or something. She looks like she’s living and breathing. Unless you know what is happening, that it can be a seizure, you wouldn’t know.

The subtlety is everything with this. Every movement of the eye and how she’s coming out, and the blinking, it’s so subtle. I was on our doctors about, “If you don’t believe even a second of this, you have to tell me because it’s so important for me to get this right.” And it’s scary. It’s scary to do and go through that whole… The last three episodes for me were very intense. Very emotional.

There’s something interesting about the fact that Al-Hashimi goes to Robby with this. Is it doctor-to-doctor, “I need a different set of eyes on this, someone else to look at this that isn’t me”? Does she feel like she can be more honest with him at this point in the shift?

MOAFI: I think it’s all the reasons that you said. Most important is, in order to get closer to someone, you reveal part of yourself to someone. From the very beginning, they have been fascinated with each other. They recognize how talented and committed and devoted they are to the practice and to delivering the best care for patients and being the best doctors they can be with their respective backgrounds. They’re cut from the same cloth.

I think she is scared. She’s hid her whole life, her entire career, and there is part of her who thinks that maybe Robby has a genius intuition. Maybe he has some insight. “I do need an outside perspective,” she says. But more than the outside perspective, I think that she hopes that it will bring them closer and that he will humanize her a little bit. Because he’s been pretty dismissive of her, and yet it’s clear he admires her in ways, and it’s clear she admires him in ways. It’s kind of an opportunity to get them aligned with something, and get them on the same page.

It goes south. It’s not the outcome I think she hoped for, but I think it is a desperate attempt at being closer in some way. And she does hide in ways, but she doesn’t shy away from confrontation or from pain or difficulty, and she’s noticing she spent the last two hours hiding from him, basically, and she doesn’t recognize herself. She’s like, “What is this? I can’t lead by example if I’m hiding, and that’s the example that I’m setting.”

There’s something beautiful and kind of antithetical to the way that Robby deals with his trauma, which is that he continues to remove himself and withdraw. She recognizes this human impulse to withdraw, and something that’s very natural in a case like this, but it’s the childlike instinct to go and hide. Then the adult steps in, and she’s like, “No. You have to step up. You have to confront what is happening with you. This is an opportunity to express and embody vulnerability by example, and leadership with vulnerability.”

‘The Pitt’s Sepideh Moafi and Noah Wyle Had to Hug It Out Before Their Most Intense Season 2 Finale Scene

“There were variations, but it stayed at that level, 12 out of 10 intensity, for every take we did…”

Image via HBO

The first time they talk about her seizures, Robby’s getting pulled in a million different directions, and there are people interrupting them, so it’s not really resolved. The second conversation has a very different tenor than the first. At any point, were there off-script moments where you were improvising in the fight, or was that all written?

MOAFI: It was scripted as a confrontation, but the first time we read through it, and we walked through it, it got so intense and so heated to the point where the crew started clapping. So what you see on camera in the reactions was genuinely everybody being like, “What the fuck is happening in there?” And after that first rehearsal, Noah and I just hugged each other like, “I love you. I’m sorry.” There were many takes, and I haven’t seen the episode yet, so I don’t know which take was used, but she’s trying to keep the conversation private and bring him into the room, but then the fucking switch flips, and he’s yet again undermining her, undercutting her. So that’s what flips in that moment, in the scene, and takes it into a really intense, dark direction.

We didn’t know that it would get that heated, but it did, and it stayed there. There were variations, but it stayed at that level, 12 out of 10 intensity, for every take we did, which was, in a way, also kind of cathartic, as the character, because she’s zipped up so much all season and he’s been so condescending. He’s cut her down in so many different ways, and to finally be able to just let it rip, to not be so concerned about being seen as a hysterical woman or whatever. I think a lot of women hold that fear of, like, you have to contain your emotions, or else people aren’t going to take you seriously, or they’re going to discredit you as being overly emotional or hysterical, and she spent her whole career doing that.

That wasn’t just a climax of the day, it was a climax of her career, of, “How much fucking harder do I have to work? How much more perfect do I have to be?” She is terrifyingly high-achieving, and that’s not enough. It’s never enough. She can’t be human. She can’t be flawed, but everyone else can, which is why the whole Langdon thing also sets her off. It’s like, “You were going to cover for him, but I’ve been validated by neurology that it’s okay for me to be here, and you were threatening me still?” It is crazy. It makes my blood boil when I think about it.

There’s that ultimatum that Robby leaves the conversation with, which is essentially, “If you don’t go to hospital admin about this, I’m going to do it for you.” The last scene that you have after that hits me every time I watch it, in the parking lot. Al-Hashimi gets in the car and only gets as far as backing out of the spot before breaking down. I’m curious about how you wanted to approach that scene with the deeper emotions that are at play for her.

MOAFI: So many emotions. Actually, prior to that emotional climax, there was a scripted portion. Because I think she’s acting out of character. It’s out of character for her to be confronted about something and run away and hide, as she did for an hour and a half or two hours. It’s out of character for her to know that she seized twice in the day and get behind the wheel. And I think part of that is reclaiming her own power and agency, and like, “Fuck you. You can’t tell me what to do.” Getting behind the wheel, she stops, and she realizes, or she has this image of driving her son, and that is what makes her think, “What am I doing?”

The part that didn’t end up in the edit was that she calls her ex-husband, and, basically pretending everything’s okay, she says, “Is it possible for him to stay overnight? I have some car troubles.” She is stifling tears as he says, “Do you need me to pick you up?” There’s a moment where she’s desperate to ask for help, and she cannot. She doesn’t trust anyone. Part of that is these paranoias that we carry throughout our lives from childhood: If I reveal this part of myself, then I will not be loved, then I will not be accepted, then I will be shunned, then I will be betrayed. She wants to say, “Yes, I need you,” and she cannot. Part of that is connected to Robby. He’s proof that if you show some of who you are, you will not be accepted. So, she gets off the phone with him and has that sort of meltdown, the breakdown.

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There’s a lot in that. It’s that you’ve worked so hard to uphold this exterior of competence and diligence and proficiency and intelligence and compassion, and all of these things that she is, and yet what’s inside is this five-year-old girl who feels cold hands on her back from a spinal tap, a five-year-old girl who’s seeing her mother sob while she’s on the hospital bed, and that never leaves your body. That experience of being that little girl who is sick, who is a burden, who is not good enough, who is seen in her father’s eyes as special needs because of it, and fighting that your whole life, and 35 years later, that fight means nothing because somebody who doesn’t like you or who feels threatened by you can just take it all away.

It’s not just her own personal frustrations and grief. It’s systemic frustrations and grief that, “No matter what, I am trapped in this container, and no matter how good I am, no matter how hard I work, no matter how much I prove myself repeatedly, there is always a way for somebody to undercut me and try to get me down.” There’s this saying of “I’ll let it spoil my dinner, but not my breakfast,” and I think this is, “I’ll let it spoil my week, but not my life.” I think this is much more consequential and heavy than anything she might have experienced personally in this way. Of course, she’s experienced grief and all of that, but just feeling sorry for herself in this way, she doesn’t give herself that time. But this is a moment of true grief for everything that you’ve worked for, and somebody just threatening you, and knowing that these are impossible hurdles to overcome. She will continue to fight and continue to overcome hurdles, but in this moment, it’s just a pure unraveling of the soul and self.

‘The Pitt’s Sepideh Moafi Discusses Her Future on the Show

“Do you resolve, do you keep that tension and the suspension alive for an episode, or for a season?”

Image via HBO

This season, so many of the doctors are being put through the wringer. Looking at the fireworks, it should be a moment of celebration, but it feels like they’ve all gone through this gauntlet, your character included. I know that there’s probably nothing you can tell me about what the future has in store for Al-Hashimi at this point, but given where Season 2 leaves her, do you hope that there’s more to come for her?

MOAFI: I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what they have planned. I think they’re in the writers’ room now discussing that. I don’t know what’s in store for her next season. I’m very curious. I haven’t seen it, but based on the scripts and based on what I did on set, what we captured, nothing is resolved, so how do you pick up from that? Do you resolve, do you keep that tension and the suspension alive for an episode, or for a season? Who knows?

With everybody, and with Robby, everything is just so up in the air. Personally, I would love to see how that dynamic continues to evolve and move forward, potentially, in another season. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to share your insight on this episode, because it’s such a great one for your character. Honestly, it makes you look back on the whole season and changes your whole perspective of everything that we’ve seen leading up to that point.

MOAFI: That’s so cool. It’s cool from a character perspective, and I think it’s so gratifying from an artist’s perspective because it does the thing that I love more than anything about acting, which is you shatter people’s perceptions or expectations. You think you know someone on the surface, and we’re so quick to judge, and when you just scratch past the surface, you realize, “I don’t know anything.” Even your partner or your mother or your sister or your best friend, we don’t know what’s happening inside.

To have an arc like Dr. Al-Hashimi’s, where, in the beginning, everybody was so quick to judge, and everybody was so quick to be like, “Oh, I know that person. I’ve seen that person. I’ve dealt with that person,” and then see what it takes, actually. Instead of starting from the beginning with her condition and then working our way up to this hard exterior, it’s the opposite, which is deeply humanizing, and should be a reminder for us that this is how we should relate to everyone that we encounter — the grumpy coffee shop worker or the grumpy teacher, or the grumpy parent, or whatever. Something is going on, and it’s rooted so deeply inside of each person. Hopefully, that can help us be a little bit more compassionate and understanding of one another.

Both seasons of The Pitt are available to stream on HBO Max.