The Pitt Cast Makes An Important Point About Dr. Robby’s Sexism

The Pitt may be between shifts, but the discourse never takes a break. In the months following Season 2, many fan conversations have centered around Dr. Robby’s interactions with the women of the show’s titular emergency department — from his dismissive attitude to Dr. Al-Hashimi to deriding Dr. Mohan while she was experiencing a panic attack at work.

Now, in a new interview with TheWrap, several stars are reflecting on the Season 2 storylines. Taylor Dearden (who plays Dr. King) said she was aware of fan discussion about Robby’s behavior.

“We’re not in the writers’ room. We don’t know exactly what they were thinking or wanting to show,” she said in the interview (published on June 15). “If it wasn’t purposeful, then it’s like, ‘Hey! Notice the feedback?’ That’s really good for everyone to know that this is also what sexism looks like. It doesn’t have to be someone who hates women.”

Conversely, she also said, “And if it was purposeful, then what a great way to show a fallible character, someone that you love also being a f*cked-up person and having really, really bad ideas in his head.”

Both Sepideh Moafi and Supriya Ganesh — who play Al-Hashimi and Mohan, respectively — said they’ve heard from people in the medical field who dealt with personalities similar to Robby. “In the same way that our healthcare system is broken, the culture is kind of broken too, and he’s operating within a system that has misogyny baked in,” Moafi said.

Shabana Azeez (who plays Victoria Javadi, a student doctor) pointed out that Season 2 isn’t the first time The Pitt touched on Robby’s biases, referencing the Season 1 storyline about a teen who had a list of girls he wanted to “eliminate.”

“Robby’s instinct is to protect him, whereas McKay’s instinct is to protect the girls,” Azeez explained, adding to the sexism discourse: “It’s really lovely to see the internet and the audience engage with it in a massive way, because I actually thought it was going to be a much bigger part of the conversation in Season 1.”

Noah Wyle — who plays Robby, in addition to serving as an executive producer — recently opened up about shifting fan sentiments toward his character in an interview with Vanity Fair. Acknowledging that Robby is indeed a “flawed individual,” he said, “I think people became uncomfortable with watching somebody that they really put a lot of faith in struggle, and it became interesting to me how much more accepting we are of a bad guy who does occasional good things than we are of a good guy who occasionally does bad things.”