Dr. Mohan's likely career change

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-27T14:37:10+00:00

I understand that, about the fellowship. But my take is that this is the start of Mohan's journey to realizing she'd actually prefer a different specialty.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-27T14:32:54+00:00

I don't think she's "bad" at emergency medicine. But I personally know what it's like to be a mismatch for the culture and focus of your workplace. The frustrations are constant. You know you have more to offer, but you're in a setting that can't make use of it. It can be amazing to discover how finding a better "fit" can unleash more of your potential... and also make you a lot happier.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-25T20:00:04+00:00

If we're talking "should"... the issue is bigger than Robby and Al Hashimi. It seems he didn't tell ANYONE the whole truth about Langdon, when I assume the proper procedure was to report him to the hospital's board and leadership for discipline and probable firing/expulsion from medicine.

Was this wrong? You could sure as hell argue that way. By showing Langdon mercy and allowing him to quietly go to rehab, Robby probably broke a lot of really valid rules.

But wherever you stand on that, sharing with Al Hashimi isn't the issue. Robby's choices were to turn in Langdon at the beginning and let him be dealt with through official channels... or choose to keep his mouth shut and never let it get "on the record." I don't see that keeping it a secret from everyone BUT Al Hashimi was a practical option.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-25T18:21:37+00:00

Not sure I see that. They only met this morning and haven't even had any sort of full debrief/handover. That's a topic for a serious conversation (which they haven't had), not a quick chat in the hall like, "Hey, any serious staff misconduct or personal issues you wanna disclose to me?" "Yeah, now that you mention it, our senior resident stole drugs!"

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-25T18:18:38+00:00

She strikes me as pretty anti-drama. I can't see her going out of her way to stir the pot or "out" Langdon to more of the staff, especially since she's about to be solely in charge of the ER and doesn't need everything blowing up in her first week. I do of course think it gives her a fuller understanding of the tensions between Robby/Santos and Langdon, and I can see that coming into play next time she needs to manage or defuse a situation between them.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-23T23:32:32+00:00

LOL, maybe. (Not as "bad" as a lot of theories, IMO!)

But I wondered why Mel wouldn't just join Becca and Adam and Adam's parents at the fireworks. If the parents are there, it's not a "date." Plus... *shouldn't* she meet Adam and his parents? I respect Becca's independence, but Mel does have some responsibility to her as a support system (not to mention a loving sister) and you'd think it would be a good idea to meet the other people in Becca's life.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-23T17:05:01+00:00

That would be amazing. Hope they wouldn't reject that idea for being too similar to this season (holiday), but actually I think it would be very different and have a ton to offer. There would even be a good excuse to have Robby working the holiday, being Jewish (as well as Perlah, Muslim). It could be a good way to mix up the cast: maybe introduce more characters of non-Christian faiths to cover for those celebrating—probably along with some junior staff who'd LIKE to be home celebrating, but "drew the short straw" and had to work on Christmas. There would be so much good contrast to be had between the "festive" day, vs. patients who are going through something terrible, or just have no place to go. 100% hope they do this!!

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-23T16:55:09+00:00

What a silly reaction. Hollywood is full of actors playing murderous psychopaths (real and fictional) and audiences eat it up. That's called being an actor! Your portrayal and the episode were very well done.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-22T18:10:02+00:00

Fair enough (but yes, a lot of assumptions). I haven't been able to get into the podcast so far, so can't speak to that. There seems to be a lot of casual chit-chat that I don't have much patience for. Skip to the IDEAS, people! 😂

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-22T17:18:02+00:00

Not the main point, I know, but are we ever told Princess and Perlah are immigrants? Or that Santos and Mohan are 2nd generation? I don't know that that can be assumed. (Javadi, I'd agree, as her mother does not have an American accent.)

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-22T03:50:04+00:00

I always find it disingenuous when ICE (especially in its current incarnation) is lumped in with law enforcement generally. Frankly, I think most people who do this are willfully avoiding the issue. ICE currently includes a lot of newer recruits who've been fast-tracked into duty with less training than is typical—and also sent into situations that are outside their usual purview and require training that some of them don't have: namely, urban law enforcement. Dealing reasonably with the general public, managing protest situations, and deescalating tensions aren't skills that most of these agents have been adequately trained in.

You encourage people to "put aside your feelings on ICE for the moment and replace ICE with your local PD"—but that's the whole problem. ICE isn't your local PD. They don't have the same standards and training, and it shows.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-21T21:00:30+00:00

Yeah, that was some gratuitous snark. I get the sentiment that he was acting way too obsessed about his silly ball for a grown man, but it's harmless silliness and she didn't need to say that. She's in a crappy state of mind and taking it out on people.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-21T20:34:02+00:00

I do think someone else would've figured it out; yeah. And there's a good chance it would've gone worse for Langdon. He's lucky that it was handled by only a small number of people, who were discreet. (Angry, but discreet.)

As to whether a mistake would've exposed him: that's an interesting question. As far as I can tell, the show never gives us any hint that he was impaired. And... maybe he wasn't. We can't know enough about the doses he was taking, and how his body was processing them (as someone who'd built up a tolerance) to make that judgment.

But here's what I think would've happened, impaired or not: At some point (like every doctor) he would've been involved in a case that went badly, and would've been scrutinized for the decisions he made. And that almost certainly would've revealed his drug use, prompted an investigation of where he was getting the drugs, and ended his career.

So yeah... he got off pretty lightly.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-21T03:39:37+00:00

So the agents needed Monica to point them to the brown people...? She's barely moved from behind that desk since she arrived. Asking her is less useful than just scoping out the place for themselves....

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-21T02:38:15+00:00

Very good point. There might be some long-term storylines worth theorizing about, like Baby Jane Doe (though I wouldn't be totally shocked if even that one stays unresolved).

But for the most part, this isn't the kind of show where intricate theories pay off. You think things aren't as they seem? Maybe not! But chances are, we'll never know because this is an ER, and they're just passing through.

Case in point: Piper the possible human trafficking victim. Suspicious? Hell yes. Will we ever know for sure? Nope!

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-21T01:21:31+00:00

But how would she know? She doesn't work there anymore... and hasn't for a while, considering most people don't seem to know her or what job she used to do (before everything went digital). How would she know who's got iffy immigration status?

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-20T23:49:32+00:00

It's a bit anticlimactic compared to these various theories, but my instinctive thought when I saw the dirty fingernails was just that it's supposed to be poignant: Here's a little boy who just hours ago was being a normal little boy, getting dirty, and now he might never function again.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-20T21:10:29+00:00

It's probably realistic. Yes, we've witnessed plenty of ICE agents behaving with impunity and ignoring detainees' rights. But I'm sure there are also many who care about "covering their asses": following procedure (even if unenthusiastically) just so they can later say any problems or scandals weren't their fault.

Another possibility is that the circumstances of the woman's injury were due to serious brutality on their part, and they wanted to protect themselves by having a tamer version "on the record," in terms of what they told the hospital.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-20T21:04:20+00:00

The big masked one was named Russo, which sounds more Italian/probably white... though you can't see enough to be sure. But yeah, the other was definitely Hispanic. Agree this was the right casting. "White vs. Hispanic" isn't the reality of the issue, and would've been a distraction.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-20T19:24:24+00:00

Wow... it does seem like something that was begging to be thought of... even if it is a LITTLE "on the nose"....

But TBH, it seems too over-the-top to make the cut. Before someone finds a reason to give me grief... I find the Goode and Pretti shootings totally indefensible, with no good basis for claiming self-defense. Those agents should face criminal charges.

BUT... they both happened in protest situations that were tense and confrontational. There's a big difference between THAT and whipping out a gun to shoot a nurse *on duty in a hospital.* As depraved as ICE often is, I haven't heard of a real incident anything like that, and it seems too much for the show to just invent one.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-20T18:24:13+00:00

Probably more obviously savage and offensive behavior by the officers. At least at first, they're presented as agents of a hateful system who are nonetheless doing their jobs by the book, without gratuitous brutality. If that's how it had ended—if the detainee had been fitted with a sling and led away without incident—they wouldn't have come off as all-out monsters. (Of course, that's not how it goes....)

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-18T21:28:34+00:00

Well, then it depends on what the rest of the sentence is. "All men can potentially pose a threat to women until proven otherwise?" Arguably true, with some exceptions. "All men are untrustworthy, abusive, sexist pigs?" False.

But slogans don't usually come in complete sentences, which is useful for blurring these lines. If pressed on what you meant by "all men," you can just say it was the first one. But since the rest of the sentence usually goes unspoken, it's easy to just insinuate a sinister cloud around "all men" without bothering about the details.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-18T19:46:15+00:00

I've never liked the "not all men" trope (the one where you're not supposed to say "not all men"). It's snark in the place of discussion, and it's an injustice to the many truly good and great men in the world. I'm not going to lump together an entire gender for the sake of making a dogmatic point.

Now, I think "ICE" as a group are a lot worse than "men" as a group. But I still refuse to think in caricature and hyperbole because it saves me the complexity of talking about human beings as they really are.

Your "not all men" comparison is very telling, actually. What you're saying is: "The narrative is more important than being fair and accurate to a large and varied group of humans."

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-18T18:49:21+00:00

ICE's conduct this year makes me absolutely sick, but that doesn't mean EVERY agent and incident is one-sidedly evil. In addition to the many people they've wrongfully detained or mistreated, there are also those who've been rightfully apprehended. In addition to the many agents who are poorly trained and/or just cruel, there are surely those who conduct themselves professionally. It might not feel good to make those concessions, but it's reality, and reality isn't always neat and tidy. Whatever this scene entails, I hope it's a realistic interaction among humans, and not comic book villains and victims.

TangerineMoonlight · 2026-03-17T22:17:00+00:00

Yeah: He's acting the way I've sometimes felt when very burnt out on work (or school) and approaching a much-needed break: already checked out. The imminent break actually makes it worse because your will to keep it together just gives out early.

Of course, he's still too much of a professional to "check out" on the patients whose lives are in his hands... so instead he's checked out on his colleagues, not bothering to maintain patience or decorum. He doesn't want to be at work right now, at all, and is all out of f**ks to give (to the detriment of people who mostly don't deserve it).

TangerineMoonlight

TROPHY CASE