Pitt found a subtle way to deal with the main character’s self-destructive struggles.
In the Thursday, February 19, episode of HBO Max’s hit series, Javadi (Shabana Azeez) took a bathroom break, but his noise disturbed Santos (Isa Briones) — who was so tired that he fell asleep after going in to urinate. As Santos got dressed, the camera panned to scars on her outer thigh.
While Pitt In the past he has revealed Santos’ trauma, self-harm scars confirmed his difficulties. This comes after Santos became a breakout character on the show when The Pitt premiered in January 2025. In the first season, Dr. Santos ended up disagreeing with his manager Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), which prompted some viewers to express their frustration with the then-young, former intern doing her first stint at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital.
Santos ended up being right about Langdon stealing drugs from the hospital. During an episode later in the season, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) enraged Langdon about it and the senior citizen admitted that he became addicted after being medicated after an injury.
“He’s talking about hurting his back while helping his parents move and it’s like that. He goes to the doctor and they give him pain medication and then it’s pain medication that creates a habit. This happens all the time. This happens to people I know who work a lot,” Ball told himself. Us Weekly in March 2025. “You’re seeing this opioid crisis taking hold across the country. It’s really sad because it’s not people who set out to become addicts. It’s people who trust and get caught in the trap. That’s part of what happened with Langdon.”
Briones, 27, spoke to him Us about how viewers may have judged his character too quickly.
“Not everyone is going to like Santos. But it’s funny that when I talk to people—even in an organized setting—they say, ‘Well, he’s a legend.’ At the end of the day, this was something wrong that was going on and he exposed it,” he said at the time. “It’s obvious that he has a temper with him and can be arrogant.” His demeanor leads people to be like, ‘What are you doing? Stay in your lane.’ But at the end of the day, it was something that was wrong and needed to be reported. It is illegal.”
Briones was relieved to see that Santos was right, adding, “It’s a cool moment for viewers to say, ‘Okay, maybe that was right for him. I don’t like him. I don’t like what he did but maybe he was right.’ It will make the listeners wonder what their bias was there? People really wanted to love him but if Langdon did something wrong why would they choose to cover a man instead of believing a woman. That’s what makes that series so interesting.”
At the time, Briones expressed gratitude for the dynamic talk about her character.
“Thx to the fans of Pitt for alerting me to the megathread of Dr. Santos on reddit. I have never read things on the Internet about my work. Many people can be very cruel and I am very sensitive to that. But I read this because this was a talk about the character, not me or my appearance,” he wrote on Instagram in March 2025 about how he found “painful discussion” on the Internet “painful” arc of Santos.
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Briones is excited to see viewers engage with Santos’ arc, adding, “Some people hate Santos. Some people love him. A lot of people love to hate him. And that’s great TV. Amazing writing. And that shows a very smart audience.”
The actor also expressed his appreciation for viewers who are willing to give Santos a chance.
“I’ve been struck by how many people have said how nice it is to watch a really complex female character. And how many people have Santos’ bias towards Langdon made them think about their inner sexuality,” she continued. “It’s a really good thing when good storytelling can make you feel bad and want to talk about it. Kudos to our amazing writers for creating such a complex woman, and thanks to the whole team for letting me portray her.”
New episodes of Pitt premieres on HBO Max every Thursday.
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