Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for The Pitt season 2, episode 15, “9:00 P.M.”!Dr. Al-Hashimi and Dr. Robby’s tension reached a fever pitch in The Pitt season 2’s ending, and star Sepideh Moafi has shared some insight into what it means for the future.

The latest season of HBO Max’s medical drama has largely seen Moafi’s new character and Noah Wyle’s lead character at odds with one another over their methods as attending physicians. The former, coming from a tenure at a VA hospital, looks to bring new tools like AI and stop referring to the emergency department by the show’s title. The latter, meanwhile, is not only resistant to change, but also finds his metal state deteriorating even further from the stresses of the job.

The two seemingly found a potential ground for coming to an understanding in The Pitt season 2, episode 14, “8:00 P.M.”, as the ending saw Al-Hashimi ask Robby for his medical opinion on what turned out to be the diagnosis of the seizure condition she’s had since a childhood case of viral meningitis. However, the season finale, “9:00 P.M.”, saw the pair properly explode into anger, with Robby threatening to out Al-Hashimi’s condition to the hospital’s administration if she doesn’t herself, claiming concerns for the patients, leaving her to break down in tears while driving away from the hospital.

Ahead of the episode’s premiere, ScreenRant‘s Grant Hermanns interviewed Sepideh Moafi to discuss The Pitt season 2. When asked about Robby’s blackmail threat against Al-Hashimi in the finale, the star explained that her character has “spent her whole life hiding” her condition from the world, particularly in rising through the medical field, calling her “a professional expert at hiding.”

Moafi went on to explain that Al-Hashimi’s biggest fear has been “for someone to call her incompetent,” describing her personality as being “frighteningly high-achieving” and giving her a drive some doctors don’t have. The other key sources for this motivation are “continuing her mother’s legacy,” a key part of her backstory, as well as “finding a cure for her own condition” and “defying other people’s expectations” about how far she can go as a doctor with her condition:

Sepideh Moafi: Defying the odds of “How do you manage something like this when you’re five years old and then become so brilliant, so genius while managing this?” I think it’s a testament to so many people who have health conditions and disabilities, and the way that we judge them, the way that we see them is so opposite from how much they’ve overcome and what their struggle has been.

Moafi further shared that “the dark side” of Al-Hashimi’s mind with sharing her condition with other people is that she herself believes, “I’m a fraud, I’m incompetent, they’re going to find me out.” Which, The Pitt star points out, makes Robby’s confrontation and threat in the ending all the more tragic, as it is “everything she’s feared throughout the last 35 years of her life” when her compatriot “flips on her and uses it against her“:

Sepideh Moafi: [She’s always feared that] if she opens herself up, she’s not only going to be rejected, she’s going to be humiliated, and she’s going to lose everything she’s worked for.

Despite Robby’s concerns, Moafi pointed out that, in the real world, there are doctors, surgeons and neurologists “who work with these seizures” and that it’s “not against the law” for Al-Hashimi or others to continue their job. Instead, it’s “at the discretion of the physician to determine” whether they believe they’re capable of working, as “everything hinges on control and safety assessment.”

Moafi further defended that The Pitt season 2 saw Dr. Al-Hashimi “calling her neurologist” in order to better track her condition, subsequently feeling “relief” to get the confirmation from her doctor that, “I can work, it’s not a problem.” But as Robby chooses to ignore her doctor’s updated diagnosis, and declares it’s his choice whether she can continue working as the interim attending physician in his absence, her character can’t feel anything but betrayed and devastated:

Sepideh Moafi: Him saying, “No, you are not capable.” That word, “capable.” “You are not capable” is something she’s been terrified of her entire life. So to hear someone that she respects say that, it’s destabilizing and devastating. And just reading it, I was gutted for her. But I think there’s this saying that I go by, “I’ll let it spoil my dinner, but not my breakfast.” I think she lets it devastate her, and then she gets back on her feet and knows how to become stronger. Whatever happens after this for her, she is going to be stronger for it.

Moafi previously shared with ScreenRant that part of the reason Al-Hashimi felt comfortable telling Robby about her condition was having a respect for him and wanting to try and connect to him in their both having wounds they’re trying to outrun with their work. His trusting relationship with Shawn Hatosy’s Dr. Abbot across both seasons, in spite of his conflicts with mental health, further left some hoping that he would be similarly supportive to Moafi’s character.

However, in looking at his interactions with the various other residents this season, it makes sense that The Pitt season 2 ended with Robby choosing to turn Dr. Al-Hashimi’s condition on her. Between his frequent criticisms of Supriya Ganesh’s Dr. Mohan amid her conflicted feelings about her future career, to rebuking the efforts of Patrick Ball’s Dr. Langdon to atone for his medication stealing in season 1, Wyle’s character is clearly in too bad of a mental state to let a sense of empathy for fellow doctors influence his decisions.

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What’s unclear now is how Robby’s threat against Al-Hashimi will play out come The Pitt season 3. Co-creator R. Scott Gemmill recently confirmed that the next season will be set sometime in November, though is unclear if it will be the same year as season 2. If it is, that would make for a four-month gap between their events, potentially leaping entirely past the fallout of Al-Hashimi and Robby’s conflict over her condition.

That being said, there is also the possibility that The Pitt season 3 will follow through with Robby’s sabbatical plan and pick right up with his return to work and reunion with Al-Hashimi. Whether this entails them having moved past their conflict, or Al-Hashimi having adhered to Robby’s threat and revealed the truth to the hospital administration, should Moafi indeed be back for season 3, there is sure to be ample room for expounding on this subplot between them.

The entirety of The Pitt season 2 is available to stream on HBO Max now.

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  Release Date

  January 9, 2025
  

  Network

  Max

  Showrunner

  R. Scott Gemmill

  Directors

  Amanda Marsalis

  Writers

  Joe Sachs, Cynthia Adarkwa

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    Noah Wyle

    Dr. Michael ‘Robby’ Robinavitch

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    Tracy Ifeachor

    Dr. Heather Collins