Note: This story contains spoilers from “The Pitt” Season 2, Episode 1.
Just as “The Pitt” highlighted issues plaguing the medical industry and beyond — from violence against health care workers to mass shootings — in Season 1, Supriya Ganesh, who plays Dr. Samira Mohan, was eager in Season 2 to spotlight another pressing concern: health care cuts that make care even less accessible.
“There’s a really great storyline about Medicare and Medicaid cuts and how it’s hard to qualify in certain situations if you make above a certain income limit, even though that’s still not really enough money to feed a number of people,” Ganesh told TheWrap. “It’s only going to get worse with the cuts that are happening in our real world.”
“It’s kind of absurd that you’re thinking about money at all when you’re making healthcare decisions, especially in emergencies,” Ganesh continued, pointing to emergency situations in which patients opt not to take an ambulance to the hospital, or, in the case of a Season 2 storyline, not use insulin to treat their diabetes.
“I hope that someone power watches it, and feels something,” Ganesh said.
Through the healthcare storyline with Dr. Mohan’s patient, Orlando, Ganesh notes that Season 2 gives audiences a chance to see how much empathy Samira has for her patients despite not matching that empathy in her personal life, pointing to her “contentious” relationship with her mother.
That relationship is on display in the Season 2 premiere, when Samira reveals she accepted a fellowship in New Jersey to be closer to her mother, but her mother has since sold their house and plans to travel with her new beau. While those plans appear to be falling through, Ganesh said “it’s up in the air” whether Dr. Mohan will remain at the Pittsburgh hospital, noting that’s how a real ER works: “You rotate out, you rotate in.”
“Pittsburgh kind of felt like this very temporary place for her, and she really felt like she could throw herself into her career and only focus on that, but I think that catches up to her, because that’s not a very healthy way to live your life,” Ganesh said. “Now her plans totally falling apart because her mom’s not going to be there, so she’s trying to scramble and trying to figure out how exactly she can feel like she has a semblance of footing here.”
Her work-life balance, or lack thereof, is a realization that began to occur to Samira following the mass casualty in Season 1, which Ganesh notes brought up a handful of mixed emotions. “She’s realizing she’s a hero at what cost — you need to have a really bad day to kind of have a good day,” Ganesh said. “And she doesn’t really have anything else outside of this. She doesn’t really have anyone she can decompress with.”
One added help to the ER this time around, however, is Sepideh Moafi’s Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi, with whom both Samira and Mel (Taylor Dearden) worked under at the VA. While Dr. Al-Hashimi’s entrance only served to shake things up for Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle), her presence has been a breath of fresh air for Samira.
“For Samira, Dr. Robby is this mentor, where, in the past, she’s had so much tension with him — I think a lot of that has gone away at the beginning of the season — It’s not as intense as it was before, but I think she feels so much more aligned with Dr. Al-Hashimi,” Ganesh said. “[She] really feels like that’s probably the one she can turn more towards and she really looks up to her, I think so there’s probably a part of her that’s really excited to see what an ER is going to look like with her heading it.”
While Ganesh noted she loves playing a character that so many women and women of color love, the actor recently drew attention to the struggles she faces as a woman of color on the show, calling out journalists and others who have mixed up brown cast members on the show.
“PSA there’s more than one brown woman on our show,” Ganesh wrote in a December post on X. “In the main cast, there were two last year and three (3!) this year!! Please stop mixing us up!! Especially if you’re press, it’s literally your job not to! Thank you!!!!”
On the red carpet Season 2 premiere in early January, Ganesh revealed that the mix ups have happened eight times since the cast started doing press for Season 2 in the past month, some in “very public places.”
“I really want people to understand that the reason why, at least for me, it was really painful is because it makes me feel like either me or Shabana [Azeez] would have an easier time if one of us wasn’t here,” Ganesh said. “That’s so hard, because she is the closest friend I have on this show and I’m one of her closest friends on the show and I get so much from her and she gets so much from me.”
@thewrap In light of her tweet last month, #ThePitt actress @supriyaganesh_ ♬ original sound – TheWrap
“The Pitt” Season 2 releases new episodes Thursdays 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on HBO Max.
