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The big reveal in “The Pitt” Season 2 about Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) — specifically, that she experienced two seizures during her shift — is a surprising, heartbreaking turn that felt incredibly personal to some viewers (including me). According to Moafi, part of the scene where Al-Hashimi gets into her car, starts to drive away, and breaks down crying was cut from the episode … and the excised material feels important.

In an interview with Decider, Moafi revealed that there’s a deleted scene wherein Al-Hashimi calls her ex-husband and asks him for a favor, moments after she has an internal debate about whether she should be driving at all. (Shortly before this, Noah Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch has a huge argument with Al-Hashimi about this very thing.) Here’s how Moafi described the scene:

“She calls her ex-husband and basically says, ‘Hey, can you watch our son tonight?’ He says, ‘Yeah, is everything okay?’ And she’s stifling tears. She says, ‘Yeah, no, no, no, everything’s fine. It’s late. I’m having some car trouble. Can he stay with you overnight?’ And then her ex asks her, ‘Do you need me to come pick you up?’ And this makes me emotional just thinking about it, because all she wants is to be taken care of. All she wants to support and help and love. She’s feeling so shattered, so undeserving, so alone. So she’s choking back tears as she tells him, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine.'”

As Moafi put it, this phone call brings Al-Hashimi to a new emotional level. “I mean, we’ve all been there where we’re on the phone and we’re trying not to cry, and we need the other person not to hear us cry,” she noted. “She’s getting off the phone as fast as she can and finally gets off and and just crumbles.”

Why does Al-Hashimi break down in her car at the end of The Pitt Season 2?

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The fact that Sepideh Moafi filmed this scene from “The Pitt,” which ultimately got cut, also helps explain why Dr. Al-Hashimi gets into the car to drive home at all. (Robby is a jerk in Season 2 of “The Pitt,” but he is right: Al-Hashimi shouldn’t drive.) “I think getting in the car in the first place, she knows that if she has two seizures in a day, she shouldn’t be driving,” Moafi said of the scene. “But because Dr. Robby has been so ruthless and just brutal with her, it’s almost just an act of defiance and this child-like way of responding. Like, ‘F*** you. I can do this, I know I can do this.'”

As Moafi explained, though, this act of “defiance” shocks her when she thinks about her family, and that’s where the phone call to her ex comes into play. “She gets in the car and she imagines her son sitting next to her, and that’s what stops her,” she revealed. “You know, she’s like, ‘I cannot do this.’ She has to accept that she needs to stop.”

So what’s next for Al-Hashimi, according to Moafi? A breather of sorts, and a continued attempt to work with Robby. “She needs to slow down. She needs to not drive, give up her license, and figure out how she’s going to move forward,” Moafi said. “Because, for her, it’s not that she’s incapable of practicing as a doctor. She is responsible enough to know they need two attendings, which is normal, by the way. Most hospitals have two attendings. The night shift has it.”

Also, that fight with Robby? Moafi says it felt great.

Al-Hashimi’s fight with Dr. Robby about her seizures was cathartic, according to Sepideh Moafi

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At first, it seems like Dr. Robby’s sabbatical might be off because of the sudden return of Dr. Al-Hashimi’s focal seizures (which present as if she’s momentarily distracted rather than anything large or more visible). We got confirmation, though, that Robby goes on the sabbatical, so what does that mean for his and Al-Hashimi’s future?

As Sepideh Moafi said, she thinks a lot of it comes back to the fight she and Robby have when she tells him about the seizures … and she said it felt cathartic for both her and her character. “It’s not just her health, it’s her life. It’s everything she’s worked her entire life to get this position as a doctor,” she said. “All the work that she’s done and everything she’s worked in her life to disprove that I am not lesser than. I’m not incompetent. I am just as good as anyone else.”

Moafi also pointed out that this sort of condition is all too real. “In real life there are surgeons, neurologists, E.R. doctors who live and manage this condition,” Moafi said of her character’s future as a doctor in this fictional emergency department. “But it’s at the discretion of the doctor to manage it and she’s been able to manage it. So, it’s tough.” This is obviously going to be a big struggle for Al-Hashimi next season, and as far as Robby is concerned, he’ll come back from his sabbatical and share the responsibilities of a trauma attending in the emergency department with her, despite his misguided misgivings. In the meantime, you can watch Season 2 of “The Pitt” on HBO Max and experience Al-Hashimi’s difficult, emotional journey all over again.

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/2160750/the-pitt-season-2-finale-deleted-scene-dr-al-hashimi/