“Everybody deserves a fresh start every once in a while.” — a sentiment attributed to Bugsy Siegel and spoken in Barry Levinson‘s Bugsy (’92).
During season #1 of The Pitt Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball), a senior resident at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, was exposed as a librium** addict. Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) discovered his addiction and told Dr. Robby Rabinovitch (Noah Wyle) about it. Dr. Robby went right to Langdon, told him to immediately go home and demanded that he go into rehab.
Season #2 began with Langdon, fresh out of rehab, back on the job and trying to correct his past, but the furious Santos wants him professionally terminated. She doesn’t believe in Bugsy Siegel’s maxim, and feels that career death, jail, bullwhip lashings and destitution are the only suitable response to Landgdon’s crime. She refuses to accept Langdon’s apology, and is basically exposing herself as a cold, vicious executioner.
Hollywood Elsewhere thinks Warren Beatty‘s Bugsy Siegel was a much better human being than Trinity Santos, and was certainly a more compassionate one. HE would personally love it if something bad were to happen to the odious Santos. (Hit by a car?) She’s possibly the most hateful character in a cable TV series that I’ve ever come to know.
** Librium is a long-acting benzodiazepine primarily used for short-term management of severe anxiety.
Wyle to Entertainment Weekly: “Robby feels that he failed Langdon, as a mentor and as an attending. And Langdon represents somebody who’s actually gone off and done the work and faced their demons and done the therapeutic process and come back clear-headed and clear-hearted.”