This week, The Pitt on Max delivered one of the most stunning, impactful episodes of television in recent memory, proving why it is one of the best shows on television.

The episode dove into the aftermath of a mass shooting and what an emergency department goes through after a mass casualty event happens. It is an unflinching look at a situation like this and will remain in viewers’ minds long after the credits roll.

We’re used to seeing headlines about mass shootings in the United States. However, one of the show’s stars, Shabana Azeez — who is Australian — said she had to do a lot of research for the episode because mass shootings are only commonplace in America.

Shabana Azeez, who plays Javadi, on having to understand mass shootings in America

In a recent interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act ahead of the episode, Azeez, who plays 20-year-old medical student Victoria Javadi, said, “Gun violence is a uniquely American problem, in a way that I had to do so much research when I started this show, because I was like, ‘I don’t know anything about this.’ We had one mass shooting in the ’90s and we melted all the guns. When we talk about these events, we focus on the person who did it, and we focus on the police presence. We focus on them getting that guy. They’ve got the guy and he’s gone now, [but] we don’t actually focus on the trauma of driving an ambulance into a situation like this, or seeing all these bodies, and patching them up or not patching them up.”

She continued, “How many people [do] we lose because we have a finite amount of resources in a situation like this? When people experience this kind of collective violence, it just means that the finite resources get stretched. I think you see that in these two episodes, watching that play out, and I hope that it gives people an awareness of the other facets of an event like this that is so common in America in a way that… to anybody else… it’s shocking. I remember doing research about it and watching play-by-plays on The New York Times, how they do those minute-by-minute retellings of events like this, and there was no mention of things like this. Some mention of paramedics, but no mention of how these people heal.”

'The Pitt' on Max — Photo: John Johnson/Max

The mother-daughter tension hit a peak this week

Aside from the themes of this week’s episode, she also talked about some of Javadi’s relationships this season, including the dynamic with her mother, Dr. Eileen Shamsi (Deepti Gupta), and how that tension kind of comes to a head this week.

“I love this mother-daughter relationship,” she said. “It’s such a great exploration of the pressure Javadi’s under constantly and how she rises to the occasion every turn. She does a perfect test tube, she saves [a patient]’s life. She does the work and still it’s not good enough. It’s still subject to this scrutiny and I think that… I think I’m really glad that it happens, because in this kind of event when everybody’s in crisis and everybody’s going to be traumatized by this. All these doctors are going to be, [and] it’s so important to have empathy for each other, and I think Shamsi sees Javadi as a little kid, but then has these expectations of her of an adult, and that tension is just too much. I am really glad and I hope we get to explore that mother-daughter relationship healing and getting better and figuring out the growing pains of just growing up, because I think it’s such a beautiful thing.”

Javadi’s crush on Nurse Mateo

Azeez also talked to us about the heartwarming yet sweet interactions that Javadi shares with Mateo Diaz (Jalen Thomas Brooks).

In probing what Javadi’s thought process is here, Azeez jokingly said, “I wish I could say [laughs]. So she [wants] him to help her get a lay of the land, but I think she thinks he’s pretty and it short-circuits her little brain, unfortunately. But it’s interesting, [because] the whole season I would always look at him [Brooks] in scenes whenever he was there… and it turns out he was doing the same thing. And so we had this really interesting chat at the end where he was like, ‘You know that I’ve been looking at you too all season and I had no idea.’ And I don’t think they’ve left it in the season, they just want Javadi to lose. It’s so unfair [laughs].”

However, when posed with the question of whether the season may end with Mateo taking her up on the offer for coffee, the actress remained coy and told us, “Stay tuned.”

Javadi’s dynamic with Santos and hoping she learns to have more empathy

There’s also the working relationship that Javadi shares with Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones), and per Azeez, both of them could do better at coming together and being on the same page.

Azeez explained, “I think as easy as it is to be like, ‘Santos needs to be nicer.’ I think also Javadi learns why Santos is behaving how she’s behaving. I think Javadi leads with kindness all the time, at sometimes a cost to her, personally. She’s really happy to put herself out there and lose and make a fool of herself, and Santos is a lot cooler and a lot more guarded. I hope that in time, they can just have empathy for each other because I think Javadi is very confused at why she’s being treated like this. Javadi’s had a very easy life, and I’m not sure that Santos has, so I think I’d love to see that dynamic be explored more in a later season, and in both ways. Watching Javadi learn to have empathy would be a really exciting thing.”

What’s in store for the rest of The Pitt Season 1?

As for what’s left in the few episodes we have remaining in Season 1, Azeez is ready for viewers to see the emotional toll of how this event concludes.

“I’m really excited for people to see the aftermath of an event like this, and [the] emotional toll it takes, even just the night of,” she said. “The adrenaline wears off, whoever’s lived has lived, whoever we haven’t been able to save… that’s happened, [but] then what happens? What floods your body and what does it do to your humanity to experience something like this? I’m really excited for people to see that, and I think it’s really important, because as exciting and stimulating as it can be to be like, ‘Oh, we got all this craziness on my TV,’ I hope it gives us an awareness that if you go to the ED after the series finale of The Pitt, I hope you’re a different person than you were before.”

The Pitt airs new episodes Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Max. It has already been renewed for a Season 2.

Shabana Azeez

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