The Pitt Episode 7 “1 PM” features something unique for the fast-paced ensemble medical drama: an emotional monologue. After weeks of watching Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) brusquely bully her fellow interns and med students, jockey for the residents’ attention, and shrug off the sensitive bedside manner part of the gig, the young women finally opens up in a huge way on the MAX show.
**Spoilers for The Pitt Episode 7 “1 PM,” now streaming on MAX**
After learning that one of her patients, Silas Dunn (Tyler Poelle), has been allegedly sexually grooming his tween daughter Alana (Ivy George), Santos takes action by literally threatening to end the man unless he reverses course. Mr. Dunn, intubated in a bed, but alert, is powerless to reply to any of Santos’s threats or accusations, but the terrified glimmer of guilt in his eyes suggests that he knows he’s been caught.
Santos’s big monologue didn’t come without its challengesb for The Pitt star Isa Briones, who divulged that she “kind of freaked out” after co-star and series EP Noah Wyle pointed out its significance on the show.
“I was talking to Noah about that scene and he was like, ‘You realize you are the first person in the show to have like a true big monologue.”
“I was like, ‘Whoa!‘” she said, with a laugh.”Especially because we were seven episodes in and we’ve been just nonstop, ‘go, go, go,’ and everything is so fast-paced and so ensemble… Like I forgot that as an actor sometimes you do monologues.”
Briones explained to Decider that she felt “very honored” to tell this particular “very heavy” story in The Pitt.
“I think everyone in our show has different, relevant, just human stories that they get to tackle and everyone kind of has their things,” she said. “Unfortunately, like any person I talk to, and especially most women I talk to, have experienced something like this.”
We learn through Dr. Santos’s monologue to Silas Dunn what precisely she experienced that has left her so determined to protect Alana from her father’s predatory behavior.
“I know men like you,” she tells Dunn, her voice slightly cracking, but never breaking. “Men you trust, men you look up to. At first it’s a kiss on the head, then it’s the lips. A friendly massage becomes a hand under your shirt and then fingers inside you and it’s all our little secret, all because you love us so fucking much.”
Briones told Decider that during the cast’s two-week-long medical bootcamp, series EP John Wells and EP and creator R. Scott Gemmill held private meetings with all of the actors to establish their character’s backstories outside of what little we learn in the space of the single day that The Pitt Season 1 captures.
“Santos is an ex-athlete — an ex-gymnast — and that’s where her competitiveness really comes from and where, like, the mind games of the competitiveness comes from,” Briones said, offering a whole new dimension to her character’s behavior.
Santos is an intern, which means she’s likely somewhere between 26-28 years old. That would make her age-wise a contemporary with famous gymnasts like Simone Biles, Maggie Nichols, and the generation of athletes who were victims of pedophile doctor Larry Nassar. That doesn’t mean that Santos was yet another of his countless victims, per se, but it definitely places her within that predatory culture.
“When we’re seeing the vulnerability in Episode 7, like maybe that is where that personal trauma has come from,” Briones suggested of Santos’s experiences as a former competitive gymnast.
The Pitt star also shared that she felt that this scene allowed Santos to reclaim her power over her own abuser.
“It was a moment of, like, power to be able to say something like that,” Briones said. “As a person, I try to keep things in, but no matter what, they still come out. Like I still get emotional. Whereas she really tries to keep it behind the wall.”
“I think my instinct there was starting to get more emotional and I had to really fight that and be like, ‘No, no, no. This is not a moment of crying or sadness. This is a moment of power, of taking back power and obviously feeling the vulnerability, but keeping it in check.’”
“So it was kind of an interesting acting exercise in that way to be like, ‘Okay, I was experiencing something vulnerable, but not in the way that me, Isa, would handle it necessarily,’” Briones said, capping off what made the monologue so especially meaningful for her.
If you or someone you know needs to reach out about sexual abuse or assault, RAINN is available 24/7 at 800-656-HOPE (4673), or online at RAINN.org.
The post ‘The Pitt’ Star Isa Briones Reveals that Noah Wyle Left Her “Freaked Out” About Her “Very Heavy” Episode 7 Monologue appeared first on Decider.
