generalpenguinangel
Just out here working through my sexual obsession with Jack Lowden.
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Latest Posts by generalpenguinangel
Well, I read the OP differently, as suggesting that we should assume he is at home as we see him at work with an emphasis onnhis positive qualities, not the negative effects of his addiction-driven behavior. And also contrasting his presumed parenting (we shouldn't assume he's bad but rather loving and engaged) with his presumed behavior toward his wife (he's probably checked out) - both of which are highly speculative.
I don't know if OP was responding to something I haven't seen but most of the comments I've seen on this show seem to presume that he's either an evil druggie or father of the year and I hate both of those takes because the reality is almost inevitably much more complex. You can be very loving and still be a "bad" parent because of addiction.
Of course my thoughts are speculative - so are OP's. We have seen him have one brief interaction with one of his children of which we only see his side.
You could as easily extrapolate from the canon fact that we have seen him put patients at risk at work through drug diversion and say that he'd likely make similar decisions at home that could affect his children.
frank langdon isn't a bad dad because the whole point is that he's an addict that doesn't "appear" to be an addict. he's functional, he's alert, he is focused and engaged and yes, at times, erratic on account of the drugs in his veins but he is always present and if he's that way in the e.r., it stands to reason that he would be that way at home too. he's probably a bad husband to his wife because they don't want to be with each other. if we're being honest. that tends to make you a bit shit at things, when you have to do them and you don't wanna. but he wants to be a dad. he wears his kid's bracelet on his wrist. he calls them just to hear their little voices. he's locked in on the dad thing and, finally, i think that if you're a person who is analyzing the pitt and the conclusion you come to is that frank is a drug addict ergo frank is a bad dad then i think that speaks more to a subconscious and unjustified association between addiction (an illness) and one's personal value to the tune of addicts have no distinguishable personhood outside of their addiction and non-addicts do which is probably not great but understandable considering how disdainful and hateful the world at large is to addiction as a concept. anyway.
Maybe. Or addicts can love their kids and at the same time be a bad parent in some ways because of their addiction. Sometimes people with a substance abuse problem can turn it on and superficially keep it together in some settings but not in all aspects of their life all of the time.
Honestly, I hate this idea that because he visibly loves his kids that means that his addiction can't possibly be negatively affecting his parenting. You can love your kids a lot and also fail them in some ways. You can love your kids a lot and still choose your substance over them sometimes. It's not always black and white. And I think it's extremely unrealistic to think that someone with a drug dependence serious enough to motivate them to commit crime and endanger their job (that is the culmination of years and $100ks of training) is able to just completely separate the effects of that addiction from other significant parts of their life.
There's love in the sense of the emotions you feel for someone and then there's love in the sense of how you actually show up for someone. Those two things don't always align.
frank langdon isn't a bad dad because the whole point is that he's an addict that doesn't "appear" to be an addict. he's functional, he's alert, he is focused and engaged and yes, at times, erratic on account of the drugs in his veins but he is always present and if he's that way in the e.r., it stands to reason that he would be that way at home too. he's probably a bad husband to his wife because they don't want to be with each other. if we're being honest. that tends to make you a bit shit at things, when you have to do them and you don't wanna. but he wants to be a dad. he wears his kid's bracelet on his wrist. he calls them just to hear their little voices. he's locked in on the dad thing and, finally, i think that if you're a person who is analyzing the pitt and the conclusion you come to is that frank is a drug addict ergo frank is a bad dad then i think that speaks more to a subconscious and unjustified association between addiction (an illness) and one's personal value to the tune of addicts have no distinguishable personhood outside of their addiction and non-addicts do which is probably not great but understandable considering how disdainful and hateful the world at large is to addiction as a concept. anyway.
Never in my life have I wanted two people to lose focus and have a consensual workplace relationship than I have with Langdon and Mel. For many reasons, but mostly because so many people, even her fans, seem to see Mel as this Incorruptible Fairy of Pureness and Good who will help fix Langdon as he comes back from rehab. And I think Mel deserves better than that.
Look, I see a lot of myself in Mel. I’m not autistic, but I am very awkward and anxious and tend to cope with that by being cheerful and overly kind. I give a lot to anything I do and everyone around me, frequently to my own detriment. And treating these qualities like they make someone too good for bad decisions isn’t admiring or flattering or positive representation. It’s infantilizing. To imply that Mel being autistic or even just awkward and anxious makes her incapable of questionable moral choices is demeaning. It treats her as someone who is an ideal, not a person, because people make bad choices. That doesn’t make them bad people (see Langdon and his drug use— bad choice, good person), it just makes them human. So acting like Mel is inherently above that just denies her humanity and personhood, or frames her as incapable of understanding bad choices the same way a child is. So, for Mel to be seen as a full adult, she and Langdon need to have an affair. Not an emotional affair that can be swept away as Mel not understanding relationships, but a full-blown, physical, banging-in-the-on-call-room-until-someone-catches-them-and-even-then-they-don’t-stop-just-yell-for-them-to-leave affair.
TL;DR: Mel and Langdon need to have an affair to push back against ableism.
I was at the opening night of The Fifth Step tonight!
I was 1 metre away from Jack Lowden. 🤯 It turns out he doesn't just live in my television but is, in fact, a real living breathing person. Also, he is very ginger (affectionate) IRL.
If you're going to see the play, be assured it's really good! If you're thinking of going, you should! It was funnier than I expected but also had Things To Say about addiction, 12 step programs, modern masculinity, and religion. Also, you get to hear Jack Lowden use his natural accent for once and now I wish they had just let River be Scottish.
My first thought when they revealed his addiction was that he's almost definitely been driving his small children around and taking care of them while impaired (from drugs and/or withdrawal). He's deffo got pills hidden in his house. His wife, justifiably, is probably going to go mental when she finds out and realizes all the implications. This is going to create massive trust issues, completely aside from whatever other marital problems they may have.
Then, add on to the child endangerment that it seems he is the sole or primary breadwinner. So his addiction may also threaten the financial stability of his whole immediate family.
This is all before you even get into his apparent lack of respect for unpaid caregiving/the strain on a marriage of two kids under four/they got married young maybe before they really knew themselves and what they wanted out of life/why the fuck is anyone in their life circumstances even talking about a Birkin bag.
I honestly admire Frank/Abby supporters because it shows a remarkable faith in forgiveness, love, and the institution of marriage.
let's speculate wildly about langdon's marriage, shall we!
a needlessly thorough breakdown of a single scene from 1x02 and what i think it might say about langdon, his addiction, and the state of his marriage
under the cut bc i get rambly!!
so a lot has been said about frank and abby's marriage based on the hints we get here and there in the first half of the season. i've even gone as far as saying they have a canonically bad marriage, which may be a little harsh, but i don't think anyone watching with a keen eye can say in good faith that the langdon marriage has been presented to us as particularly healthy or uncomplicated.
he works a physically and emotionally demanding job for long hours and mediocre pay, and we can infer that she either works from home or is a stay-at-home mom to their two young children. he clearly feels some measure of guilt about the way he preforms the roles of husband and father, trying to make up for his shortcomings with gifts and grand gestures, while ultimately being shown to be ignorant, almost to the point of contempt, of his wife's needs.
and this is all before we (and abby!) find out that he's been putting his life, liberty and livelihood in jeopardy with his substance abuse.
so, i think it's fair to say that we can expect langdon's marriage to be a significant point of contention when we pick back up for season 2.
of course, almost everything that we can say about abby langdon at this point is pure speculation. we haven't met her! we don't even get to hear her voice on the phone! we're only getting bits and pieces of this woman, mainly filtered through langdon's unreliable flawed perspective. so if we want something based in canon to say about the way langdon thinks about abby, his kids and his marriage, we'll have to look at some characters we actually get to see on screen.
we may not get to see abby and tanner, but we do have amanda and tyler:
(and also drew, but he's kinda whatever to my points here.)
tyler is the four-year-old boy from episodes 1 & 2 who comes in lethargic and unresponsive—mel asks for langdon's assistance on the case, and they find out that tyler is sick because he ingested some of his dad's pot gummies. this causes a lot of tension between tyler's parents, amanda and drew, who get defensive when they find out they've been reported to the department of children youth and families (pittsburgh's version of CPS/DCFS). the parents argue, robby breaks it up as the Voice of Reason, mel frets about potentially tearing apart a family, and langdon with his "fellowship in cynicism" argues (correctly) that they're white and therefore won't face drug charges or have their kid taken away. we find out later from kiara that tyler is going to be fine, but that his parents "might need counseling."
and the shift from hell continues!
(side note: i'd actually forgotten, but the STEMI with me, mel moment comes right on the heels of kiara updating mel about tyler!!)
so it's a relatively 'easy' case, and it comes very early in the season, the first time we see mel and langdon working together one-on-one. it's almost forgettable compared to everything that happens later, and it's only after what we learn about langdon's addiction that the last scene with tyler and his parents starts to feel thematically important.
basically, langdon's reactions in this scene are really interesting.
it all starts normally enough with mel and langdon updating the parents on tyler's status, and answering amanda's questions about the potential long-term affects of THC on her son's brain. on my first watch, i was mostly attuned to mel, and her reaction (that langdon totally clocks!!) to amanda's derogatory worries about her son getting autism. but on rewatch, it's what comes next that really stuck out to me.
langdon starts the interaction very polite and professional with both parents, but when amanda gets upset about the mandatory reporting, he immediately gets very defensive, taking on almost the kind of tone we later see him use on santos. he starts talking to her like she's crazy, escalating the situation and making amanda even more upset. he even reaches out in a kind of placating move and she tells him to keep his fucking hands off her, leading to this shot:
which. yes. is the basis of this whole post. but come on. this isn't zoomed in by me, this is the shot as it appears in the show. a mom justifiably angry about her husband's drug use and the way it's endangered her child, juxtaposed against a defensive langdon's wedding ring and the bracelet from his own four-year-old son. you could write a fucking thesis on this shot alone. i mean, i basically am. but never mind.
and langdon's reactions to amanda only get more tense when she starts going off on drew, telling him to stop speaking for her child and that he needs to "get a fucking hotel."
look at the way this is blocked! poor mel is running off to get help, but the guys in the background are framed together in opposition to amanda, and they're both looking at her like she's crazy. in fairness, she is very much freaking out here, but she's also scared for her son, she no longer trusts her husband, and she's just been told that the police may be getting involved. langdon doesn't know it yet, but he's getting a little sneak preview of what his night with abby is gonna turn into!
and when robby comes in to play moderator and calm everyone down, langdon is again alone in the shot with amanda, making a series of increasingly freaked out/guilty expressions as she tells robby that she wants to stay with her son instead of her husband because she doesn't want him around:
patrick ball's acting in this whole scene is so subtle and nuanced as langdon low-key wigs the fuck out in this situation. he is visibly shaken after everything goes down and has to physically psych himself up to get back in the game as robby leaves.
so much about the way this is shot, acted, and edited feels vitally important to langdon's characterization in retrospect. and the defensive way he reacts specifically to the woman in this situation leads me to believe that, at least in the immediate aftermath of abby finding out about everything, langdon is gonna be a fucking nightmare. and while i don't think it would be fair to assume that abby is gonna react exactly like amanda does in this situation, i do think the similarity of the names (abby/amanda & tanner/tyler) and the fact that the boy is the exact same age as langdon's son does invite us to draw a comparison.
long story long, i love that while we get to see first hand how langdon's addiction makes him react defensively and lash out at santos and robby, the show also gives us this glimpse into how langdon and his wife will react to his addiction becoming public in his domestic sphere.
rewatching the pitt and i neeeeed more details about collins and her relationship with robby. noah said that they broke up around the time adamson died which was 4 years prior. collins is r4 so that would mean they started dating before she started her residency (which i assumed was the case cause if it was a attending/resident romance perlah and princess would know about it). based on actor's age alone she's older than langdon so safe to assume she didn't have a typical pre-med undergrad straight to med school route. so what was her route? what was her career before med school/residency? how did they meet? and did she apply to the residency programme at robby's hospital because of their relationship? only for it to end soon after she started working there? i need details!
Im gonna lose it over the way people are so prescriptive about shipping
"Why are you focusing on romance when the show doesn't --" because I want to, i dont need the show to do anything, im not trying to get into the writers room im on ao3, you don't have to panic because i'm engaging with media different than you
"You cant ship them together because [something in canon]" what on gods green earth would be the point of fanfic if all it did was respect canon?
"That's never going to be canon" okay! I dont need it to be! Once again, hence the fanfic! 99.9% of things ive shipped in my life were not canon and had no chance of becoming canon and tbh that makes it more fun for me
"Stop shipping [pairing] theyre obviously platonic" or "why are people shipping A and B when A and C is right there?" This isn't a competition, i'm not trying to prove anything to you, im shipping the characters who make my heart pang and if you dont share that perspective we're all going to be okay
הנני הנני
a Dr. Michael "Robby" Robinavitch mix
You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen Tickle Me Pink - Johnny Flynn Oh My Heart - R.E.M. Sisyphus - Andrew Bird Love Love Love - The Mountain Goats There Is A Place - Silver Jews Think You Can Wait - The National Heart of Gold - Neil Young Day Is Done - Nick Drake
[Listen of Spotify]
The fandom is definitely sleeping on this knowledge. Every serious runner I know is ready to gnaw their own arm off after max three days without vigorous exercise.
i don’t think we’ve addressed that langdon runs marathons and takes 13 minutes in an ice bath yet. that’s fucking crazy. it also shows us how devastating a back injury would’ve been for him if he went from running marathons to not being able to run at all. kill one healthy coping mechanism and an unhealthy one develops in its place maybe.
Top 5 most sexual moments of The Pitt season 1:
5. Shen sips his iced coffee.
4. Santos stabs Garcia in the foot and Garcia walks it off.
3. Robby recites the Shema.
2. Whittaker snaps the rat's neck.
1. Abbot takes off his prosthetic foot.
Honorable mention: Langdon fidgets his way through a moment of silence for a recently deceased patient.
Look, I love Kingdon but Abbot x Walsh is actually my OTP for this show.
coming out as an abbot x walsh truther
dr. sharp angles and dr. soft curves
(hidden angst explained in tags)
the best lord of the rings thing ive seen is the headcanon that gimli is like Prince Tier of beauty for dwarves and is absolutely stunning and legolas is like, for an elf, absolute butt ugly like relatively and everyones always like gimli how could you marry such a shit tier ugly ass elf and gimli is like ach.. nae…i love him
— Mhairi McFarlane.
The Pitt – 1.03: 9:00 A.M.
🏛️ THE GREEK PITT-THEON 🏛️
kingdon isn't popular just because Mel is a popular character, Langdon is conventionally attractive, the two of them get a lot of scenes together, and the actors have chemistry
their relationship is thematically relevant to the show
the pitt is about burnout in the high stress environment of an ER post-COVID and making connections, both to do the work well and to survive it
between doctors and nurses and between them and the patients and the patients to the social worker as needed
and there are connections between other pairs of people, super young Javadi is paired with mature student McKay for a while which does open Javadi's eyes to life she's been sheltered from, Javadi gets a crush on Mateo who invites her to the park at the end of the day, Dana is the first to figure out Collins' pregnancy on her own and also speaks with Javadi on her new crush, Robby and Collins come together for a deep conversation after her miscarriage and before he sends her home, Mohan helps the sickle cell patient and the mercury poisoned influencer, Santos overtly tries to make connections to the two med students and is ultimately successful with Whitaker but she also gets protective over the daughter whose mother poisoned her father with progesterone and gets another patient to open up about their suicide attempt while Javadi over identifies with the baseball kid, lots of little new connections or longer formed ones
and then there's Mel on the verge of caretaker burnout as the only one supporting her sister
and Langdon who is basically on a different planet from his wife and gets outright rejected by Robby when he asks if they're friends
both so desperate for connection, someone on their level
and they click, they're the only ones that show up excited to be there (Mel more so than Langdon but he's not nearly as dismayed as Collins by the board when they first come in), Langdon offers Mel opportunities like the crike and Terrence, and compliments her successes and checks in with her and tells her to take breaks as needed while Mel seeks him out for his opinion and keeps up with him
they are the connection in the show, they just met and they make each other better at the job, if only all the doctors and nurses could get along this well, right?
except Langdon is an addict, through Robby the show implies the job broke something in him before the cameras even showed up and what Robby sees as a betrayal from Langdon contributes in turn to Robby's collapse on his worst day, and the parallels and what ifs come out
what if Robby had been as attentive to Langdon as Langdon was to Mel? What if Robby had allowed the connection instead of rejecting Langdon? What if Mel had shown up earlier? Would she have just burned herself out faster?
Langdon and Mel are the high point so Robby and Langdon yelling at each other and trying to tear each other down and talking more at each other than to each other can be the low point
Langdon and Mel improving their relationship in future seasons, moving beyond a day one spark to having more time and experience to deepen their relationship and making each other better doctors in the process is proving the themes of the show, that you need support and connection to do the job well and survive it
so of course people want to extend that into their personal lives so Mel is not alone with her sister and Langdon isn't in a crumbling marriage so they can have connection and support and be better people in their personal lives and not just professionally
Langdon and Mel are also shown as foils to Robby and Collins who once dated and Mel's single with a sister pushing her to make a romantic connection when the connection she's made is with Langdon and Langdon seems well on the way to divorce even before the addiction reveal
and the actors have a lot of chemistry
PATRICK BALL as Dr. Frank Langdon
The Pitt – 1.01: 7:00 A.M
OP, thank you for seeing this and saying this.
Guess what, FRANK? The reason you can work so hard at being a doctor is because your wife gets up every time a kid is puking at 2 am and every morning 365 days a year to make then breakfast. She makes sure there's milk in the fridge, toilet paper in the bathroom, and clean underwear in your drawer. She sends your mother her favourite flowers for Mother's Day and writes your name on the card. And she probably quit her consulting job at McKinsey to do all that.
And that's why he actually doesn't deserve Mel. He doesn't understand or respect the woman he already has. Addiction? Yeah, whatever. Call me when he goes to rehab for being a sexist jerkoff.
honestly this is the only thing he deserves an ass beating for. everything else he can recover from
You need help. What about you, man? What about you? I'm not the only one who's a little fucked up here, Robby. Why don't you look in the mirror?
I know we been knew that fandom in general is terrible at tolerating gray areas, but I find myself beyond irritated with this song and dance when it comes to the Pitt because the fallibility of the characters is the whole entire point.
The show is not subtle about its themes. Every single episode and character arc is hammering home that impossible, high-stakes judgement calls are an occupational hazard and a torturous burden placed on healthcare workers, and they can never be 100% sure in the moment if they're making the right decision. Sometimes you order a BiPAP and you accidentally make the patient's condition worse; sometimes you do a REBOA against literally every superior's instruction and you save a life. You do your best in the moment, and it's only after the fact, once the results come in, that people will decide whether you're a stupidly cocky student or a heroic cowboy-doctor.
That trade-off is present even when it's not life-or-death. Taking extra time and care to get to know your patients is great for the ones already in the bed; it's not great for the ones still out in the waiting room. Which type of patient satisfaction should we prioritize? Do you involve law enforcement before you know a crime has been committed? When does preemptive action prevent harm and when does it cause more? How do you adhere to "Do no harm" when someone always gets shortchanged no matter what decision you make?
Hell, the inherent unfairness is baked into the very premise of a teaching hospital: these patients didn't necessarily sign up for their once-in-a-lifetime emergency to be a med student's teachable moment. Nobody really wants a newbie doing their stitches—but also, practical experience is an absolute must for medical training. Without interns now, you can't have experts later, so here we are.
So with all that in mind, I don't think debating which character was Right or Wrong in a given scene has ever been a less productive way of engaging with a show. For all I disdain the mentality that refuses to engage with the Trolley Problem because "the REAL problem is whoever tied those people to the tracks in the first place!!1!" sometimes you actually are supposed to consider the bigger, systemic picture. The Pitt is inviting us to engage with very real problems with the state of healthcare in modern America by showcasing how it's literally impossible for these doctors to make the perfect decisions every time, and no it's not fair. To anyone.
idk I just think in light of that very clear message, fighting over which blorbo was the rudest or made the worst fuck up or whose reaction to stress and trauma is more valid is the height of media illiteracy.
So I gather that there's some disagreement on the internet over whether Dr. Frank Langdon is an evil manipulative meanie or a hapless victim of addiction as a disease but can we all at least agree that whatever fuckass dinosaur of a doctor prescribed him benzos for low back pain like it's Y2K needs to be on a prescription monitoring plan? Goddamn man, maybe look at a guideline from this decade before handing out highly addictive meds of dubious benefit like Jolly Ranchers on Halloween?
(BTW I don't think Langdon actually has serious ongoing chronic pain. I think he minorly fucked his back once and probably would have been fine in the long term with some good PT but he didn't do the exercises because it was Covid and he was too busy working. So it kept bothering him and he had the misfortune of a benzo Rx landing in his addiction-prone personality lap and fast forward to present day here we are. /headcanon)
Keep Still Slow Horses, S04E05
JACK LOWDEN as River Cartwright in Slow Horses 2.01
Jack Lowden as River Cartwright Slow Horses – S01E06