‘The Pitt’ Subtly Reveals [Spoiler]’s Self-Harm Struggles in Surprise Scene

The Pitt found a subtle way to address a main character’s self-harm struggles.

During the Thursday, February 19, episode of the hit HBO Max series, Javadi (Shabana Azeez) took a bathroom break, but her loud presence interrupted Santos (Isa Briones) — who was so tired she fell asleep after going in to pee. As Santos got dressed, the camera panned to scars on her outer thigh.

While The Pitt has previously hinted at Santos’ past trauma, the self-harm scars confirmed her personal struggles. This comes after Santos became a divisive character on the show once The Pitt premiered in January 2025. In the first season, Dr. Santos ended up at odds with her supervisor Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball), which caused some viewers to express their frustration with the then-newcomer, who was an intern working her first shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital.

Santos ultimately turned out to be right about Langdon stealing drugs from the hospital. During an episode later in the season, Dr. Robby (Noah Wyle) angrily confronted Langdon about it and the senior resident admitted he developed an addiction after being prescribed medication following an injury.

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“He refers to having hurt his back while helping his parents move and that is frequently the case. He goes to a doctor who gives him pain meds and then those are habit-forming pain meds. This happens all the time. This happens with people that I know that are very, very high functioning,” Ball exclusively told Us Weekly in March 2025. “You see this opioid problem that is just riddling itself all across this country. It’s really sad because it’s not people that ever set out to become addicts. It’s people that trust and that get caught in a trap. That’s part of what happened with Langdon.”

Briones, 27, for her part, spoke to Us about how viewers may have judged her character too quickly.

“Not everyone is going to like Santos. But it is funny that when I’ve talked to people — even on set — they would be like, ‘Oh, you’re such a tattletale.’ At the end of the day though, this was something wrong that was going on and she exposed it,” she told Us at the time. “Obviously she has a very aggressive way about her and can be pretty arrogant. Her carrying herself that way leads people to being kind of like, ‘What the hell are you doing? Stay in your lane.’ But at the end of the day, it was something that was wrong and needed to be reported. It is illegal.”

Briones was relieved to see that Santos was right, adding, “It’s a cool moment for the audience to be like, ‘OK, maybe that was right of her. I don’t like her. I don’t like what she did but maybe she was correct.’ It will also make the audience ask themselves what was their bias there? People wanted to really like him but then if Langdon is doing something wrong then why are they choosing to cover up for a man instead of believing a woman. That’s what made that story line very interesting.”

At the time, Briones expressed gratitude over the evolving discourse about her character.

“Thx to The Pitt fans for alerting me to the Dr. Santos megathread on reddit. I never read stuff online about my work. Too many people can be too cruel and i’m too sensitive for that. But I gave this a read because this was discourse over the character, not me or my looks,” she wrote via Instagram in March 2025 about how she found it “incredibly heartening” to see “nuanced conversation” online over Santos’ arc.

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Briones was thrilled to see viewers engaging with Santos’ arc, adding, “Some people hate Santos. Some people love her. Many people love to hate her. And that’s great TV. That’s fantastic writing. And that’s also indicative of an extremely intelligent audience.”

The actress also expressed appreciation for viewers willing to give Santos a chance.

“I’ve been struck by how many people mention how great it feels to watch a truly complicated female character. And how many people’s bias against Santos in regards to Langdon made them think about their own internalized sexism,” she continued. “It’s truly a beautiful thing when great storytelling can make you feel so viscerally and want to commune and talk about it. Big kudos to our incredible writers for creating such a complicated woman, and thank you to the whole team for letting me portray her.”

New episodes of The Pitt premiere on HBO Max every Thursday.

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