‘The Pitt’ Doctor Who Fainted Is Back for Even More Trauma

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

Med student Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) looked ready to quit by the end of The Pitt’s first season. “Pretty sure today turned me off practicing all forms of medicine,” she said in the finale. Despite the baptism by fire, Victoria hasn’t traded her stethoscope for another less stressful career.

Another day of work kicks off at 7:00 am, with a blast of patriotism: It is the Fourth of July! Expect an array of injuries as temperatures, alcohol intake, and firework usage rise. In the first hour alone, the team treats a man with a dishwasher-related knife wound (which is far more serious than it sounds), showcasing how far Victoria and newly qualified Dr. Whitaker (Gerran Howell) have come since we last saw them.

Now a fourth-year student doctor, Victoria’s confidence and strong stomach have grown; she is quick to jump in during a particularly tricky (and bloody) procedure. Much like her character, Azeez has gone on quite the journey since the show’s debut last year, and she’s ready to spill.

“Season 1 was an incubator, in a way that was very special and will never happen again. I definitely cherish that eight-month period of my life so much,” Azeez tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “For me, it was when the Emmy stuff started, I was like, ‘Oh, my life has changed.’” The Australian actress had a banner 2025; The Pitt is not her only acclaimed project. She attended film festivals like the Berlinale in Germany with Lesbian Space Princess, a delightful and hilarious animated movie in which Azeez plays the titular royal.

While The Pitt is a juggernaut success, it hasn’t changed the day-to-day running of production. “They’ve worked hard to keep the set the same. We’re really holding onto the things that made it special the first time, and the same people, even the same background [actors],” says Azeez. She is glad to “be working in a place that’s holding on to that integrity and that safety and that family bubble that existed before the Emmys.”

Victoria doesn’t share the sense of ease. She’s working in the same building as her overbearing mother, surgeon Dr. Shamsi (Deepti Gupta), after all. The premiere reveals a still-fractured relationship; she has been dodging her mom’s calls and texts, who is trying to set something up for her daughter’s impending 21st birthday. Dr. Shamsi is vocal in expressing her opinion that her daughter is “wasting her talents” in the ER.

Victoria is a genius who started college at 13. We have previously seen her lose her temper at other pushy parents and her own mother. “I think Victoria’s journey is a primarily emotional one, and I feel very strongly that I want to bring the medicine to the emotional scenes and the emotion to the medical scenes. It should be holistic in that way,” Azeez says. “I’m glad that we’re seeing her birthday and her mum—all these dynamics—because I think that’s what makes her human.”

In confidence, Victoria reluctantly tells Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) that this milestone makes her anxious. News of the impending birthday starts to spread, highlighting that teasing is a core foundation of the hospital workers’ interpersonal dynamics. Santos still calls Victoria “Crash,” a nickname she earned after fainting at the sight of a degloved foot in her first hour at PTMC.

“We forget that Victoria, Santos, Whitaker, and Mel, it was their first day ever in the ED [Emergency Department] last season, and so the relationships have really opened up,” Azeez says. Tone, body language, and dialogue all contribute to filling in the gaps since we last saw them; there is no overt spoonfeeding.

“I think those relationships are so important, especially because when you have a job, that is so—and I don’t use this word lightly—traumatizing, the bonds that you form,” she says. “Particularly that day [in Season 1] is traumatizing. We see them 10 months later, grappling with PTSD, and various levels of that; the various ways they’re all experiencing the ramifications of what they went through together.”

Last season, the exploration of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch’s (Noah Wyle) mental health was pivotal. While this is his last shift before Robby goes on a three-month sabbatical, it doesn’t mean The Pitt writers are turning their attention away from the impact that long hours, stretched resources, and medical school debt have on healthcare workers. “Med students are under so much pressure; it’s relentless, intense, and unforgiving,” she says.

The Pitt adds different student doctors to the ER floor this season, like know-it-all third-year med student Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson), which unleashes a different side of Victoria. Azeez says the Victoria of Season 1 was “slightly holier than thou,” particularly with how Santos talks to her. “Then Ogilvie comes in, she’s like f--- this motherf---er,” she laughs.

The reason unspools over the coming hours, but Azeez’s excitement about getting to play Victoria’s immaturity is palpable: “We shouldn’t have to be perfect all the time. We shouldn’t have to be above reproach all the time. If a man comes in and annoys you, f--- him. Get him, girl.” (For the record, I am Team Victoria)

One person not in the premiere is Victoria’s crush, Nurse Mateo Diaz (Jalen Thomas Brooks), but the actress takes great pleasure in the response to Victoria’s flustered speech last season. “I’m so glad people have a visceral reaction to it. I’ve seen TikToks and tweets that are like, ‘I can’t look at that girl; the secondhand embarrassment is worse than Michael Scott,’” she says.

Expect more scenes that showcase Azeez’s comedic timing, with Victoria struggling at times to maintain a poker face as she interacts with her colleagues. So far, there is nothing quite as deliciously cringe as the viral scene, in which Victoria compares Mateo to getting altitude sickness in Utah. That Season 1 episode was written by Wyle: “His sensibility about comedy and tragedy; he’s a great writer, he’s a great director, great actor.” Azeez looks to the triple-threat Wyle as a blueprint. Last season, she shadowed the Pitt directors on her days off and did so again this year, including Wyle and co-star Shawn Hatosy (who directed Episode 9). “Noah’s really generous with me; he’ll sit down and talk to me about filmmaking,” she says.

Unfortunately, when Wyle recently tried to talk to Azeez about the mid-’00s Australian mermaid show H2O: Just Add Water, it didn’t go well. “When he found out I hadn’t seen it, he was just so demoralized. ‘I finally thought I had something to bond with you over,’ and walked away,” she laughs. Azeez also hadn’t seen her co-star Howell in Young Dracula, which was very popular with her friends from home. “When I booked The Pitt, and the announcement came out, the predominant text I got was, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe you know Young Dracula; he was my first crush!”

During the show’s hiatus, Azeez talked to doctors in Australia and America. “I kept researching. I went to med schools. I talked to med students. I got them to give me tours of their lecture halls and where they hang out,” she says. None of this was mandated. “I really ran with it and did my own thing, and then came back and was like, ‘Hope it works,’ and I’m lucky that it does,” she says.

Whereas Azeez wasn’t versed in Independence Day holiday traditions, she has some experience in certain activities: “Luckily, Australians also make firecrackers in the parking lot.” Another fun touch you might notice is Victoria’s holiday-themed jewelry: “I have three piercings, and I wanted red, white, and blue, little love hearts. They [the costume department] hand-painted me some.”

This detail illustrates that Victoria is someone who “cares about the way she looks and the way she presents to the world.” Meanwhile, Azeez loves her scrubs: “It doesn’t matter what the weather is. I’m feeling great in my scrubs.”

But as far as specific character developments over these 10 months, the actors weren’t told anything coming into the new season. Rather than finding this destabilizing, it speaks to how creatively aligned Azeez and the writers are regarding Victoria. “Whenever I run off with my imagination, I come back, and they go, ‘Great.’ I feel very held by that dynamic,” she says.

Reminders of Victoria’s age and nepo baby doctor status don’t undermine her skill level, but do add tension: “It’s such an interesting thing playing the Gen Z character in an ensemble of much older characters. She is so much younger than even Whitaker; they’ve got half a decade between them.”

Part of this is showing all sides of Victoria, including her trying and failing without getting up too quickly. “I don’t want the payoff to be too satisfying, because there’s no part of me that wants to play any kind of fantasy; I don’t want to play competence porn,” says Azeez. “I don’t want to play any of those versions of things with the character I’ve been given, which is the young one who’s figuring it out. I feel very grateful that we’re letting her have that space.”