‘The Pitt’: Isa Briones on Santos’ ‘Primal Scream Therapy’ & Relationship With Garcia (VIDEO)

At the end of The Pitt‘s shift of Season 1, some of the doctors and nurses gathered in the park across from PTMC and had beers. For Season 2, some of the day shift went up to the roof to watch the fireworks then headed out. Santos (Isa Briones) invited King (Taylor Dearden) to join her for what she called “primal scream therapy,” a.k.a. karaoke, in the finale.

“She knows she needs something,” Briones tells TV Insider in the video interview above. “She just doesn’t know how to do it. I think she’s probably very resistant to therapy and resistant to actually taking care of herself and putting it into primal scream therapy, karaoke, is a way to address it without addressing it and to be kind of avoidant while still trying to do something about it.”

As King joins her after finding out she has to do another deposition, Santos invites her out to join her for a drink and the aforementioned karaoke, what she sees as a way to shake off a “s**tshow” like the day’s shift and have a fun night. Briones calls her character extending that invitation “a very hopeful moment.”

She explains, “Just in that last hour, kind of sitting with it and also having a very sweet moment with Whitaker [Gerran Howell], where he assures her that he is going to be around and he’s not leaving her, I think is also a very important moment for her. And you see that she still wants friends; even though she doesn’t know how to do it, at least she wants it. And as long as that want is there, she’s going to be OK.”

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Not only does Santos know that she doesn’t want to be alone — Season 2 showed her self-harm scars as well as her pocket a scalpel — but she also sees that it’s something King needs after the shift she had, between her deposition and her sister (Tal Anderson) coming in as a patient and then revealing she has a boyfriend.

“Santos is very perceptive,” Briones notes. “Yeah, she’s going to take the piss out of people. And I think Mel is kind of an easy target for her to make jabs at because a lot of the time she doesn’t get the things that she’s saying to her. So it makes her kind of a fun punching bag for Santos. But I think it’s also like she can see that she’s had a rough day, she still cares. And I think Mel feels like a safer space. I feel like Mel seems like someone who’s not going to necessarily pry too much. And even if she did, she’d be able to avoid it, but she’ll be there.”

No one had an easy shift in The Pitt Season 2, and that’s certainly true of Santos, who had to deal with Langdon (Patrick Ball) being back from rehab after she was the one to pick up on what he was going through on her first day (Season 1).

Now, Santos “needs a break,” Briones says. “I think that she’ll be able to find a way to work in this environment going forward. It just is going to take some time.”

That includes figuring out how to work with Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), assuming she does continue at PTMC with her seizure disorder, and Langdon.

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“Al-Hashimi’s a great attending. I think Santos just needs to stop putting Robby on a pedestal, first of all, and drop that kind of bulls**t,” Briones admits. “I don’t like that. But I think she and Al-Hashimi could actually get along really well and could work together really well. And with Langdon, I think it’s just going to take a lot of communication from both of them. … Both of them are just going to need to work with each other and know that it’s going to be awkward and know that it’s not going to be their favorite thing to do to work together, but eventually get to a baseline where they’re not at each other’s throats.”

Santos’ casual relationship with Garcia (Alexandra Metz) doesn’t seem to be going well, either, with the surgeon brushing off plans for the night.

“I think Santos has been wanting it to be a little more than it is, and I don’t even think it’s necessarily because it’s like, oh, she’s in love or anything. I think it’s just she needs someone,” Briones explains. “That’s the whole thesis of this thing is just she needs companionship. She needs a friend. She needs someone that she feels safe with. And I think sometimes it can feel easier to attempt that through a romantic lane sometimes because it’s like, oh, that’s baked in or whatever, but it’s not. And I think when she gets to the end of the shift, she’s a little more at peace with it.”

Watch the full video interview above for much more from Isa Briones about Santos’ Season 2 arc.

The Pitt, Season 3, TBA, HBO Max