i think this new round of med students are supposed to serve as foils for javadi and whitaker. they're put there to highlight the ways dennis and victoria are specifically well-suited to emergency medicine but also might be the most negatively affected by it.
if you think about their major pitfalls on their first day, it makes a lot of sense. dennis not being able to accept losing his first patient to something he couldn't have prevented, and victoria passing out at a particularly gory moment directly contrasts with the two new students being very disconnected from their first death and seeming fine with the lung flip. this highlights the sensitivity whitaker and javadi came in with.
in season one, both seem like they'll crack under the pressure, but their sensitivity is actually what makes the job worth doing to them. like how frank told mel that they needed more people like her, ones that cared enough to be moved to tears.
this season seems to be smacking with themes of dissociation. robby is completely checked out, pushing off conversations that will never happen, accepting changes he hates because he doesn't have to deal with them, staring off into space while people talk to him. dana refers to herself as a horse who can mindlessly find her way back to the barn, she's cracking off-color jokes that don't seem very sensitive (more than the previous season), and she implies that she's back because she doesn't think anyone else can get them through the 4th of july, not because she actually wants to do the job anymore.
obviously you want to maintain that same softness and empathy you come in with, but is that reasonable after what they see? is it harmful to them as people to not completely dissociate the way we see some of the senior staff do? or is it more harmful to wall that negativity off?
i think this goes well with the other obvious theme of parenthood (donnie's a new dad, samira has mommy issues, the baby being abandoned). the ways being a parent simultaneously energizes and exhausts you. connects and isolates you. gives you purpose but ultimately limits what is perceived as acceptable. the ultimate question will be what does balance actually look like? a cruise? a sabbatical? getting laid?
“find balance if you can.” can you? is that even possible?
