If I see one more person being mean about Jake, I swear I’ll… I’ve seen so many people saying that they hate him for the things he said to Robby and for his ”whining”, that he’s a spoiled brat and so on.
Please take a step back. I love Robby, I mean, it should be really damn obvious that I do. Noah is the reason I found this show in the first place. And Robby is my favourite and I want to protect him from this cruel word. BUT I don’t blame Jake for saying the things that he said. Was it hurtful? Yes. Was it fair? No. But he’s a teenager who just saw his girlfriend be shot in front of him and then she more or less died in his arms (yes, Robby and the team worked on her but as Abbot said, anyone else with that kind of wound is pronounced dead in the field. And Jake was also hurt. And his former stepdad, a man he clearly still likes/loves and looks up to, couldn’t save her. He’s traumatised! And it’s not as if he’s only blaming Robby. He’s blaming himself as well. He literally says ”I got their daughter killed” before he asks why Robby didn’t save her. Kids put these kinds of things on their parents/parental figures because they are a constant stability in their life. And as he said to Santos, he’s been hanging around the hospital, so he has most likely seen Robby being very good at his job. But now that it really mattered he ”failed”, he’s upset and his feelings needs somewhere to go, and so he takes it out on Robby. Because parents/parental figures are supposed to fix things, to make sense of the world, to help you. (I mean it never really stops, does it? I’m in my 30s and I still look to my parents for help and guidance when things are hard, and when they’re not tbh). And Robby knows that. Yes, Jake’s words are partly what triggers him and what leads to him breaking down. BUT it’s been building the whole day, and as Noah said in an interview ”If the stars had aligned slightly differently, maybe this could have been averted, but it’s all of it. It’s all of it coming at once in that room.”
Jake doesn’t know what Robby has been through that day. He doesn’t know that he’s had to tell (adult) children that their dad is going to die or that he’s had to tell two sets of parents that their child isn’t going to make it. And even I, who has seen all of it, was surprised that he brought up the man who had a cardiac arrest because, yes, it was of course a loss, but he wasn’t directly involved and he comforted Whitaker afterwards, so it felt like it was simply Whitaker’s loss. But I love that they had him bring that patient up. Because it makes sense that he’s still affected by it, especially on a day like this.
But as I said, Jake does not know this until Robby brings it up. And Robby also makes the mistake of saying that if it had been another day he might have been able to save her. Of course Jake’s immediate reaction is to be angry, like ”Oh, so you just decided to not do everything you could today?” it’s not rational and it’s not what Robby meant. But you can’t really blame a traumatised teenager for thinking the worst. ”But his words hurt Robby, it’s not fair!” Of course it’s not fair. Nothing in this situation is fair. No one is going to walk away happy after this. Not the victims and not the healthcare providers. Because this is such a horrible situation.
We should feel for what Robby is going through, I sure do. But we’re not going to hate a traumatised teenager for not saying the right things in that moment.
End of rant.