Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for The Pitt Season 2 premiere.

The Pitt couldn’t have asked for a better first season. The HBO series wasn’t only popular with audiences and critics, but it also won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series, along with acting awards for stars Katherine LaNasa and Noah Wyle. It was the first-ever Emmy win for Wyle, who leads the series as Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch. Everyone in the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center respects Dr. Robby and usually cedes to his authority, but the Season 2 premiere immediately takes aim at that with the introduction of a new character.

Dr. Robby Is One Shift Away From His Sabbatical in ‘The Pitt’ Season 2

Going into the first season of The Pitt, the premise of a medical drama where each episode marked one hour of real time might have been compelling, but Wyle was the hook, with the series immediately differentiating Dr. Robby from Dr. John Carter on ER. Although both are great doctors, Robby is carrying a lot of pain he can’t escape from. Over the course of Season 1’s stressful shift, which includes a mass casualty event, Robby is forced to face his demons, which causes him to break down on the anniversary of his mentor’s passing.

Outside a few people, however, most of The Pitt‘s doctors don’t often see Robby’s more vulnerable side. He’s seemingly everywhere at once, never failing or appearing tired in front of anyone. He commands respect, and even if they don’t agree with him all the time, no one would dare to openly challenge him. He’s so respected that Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball) wants nothing more than to win his approval when he returns from rehab. While The Pitt Season 2 could have maintained the status quo in the ER, the show shakes things up with the addition of a new attending physician.

‘The Pitt’ Season 2 Introduces Dr. Robby’s Replacement

When Dr. Robby returns to the ER in The Pitt Season 2, he references his plan to take a three-month sabbatical. All he needs to do is get through one more 15-hour shift — which, of course, will probably end up being among his most challenging yet. This time, however, it isn’t past traumas or injured patients, but his temporary replacement who could possibly push him to the edge. With Robby taking a break, someone has to take over while he’s gone. Enter Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi), who has transferred from the VA and will be the temporary attending physician, and from the moment Robby meets her, he’s annoyed.

Admittedly, Dr. Al-Hashimi is introduced as a challenging character. She’s a serious, by-the-book woman with her own controversial ideas, including using AI as a way of treating patients faster for better efficiency in the ER and suggesting they no longer refer to the ER as “the Pitt” due to what she views as negative connotations. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Wyle explained why Robby’s relationship with the new attending is so contentious:

“I don’t know that he would really be totally accepting of anybody that was moving into his role. You know, he’s very proprietary about the E.D., and he runs his shop in a very specific way. Robby’s innately suspicious of anything that could potentially allow a hospital to reduce its workforce because of the streamlining. There are byproducts to employing this kind of technology. One of the unfortunate ones is layoffs, and we’re already seeing staffing shortages. The practitioners and the doctors are being stretched pretty thin as it is. So the reward for working better sometimes is more work, not less work.”

Robby Is Being Challenged for the First Time on ‘The Pitt’

Image via HBO Max

One of the reasons Robby is so frustrated by Al-Hashimi is her decision to shadow him everywhere he goes. That leads to immediate drama, with the ER’s doctors and nurses confused about whom to defer to. When Robby suggests splitting up to cover more ground, only for her to keep returning to his side, he’s barely hiding his annoyance. While other shows might position Al-Hashimi as a potential nemesis, that’s not what’s going on here. Al-Hashimi is only trying to learn, because tomorrow, at this time, she will be in charge, and she can’t do that if she’s not observing the current boss to understand how he does things. This doesn’t work for Robby, who is used to being the one in charge. Al-Hashimi has her own way of doing things, but as his equal, she can also challenge him in ways no one else in the ER can.

While Robby is friendly with most of his colleagues on The Pitt, they’re also his subordinates, so what do you do when you meet a co-worker who isn’t interested in friendship or blindly following your lead? Robby has just been introduced to someone who is more like him than he knows, because she’s just as firm in her convictions and beliefs as he is. Some of Al-Hashimi’s behavior might be challenging, but she’s only preparing to step into Robby’s shoes and ensure the ER runs smoothly while he’s gone for the next three months — but in the meantime, fans get 14 more episodes of these two doctors butting heads, which will surely be a source of its own drama in the ER amidst everything else going on.