This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.Isa Briones Breaks Down That Santos vs. Langdon Showdown in ‘The Pitt’ Season 2

Emma FraserFri, March 20, 2026 at 2:00 AM UTC

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Isa Briones Hits All the Right NotesJonny Marlow

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Spoilers below.

Should she attempt to list off everything that’s gone wrong for Dr. Trinity Santos during the second season of the hit HBO Max medical drama The Pitt, actress Isa Briones might find the task dizzying in its scope. A few standout fiascos in season 2? The doctor’s reliable gut instinct proved incorrect regarding a young patient; she got the brush-off from her workplace situationship; and the physician who made her first day hell at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center has returned after ten months. Briones opts to summarize this season’s events thusly: “Santos’s no good, very bad day.”

In The Pitt season 2, as in season 1, each episode equates to one hour at the PTMC, and it has been a particularly relentless Fourth of July day shift for Santos and her colleagues. After successfully avoiding Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball) for half the day, Santos finds herself working with him in the later episodes. Instantly, the combative undertones of their relationship bubble back to the surface. Even before Santos accused Langdon of stealing drugs from patients (a claim that turned out to be true) last season, a mutual dislike permeated every interaction. Now, in the literal eleventh hour (i.e. episode 11), Langdon finally apologizes to Santos for his belittling behavior during her first shift. The conversation does not have a happy resolution: Santos will only accept his contrition if Langdon publicly comes clean about stealing meds from the hospital.

“That’s the juiciest kind of scene to do,” Briones tells ELLE. “That was honestly my favorite scene to film this whole season. We had the most collaborative experience that I've had on the show, and it was really, really special.”

Typically, the cast receives the script right before they film it, but for this pivotal confrontation in episode 11, writer Valerie Chu gave Briones and Ball the scene early. “It’s what the audience has been waiting for; what we have all been waiting for,” Briones says. The actress and Ball collaborated with Chu to “find the perfect structure” for their characters’ fiery back-and-forth. It begins with Langdon making awkward work-related conversation before transitioning to an overdue apology in one of the emergency department corridors. Initially, it seems as if Santos—with her arms defensively folded—might leave him with a simple response: “Okay.” But then she turns around and lets him have it.

On set, director Uta Briesewitz encouraged variety and play within the different takes. “We started keeping the tension that we've been keeping this whole season,” Briones says. “Then finally, she was like, ‘Fucking let loose! Let it rip!’” The scene gets to the heart of why Santos won’t let it go: what Langdon did was a crime, and she regrets not reporting him to the state medical board. When Langdon says he almost lost his wife and kids, Santos has very little sympathy. Neither backs down; their voices are raised in the very public space.

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The brutally honest exchange with Langdon is equally revealing about both characters. “We've known that this anger has been inside [Santos], but you also get to see cracks in Langdon's exterior,” Briones says. “He has come in and been like, ‘I'm reformed, I'm going to apologize, and I'm doing my steps.’ But you also get to see…[Santos] is the person who can break through that exterior. You get to see both of them just poking holes in their armor.”

Santos rejects Langdon’s apology because the majority of the PTMC staff don’t even know he was stealing drugs from the hospital. She doesn’t buy his newfound humble persona. Only when he admits the theft to the whole department will Santos believe his contrition. Until then, she tells Langdon to stay out of her way. (Easier said than done!) Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) is the only other person who knows what really happened with Langdon in season 1, and his care and attention toward Santos this season is notable. “There’s an unspoken bond between [Robby and Santos],” Briones says. “I think she feels protected by him.”

The Pitt is the rare TV show to shoot in chronological order, which adds to its immersive factor, Briones says. The hospital set is as close to the real thing as possible. Storylines also mirror the news, such as the ramifications of ICE agents entering the emergency department. By the end of episode 11, nurse Jesse (Ned Brower) has been detained by ICE agents while trying to help a patient, and recent nurse graduate Emma (Laëtitia Hollard) is attacked in another room by an inebriated, combative patient who had been sedated. “We went to the read-through of this episode, and when we finished it, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we can't do this; we can’t put all of that in one episode,’” says Briones of the escalating events in the latest episode. Briones is frank when I followed up to ask what her reaction was when she read the ICE storyline specifically: “This show tackles real-world issues that affect healthcare, with ICE's terrorism being a devastatingly significant one today. I am grateful that the show tries to address it in its own way. And all I have to say is: ICE out now, and fuck this administration.”

The Pitt’s realism is a big draw for Briones, who previously worked on VFX-heavy series like Star Trek: Picard and Goosebumps. “As fun as that [genre material] can be, it's also really amazing when you can just be like, ‘No, everything that we are doing in this scene is right in front of me,’” she says. “All of the trauma scenes—obviously it's prosthetics—the actor is submerged into the bed, and there's a fake torso on top of them. It's open and bleeding.” Those trauma room scenes are a dance of sorts, requiring choreography and precision: “It's this camaraderie of ‘We have to figure this out together. If this one procedure doesn't go great in this take, we're still going to keep going, and we're going to make it work, and the show must go on.’ It's how I was raised; it's how I was taught.”

Patrick Ball and Isa Briones in The Pitt season 2.Warrick Page/HBO Max

Another unique aspect of The Pitt’s shooting style is that actors don’t always know in advance when they will be on camera. Their performances need to stay consistent, no matter the scene focus. “A lot of the time we are not told what to do when we're in the background, and so we just grab onto what we know,” Briones says. “If I see Patrick, I'm gonna be like, ‘Ugh. Really, Jesus. Avoid that motherfucker.’” Whereas Santos would rather be working with anyone but Langdon, Briones relishes performing tension-filled interactions opposite Ball.

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Putting up defenses is Santos’s go-to position. Earlier this season, in episode 7, a quick shot of her thighs in the bathroom revealed a history of self-harm. “At the end of the day, Santos doesn't want to admit it, doesn't want to show it, but she does long for connection, and she longs for a safe space,” Briones says.

One person open to giving Santos space to vent is her roommate and colleague, Dr. Whitaker (Glenn Howell), but Santos struggles to let him in—plus, there is the challenge of seeing each other at home and work. “Whitaker is open to being that safe space, and that's why she's so resistant to it, because she knows he'd be her best friend,” she says. “That's what's scary. She lost a best friend [who died by suicide]. She’s lost a lot of people in her life.”

Reality and fiction bleed together when Briones talks about working with Howell: “I love him, and he's so fun to work with. We like to fuck with him; he's a sweet boy. He's very quiet. When we can kind of put him on the spot, it's real fun.” Santos also gets into it with Whitaker in episode 11, but this sibling-like bickering is playful and gives further insight into their roommate dynamic. “You need the moments of levity, because everything is so goddamn dark in the show and in the world,” she says. “You need little moments to laugh amidst the chaos and the trauma—because that's life.”

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Another growing connection in season 2 is one between Santos and nurses Princess (Kristin Villanueva) and Perlah (Amielynn Abellera). Last season, Santos revealed she is fluent in Tagalog, much to the surprise of the pair, who thought they could speak freely without anyone understanding. Now she shares gossip with the two. “I feel like Princess and Perlah probably remind Santos of her titas, so there’s a bit of comfort there,” Briones says. “I think there's an unspoken connection that is common amongst coworkers who share similar cultures and backgrounds. We all find those people we can connect with, to look to when something crazy is happening at work, and roll your eyes together.” Likewise, Briones adores working with Villanueva and Abellera. “I’m so grateful to get to be on set with these two women who feel like family,” she says.

The award-winning Pitt ensemble has been praised for reflecting the diversity of real-life healthcare professionals, including the Filipino community. “There’s so much pride in looking around and seeing not one but three Filipinos on one show,” Briones says. “Most of the time, you are lucky if there is one other person of color in the room. But to look around and see three Filipinos, as well as many other Asian people, and know you are not just checking some diversity box is truly so rare and so exciting.”

While Santos has been put through the wringer lately, it’s been quite the opposite for Briones herself, who’s fresh off winning Best Drama Ensemble at the 2026 Actor Awards earlier this month. I talked to Briones over Zoom about the nomination a few days before the ceremony. “I think out of all the awards, it is the most gratifying because it's your peers, and it’s the only time we get to be nominated as an ensemble, and it feels so indicative of what we do every day,” she says. “We're working together; it's all of us.”

Briones celebrated with Villanueva, Abellera, and the rest of the cast. For the star-studded evening, Briones wore vampy vintage Roberto Cavalli and Blumarine, embracing the “Reimagining Hollywood Glamour From the ’20s and ’30s” dress code, as set by ELLE. The look was a far cry from her typical Pitt attire: “This is why—especially the girls—we like to go all out, because people we love fashion, and we're not always in black scrubs,” Brione says. After the big win, Briones sent ELLE an email detailing what it was like to bring her a special date to the awards show: her father, theater legend Jon Jon Briones. “It was so special to get to share such a big moment with my dad,” she wrote. “Such a full circle moment to see him, a Filipino immigrant who came here to pursue his dream of acting and to raise a family, witness our collective wildest dreams come true. I’m so glad he was a part of it since we’ve been on this journey together, always.”

Jon Jon Briones and Isa Briones at the 2026 Actor Awards.Julian Hamilton/GA - Getty Images

On top of that success, Briones is returning to Broadway next month for the first time since The Pitt debuted. She’s set to take on the role of mid-century ballad singer Connie Francis in the Bobby Darin musical biopic Just in Time. Briones, who made her Broadway debut in 2024 as Eurydice in Hadestown, has “missed theater oh so much,” she says. “I felt such a pull; I needed to be back in a rehearsal room and back on stage like I needed water. I’m so excited to get to return to Broadway, and in something very different than I’ve ever done before.” She continues, “I love singing period pieces. It’s a style my voice feels really right in, and I’m also happy to trade my scrubs for gorgeous ’50s dresses.”

Earlier this season, Briones got to show off her musical talents when Santos briefly took charge of the beloved Baby Jane Doe. In season 2, episode 7, the abandoned infant starts wailing, distracting Santos from her stack of charting. In response, Santos—or, really, Briones—sings a beautiful Visayan lullaby, “Ili-Ili, Tulog Anay,” which draws on Briones' own Filipino heritage. The actress says her father helped select the song. “I was happy when the writers emailed me about it, when they were writing the episode, and they're like, ‘We have this idea, how do you feel about this? Do you have any ideas of what it could be?’” she recalls. “I immediately called my dad.”

The scene is a rare moment in which Santos sheds her defenses. “It does feel like the one moment where she can actually be vulnerable with someone, because it's a baby, and they can't leave her; they can't reject her,” Briones says. “It's the safest person; that's what she's searching for, always.”

Will Santos let down her guard again by the end of the busy Fourth of July shift? That’s not a diagnosis we can make just yet, as Briones stays tight-lipped about what’s to come in the season’s final episodes. “Everyone’s depressed; everyone's having a bad day,” she says, teasing, “Just keep watching.” Now that sounds like the best kind of TV medicine.

Photographed by Jonny Marlow; styled by Kat Typaldos; hair by Jerrod Roberts; makeup by Hinako.

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